ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

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century. 130 Its impact on puppetry was to relegate the majority of activity to schools and children’s entertainment circles, while only a handful of artists, whose works were of, in Bell’s words, “remarkable artistic integrity and beauty,” would be accepted in the professional world. 131 Though blackface puppetry clumsily followed both trails, the trend throughout the 10s, 20s, and 30s was, in many cases, toward a curious division between exotic and local blackface images. This corresponded with a division between richer dramas with “realistic” images of blacks and simpler dramas with cruder images of blacks drawn from minstrelsy. Exotic black roles (moors, Fridays, and other “foreign blacks”) increasingly became the fare for full-length plays presented for paying audiences. By the 1930s, artists like Ralph Chesse and Frank Paris were creating puppets from actual black Americans, basing their images not on the crude designs of minstrelsy, but on the living African American actors and entertainers around them. Traditional minstrel images did not disappear, but became increasingly relegated to educational and children’s theatre. McPharlin, more than any other, contributed to the establishment of this division within blackface puppetry, by introducing his peculiar apperceptions (the observations one has regarding a lived experience that is not self-evident in the reality of that experience) to the developing discourse. His idea of blackface puppetry is clearly 130 For a deep analysis of this process, see: Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of a Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988). Levine positioned supposedly “natural” cultural distinctions of elite and popular art, specifically in the historical dynamics of the late nineteenth century. Levine demonstrates how, in the United States during the 1800s, much of the arts, particularly Shakespearean drama and opera, was enjoyed with great interest by both the lower and upper classes. Intellectual and social discourse in the late nineteenth century produced a rigorous distinction between high and low art. 131 John Bell, Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History (Detroit: The Detroit Institute of the Arts, 2000), 11. 103
divided between the “Sambo” and the “black,” which he clarifies in his Puppet Heads (1931). In this source, one of McPharlin’s many books that take the reader through the step-by-step process of making puppets, he offers drawings of Sambo and Topsy, describing their qualities. These articulate his understanding of their essences. Sambo (figure 19) is bald and round-faced, with an exaggerated wide, toothy grin, closed eyes, and a wide, flat nose. McPharlin describes him as: The minstrel-show darkey [who] bids for a place as an American puppet type. Good-natured, even when his wooden head is wacked, he is always happy to shuffle a dance or sing. A golliwog, not a real Negro, his beaming face may be painted with black enamel, his lips vermilion and his teeth white. 132 In McPharlin’s mind, the essence of the Sambo character is a true minstrel, the extreme exaggeration of blackface stereotyping. Fig. 19. Paul McPharlin. “Sambo” Puppet Heads, Hands, and Feet and their Making. Birmingham, MI: Paul McPharlin, 1931, 8. On the other hand is Topsy, described as one of the “stage and book characters 132 Paul McPharlin, Puppet Heads, Hands, and Feet and their Making (Birmingham, MI: Paul McPharlin, 1931), 8. 104
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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE
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THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RACIALISM: BLA
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Dedication This dissertation is ded
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Table of Contents Dedication.......
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House and the Brooklyn Academy of M
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Bert O’States expands on the meth
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previous related performances, are
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“blackface” as counterfeit perf
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demands of this transcendent notion
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To manage such an investigation, th
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a celebration of superiority. 20 Th
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playbill, minstrel show script, con
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Lano fancies himself an advocate of
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of the African American race, and s
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in creating the first connection be
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In order to explain the interaction
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performance. 29 Marionette minstrel
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Nonetheless, it maintains the criss
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3), into more complex types. By the
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from the head and leg strings, can
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leased Queen’s Hall in Liverpool
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effectively capture the nonlinear p
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other puppet, is not slack and seem
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was already showing considerable ar
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The Marionettes in Performance The
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of an aged former slave who has esc
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The criminal acts and dishonesty de
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Antislavery songs in a marionette p
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e useful to compare the joke exchan
Page 59 and 60: the figure, once “folded up prepa
Page 61 and 62: eginning with a wide variety of mar
Page 63 and 64: Christy Minstrels, with their reper
Page 65 and 66: Walter E. Deaves Edwin Deaves, Walt
Page 67 and 68: some images of minstrel players (re
Page 69 and 70: Yet, one cannot easily reduce the s
Page 71 and 72: Daniel Meader Sometime after 1874,
Page 73 and 74: lackface makeup, rather than authen
Page 75 and 76: figure 12. His hair is slightly hig
