In England, efforts to save a vanishing heritage – 9 strings at a time
Christian Science Monitor · C · trust 36/100
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Fans of puppet shows are trying to save the traditional art of marionette-making in the United Kingdom before the skills are lost.
Kelly Kasulis Cho Jasmine Chiu, who trained for four weeks in the lead-up to the marionette show “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” practices with a marionette string puppet from the Little Angel Theatre’s marionette bridge in North London this past August. Play Pause Share Shared content is always free to recipients. Copy link Copied! Font Size Share this story Copy Link Link copied
Sitting in an historic temperance hall-turned-puppet-theater in North London, Jasmine Chiu recounts the horror of being asked, midperformance, to fetch a pair of scissors so that a hopelessly tangled marionette could be snipped.
“At first, I was like, ‘No! I’m not going to bring the scissors!’” the professional dancer, actor, and performer recounts. But it turned out to be the right move, she says, and the first of many moments where she learned how to make a quick fix in front of an audience she couldn’t even see.
“I’m the kind of person who wants to be good at what they do immediately,” she says, with a laugh. “And the marionettes were really humbling. ... It’s very technical, actually.”
Puppet shows have been popular in the United Kingdom for hundreds of years. But now, only a handful of traditional marionette-makers remain. Efforts are underway to rekindle this fading heritage before their skills are lost.
In under two months this year, Ms. Chiu and five other accomplished performers took on a daunting task: Help preserve an endangered British heritage art by putting on a marionette show, despite never having held such a puppet.
The marionettes – or puppets – come in all shapes and sizes, many crafted from wood; some depict humans, others fantastical creatures, all intricately and lovingly made.
The show, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” became a battle cry at London’s historic Little Angel Theatre in August to restore a dying genre of performance in a country that is believed to have only five or fewer full-time professional marionette-makers left. In 2023, Heritage Craft added marionette-making to its list of endangered trades, and British university degrees dedicated to making the string puppets no longer exist.
Marionettes “tap into British culture” and are “an absolute joy,” says Oliver Hymans, a seasoned puppeteer and the associate director of Little Angel Theatre. During the pandemic, he found himself with time to explore marionette theater in depth, learning how to carve them under a master and researching their heritage.
Kelly Kasulis Cho Bird marionettes by artist and marionette-maker Sarah Vigars are on show in “Marionettes: An Exhibition Celebrating String Puppets.” “I’d done every type of puppetry, but never string puppets, and I had always seen these beautiful marionettes hanging backstage and these mysterious hand controls,” Mr. Hymans says. Quickly he realized how few people are still making them. Even fewer are performing with them.
Italian puppeteers brought marionettes to Britain in the 17th century. But, in fact, British puppetry had taken off well before that. Shows are believed to go back 600 years and were given a boost during the Puritan Revolution of the mid-1600s, when the government banned most traditional theaters from using live actors. It drove some performers to use puppets in street performances instead.
“Plays and frivolities were banned, but puppet shows were too lowly a form to make it into the official proscriptions and escaped banning,” says Glyn Edwards, a longtime puppeteer and “Punch and Judy” performer.
During the Victorian era, puppets further flourished as “an art form suitable for the working classes,” Mr. Hymans says. In the second half of the 18th century, 29 puppet theaters dotted London alone, according to historians.
Those who grew up in the U.K. between the 1940s and 1960s also became familiar with British marionettes through the hit children’s TV programs “Bill and Ben,” “Muffin the Mule,” and “Thunderbirds.”
In recent years, large theater productions such as “War Horse,” “Life of Pi,” and “The Lion King” have demonstrated that other forms of puppetry are still in fashion.
But overall, traveling marionette troops have declined in recent decades, seeing fewer opportunities in vaudeville and variety theater. As the industry has slowly died out, so has the demand for skills such as marionette-making or operating the complex puppets.
Kelly Kasulis Cho A workshop table for marionette-making is on display in an exhibition at the Little Angel Theatre’s workshop in North London. “Marionettes are complicated constructions and don’t travel simply and easily,” according to Mr. Edwards. But passing on marionette skills are important “so that they are not lost to future generations,” he says.
Back at Little Angel Theatre, Ms. Chiu climbs the creaky wooden steps to the marionette bridge backstage, where she and other performers stand elevated out of sight, as they work the hidden puppet controls. Founded in 1961 by a puppeteer who acquired a former Victorian temperance hall damaged during the Blitz of World War II, the theater holds one of the world’s last remaining double marionette bridges, suitable for long-string…
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