• About

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: Mimmo Cuticchio

Games with Shadows

25 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, Narrative Methods, Theatre and Performance

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Claude Debussy, cuntastori, Estampes, gamelan, Hacivat, Indian shadow puppets, Indonesia, Javanese, Karaghiozis, Karagoez, Lotte Reiniger, Mahabharata, Marionettes, metallophones, Mimmo Cuticchio, Pagodes, Paris Exposition, puppets, Ramayana, shadow puppets, Teatro dell'Opera dei Pupi, Turkey, Wallace and Gromit, wayang kulit

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

From our childhood, we’ve been interested in puppets.  We began with marionettes.

image1mar.jpg

(These, by the way, are from Palermo, in Sicily, and come from the famous Teatro dell’Opera dei Pupi, whose chief puparo, or puppeteer, is a hero of ours, Mimmo Cuticchio,

image2mimmo.jpg

who is also  a street-corner storyteller, a cuntastori, who, with only a cape and wooden sword, can make anything happen.)

image3mimmo.jpg

All kinds of puppets interest us, however, from the most elaborate, like marionettes,

image4cashore.png

to the most basic–

image5cookiem.jpg

and what can be more basic than Cookie Monster?

In our last, we briefly mentioned the work of Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981),

image6alr.jpg

who, in a long career, created hundreds of figures in silhouette, employing them to tell both traditional stories as well as original ones.

image7avoi.jpg

Her method was to draw and cut out figures, then film them with stop-motion photography—if you know the adventures of Wallace and Gromit, you’ll have seen the clay figure version of this method.

image7bwall.jpg

Her figures, as we wrote, reminded us of traditional shadow puppets, once popular in many parts of the world, from Karagoez, in Turkey (KAH-rah-goes on the right, with his friend, Hacivat—HA-tsih-vat)

image7ckara.jpg

to his Greek cousin, Karaghiozis,

image7dkara.jpg

to Indian shadow puppets

image7eindia.jpg

to their direct descendants, the wayang kulit, or “leather puppets” of Indonesia.

 

Not only the look of these puppets, but how they’re managed against a screen reminded us of Lotte Reiniger’s work.

image8lr.jpeg

image9dalang.jpg

We say “direct descendants” because, considering the two main stories Indonesian puppeteers tell, as well as elements of the puppets themselves, it’s clear that this part of shadow puppet tradition has come to the island from farther west, those two stories, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, being traditional Indian epics, like the West’s Iliad and Odyssey.

(If you don’t know Indian epic, we would recommend this English version of the Ramayana.  It’s meant for children, but it’s nicely told and keeps to the basic story—we also like the fact that the author’s first name, Bulbul, (“Nightingale”) is that of one of our main characters in our new novel, Grey Goose and Gander.)

image10aramayana.jpg

Lotte Reiniger’s puppets are cut from what appears to be black cardboard and therefore lack color.

image10reincutout.jpg

Traditional puppets are made of buffalo leather, scraped thin, and painted in such a way that they almost look like figures from medieval stained glass windows.

image11stainedglass.jpg

 

image12puppet

They are large and are supported on a rod, with thinner rods allowing the arms to move.

image13apuppets.jpg

image13puppet.jpg

The stage is a large, white screen

image14screen

and the shadows are created by a lamp behind it.  Traditionally, an oil lamp is used, but you can now see performance pictures with an electric light which, to us, is too bright and rather spoils the old-fashioned, smoky effect.

image15lamplight.JPG

Because of the bright colors of the puppets, some people actually prefer to sit behind the screen,

image16behind.jpg

where they can also better hear the accompanying orchestra, a gamelan, or group of metallophones.

image17gamelan

 

Here’s a LINK to music used in performances.  We recommend it, believing it to be very beautiful, as well as being very different, both in sound and structure, from western classical music (and, if you read us regularly, you know that we’re passionate about that, as well).  In fact, it has even influenced western classical music, particularly that of Claude Debussy (1862-1918).

image18debussy.jpg

Debussy first heard a gamelan in 1889 at the Paris Exposition,

image19parisexpo1889.jpg

was impressed with what he heard, and began to play with effects which echo gamelan compositions.  “Pagodes” from his 1903 collection, Estampes (“Prints”) is a good example.  Here’s a LINK so that you can compare it with the gamelan.

The performances themselves are an interesting mixture, typical of what was originally an oral tradition.  Although plot lines are taken directly from epic, they act as a mere skeleton for the play.  The puppeteer, like someone rebuilding a body on a skeleton, adds his own material—dialogue, subplots, extra characters, jokes, and, sometimes, political commentary—to (literally) flesh out the basic frame.  It’s interesting, too, that the characters can be on two levels.  On the upper level, they are all princesses and princes, kings and queens, nobles and generals.

image20bima.jpg

On the lower level, they can be demons,

image21semar.jpg

who act not only as servants, but as interpreters, a very necessary function as the upper level characters tend to speak in Old Court Javanese, an archaic language which the audience wouldn’t understand.  The lower level speaks the local language and so can guide the audience through the (often complex) plot, as well as make local references and jokes.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to see wayang kulit outside of Indonesia or in any language besides those of Indonesia, but one of us has been fortunate to see several performances in English by the US puppeteer, Larry Reed, of Shadowlight Productions.  These shows are about two hours long (very short in comparison with Indonesian performances, which can go on all night) and feel like 10 minutes, the magic being in the shadows, the plot, and the quick wit of the puppeteer.  Here’s a LINK to Shadowlight to tell you more.