Page 77 and 78: puppets for the last time, he may s
Page 79 and 80: The Meader Uncle Tom suggests the e
Page 81 and 82: Chapter III: David Lano The Essence
Page 83 and 84: lackface characters for ridicule; h
Page 85 and 86: doctor. Lano then depicts the black
Page 87 and 88: A colored quartet now sang. They we
Page 89 and 90: The Career of David Lano While thre
Page 91 and 92: Lano’s solo career. One of the la
Page 93 and 94: human oddities. Like many of its ki
Page 95 and 96: “continually transforms necessity
Page 97 and 98: David Lano’s Work Lano’s extant
Page 99 and 100: such as the kakunga of the Suku peo
Page 101 and 102: The clothes are a curious blend of
Page 103 and 104: the age of ten, he presented his ow
Page 105 and 106: Punch murdering the Servant. Lano c
Page 107 and 108: form by introducing sentimental mus
Page 109: creation on the basis of active mot
Page 113 and 114: Though they share in the appercepti
Page 115 and 116: mild embarrassment on his use of Ji
Page 117 and 118: “The marionette can be anything o
Page 119 and 120: he [can] find them.” 147 Calthrop
Page 121 and 122: of the Moor, who is, though still m
Page 123 and 124: slanted and sharp, the nostrils are
Page 125 and 126: perhaps the beginning puppeteer, wh
Page 127 and 128: taken it from playwright Tsou Ku Ch
Page 129 and 130: figure, who dismisses his complaint
Page 131 and 132: Thus, the structure of the play pre
Page 133 and 134: Chapter V: The Majors The major pup
Page 135 and 136: Bedchamber.” 165 Sarg described:
Page 137 and 138: Critics and fellow puppeteers prais
Page 139 and 140: Sarg and Blackface Though Sarg neve
Page 141 and 142: “Skin me, Brer Fox,” sez Brer R
Page 143 and 144: possibilities of puppetry led him t
Page 145 and 146: was common with the so-called “To
Page 147 and 148: present his particular imaginations
Page 149 and 150: herself in need of independent econ
Page 151 and 152: The Essence of Puppetry for Sue Has
Page 153 and 154: the head to the right and left, to
Page 155 and 156: art,” and “a descendent of the
Page 157 and 158: puppeteers to avoid complicated and
Page 159 and 160: delicate verisimilitude for blackfa
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Remo Bufano: The Local Emcees the E
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Club’s stage (ca 1932) began with
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world culture, including a Medieval
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impressive aspects of elaborate, la
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capture the great variety of black
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tangled a Prime Minister marionette
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program continued with a pair of ne
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no good messin’ aroun’ wid whit
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By inaugurating the action with thi
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lackface stereotypes, but also mark
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Brown’s puppetry work is enigmati
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(Marionette Minstrel Show), and Bru
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and personality for her/his creatio
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Paris’s semiotic choices introduc
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characters were common to the varie
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However, the essential realism of t
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A ninth grade Art Club in Oshkosh,
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the Royal Marionettes, with some re
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slips away with his clothes. The ti
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the same moment, Mumbo commented on
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Munger also introduced a range of a
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minstrelsy. They would also permit
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yo all arrested.” 249 In the same
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exclamation; “Oh, my lan’! Now
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Tom. Simon Legree was a puppet base
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event led to a full season of produ
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comic context of their puppet plays
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epresentations of blacks would cont
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impressive, and touted his enterpri
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clearly believes that some other pu
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of the play to connect with African
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its length (see figure 52). Finally
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O’Neill’s take on Henri Christo
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audiences, then goes on to suggest
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Chesse’s reading of Brutus was th
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meticulous artistic strokes then, c
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Many of the lost objects may have b
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sketches would be well-served by th
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The FTP production of Little Black
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transmitted to, and circulated with
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Conclusion: Phenomenology, Authenti
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the essence of less grotesque black
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used them in plays where puppets ce
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minstrelsy-derived Topsy, as genuin
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productions featuring blackface cha
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_. Race and Ethnic Relations. 3 rd
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Durham, Weldon B. ed. American Thea
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Hill, Errol. Shakespeare in Sable:
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Mahar, William J. Behind the Burnt
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Powell, Herbert Preston. The World'
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Spurling, Laurie. Phenomenology and
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