We want to end on a different note, however.  A long time ago, we saw a very good amateur production of The Hobbit as a play.  At the time, we were struck by how much could be done very simply on stage and, in particular, how Smaug could be brought to life with a small group of actors bunched together, swaying in a strobe light (that’s one of those flashing lights which alternates light and shadow effects) and all speaking at once.  Ever since, we’ve thought about shadow plays and The Hobbit—just look at this dragon from a production by the Great Arizona Puppet Theatre—what do you think, dear readers?

image22dragon.JPG

And thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

CD

ps

If you’re bitten by the puppet bug, and would like to know more, visit The World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts at this LINK.

The Doubtful Sea Series Facebook Page

The Doubtful Sea Series Facebook Page

  • Ollamh

Categories

  • Artists and Illustrators
  • Economics in Middle-earth
  • Fairy Tales and Myths
  • Films and Music
  • Games
  • Heroes
  • Imaginary History
  • J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Language
  • Literary History
  • Maps
  • Medieval Russia
  • Military History
  • Military History of Middle-earth
  • Narnia
  • Narrative Methods
  • Poetry
  • Research
  • Star Wars
  • Terra Australis
  • The Rohirrim
  • Theatre and Performance
  • Tolkien
  • Uncategorized
  • Villains
  • Writing as Collaborators
Follow doubtfulsea on WordPress.com

Across the Doubtful Sea

Recent Postings

  • (Failed) Rewards and (No More) Fairies June 22, 2022
  • Stretching Back (II) June 15, 2022
  • Stretching Back (I) June 8, 2022
  • Loathing, If No Fear June 1, 2022
  • Black and Ominous? May 25, 2022
  • (Un)happily Ever After ? May 18, 2022
  • Riddles in the (Not So) Dark May 11, 2022
  • Feeling Blue (II) May 5, 2022
  • Feeling  Blue (I) April 27, 2022

Blog Statistics

  • 61,620 Views

Posting Archive

  • June 2022 (4)
  • May 2022 (4)
  • April 2022 (4)
  • March 2022 (5)
  • February 2022 (4)
  • January 2022 (4)
  • December 2021 (5)
  • November 2021 (4)
  • October 2021 (4)
  • September 2021 (5)
  • August 2021 (4)
  • July 2021 (4)
  • June 2021 (5)
  • May 2021 (4)
  • April 2021 (4)
  • March 2021 (5)
  • February 2021 (4)
  • January 2021 (4)
  • December 2020 (5)
  • November 2020 (4)
  • October 2020 (4)
  • September 2020 (5)
  • August 2020 (4)
  • July 2020 (5)
  • June 2020 (4)
  • May 2020 (4)
  • April 2020 (5)
  • March 2020 (4)
  • February 2020 (4)
  • January 2020 (6)
  • December 2019 (4)
  • November 2019 (4)
  • October 2019 (5)
  • September 2019 (4)
  • August 2019 (4)
  • July 2019 (5)
  • June 2019 (4)
  • May 2019 (5)
  • April 2019 (4)
  • March 2019 (4)
  • February 2019 (4)
  • January 2019 (5)
  • December 2018 (4)
  • November 2018 (4)
  • October 2018 (5)
  • September 2018 (4)
  • August 2018 (5)
  • July 2018 (4)
  • June 2018 (4)
  • May 2018 (5)
  • April 2018 (4)
  • March 2018 (4)
  • February 2018 (4)
  • January 2018 (5)
  • December 2017 (4)
  • November 2017 (4)
  • October 2017 (4)
  • September 2017 (4)
  • August 2017 (5)
  • July 2017 (4)
  • June 2017 (4)
  • May 2017 (5)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • March 2017 (5)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (4)
  • December 2016 (4)
  • November 2016 (5)
  • October 2016 (6)
  • September 2016 (5)
  • August 2016 (5)
  • July 2016 (5)
  • June 2016 (5)
  • May 2016 (4)
  • April 2016 (4)
  • March 2016 (5)
  • February 2016 (4)
  • January 2016 (4)
  • December 2015 (5)
  • November 2015 (5)
  • October 2015 (4)
  • September 2015 (5)
  • August 2015 (4)
  • July 2015 (5)
  • June 2015 (5)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (4)
  • February 2015 (4)
  • January 2015 (4)
  • December 2014 (5)
  • November 2014 (4)
  • October 2014 (6)
  • September 2014 (1)

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • doubtfulsea
    • Join 65 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • doubtfulsea
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...