ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

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Forman Brown: Puppets Speak Out Forman Brown rounds out the variety of puppets produced by the major puppeteers of the early twentieth century, by defying the distinction shared by the other three in this chapter. The dialect and thematic characteristics of minstrelsy stereotypes are co-present in his work. However, Brown’s objects are surprisingly humanlike. His plays, though firmly grounded in stereotypical characterization, suggest Brown, more than other puppeteers of his generation, may have been concerned with racial matters. Forman Brown was one of the three founders of the Yale Puppeteers, with Harry Burnett and Richard Brandon. Credit for the company’s successful career (1923-1941 as the Yale Puppeteers and 1941-1956 at the Turnabout Theatre) goes to all three of the artists, certainly, but Brown was the most important figure for this study. Brown wrote all the company’s dramas that featured blackface characters. During the early 1930s, these included: My Man Friday, Uncle Tom’s Hebb’n, and Mister Noah. Given his leadership of the company, he was likely the dominant vision in producing each play’s required puppets. Brown appears to have been interested in the puppet as a substitute for the human actor, much as Hastings and Sarg were in their individual ways. However, where Sarg and Hastings wanted the puppet to serve aesthetic purposes that live actors could not, Brown imagined the puppet as a performer very like the human actor. In his first history of the Yale Puppeteers, Punch’s Progress (1936), he described his puppets as beings with their own psychology. 212 While presenting a throne room scene, one of the puppeteers 212 Forman Brown, Punch’s Progress, reprinted as Small Wonder: The Story of the Yale Puppeteers (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1980), 6. 163
tangled a Prime Minister marionette with its Queen marionette. Brown describes independent action on the puppet’s part: The Prime Minister, quite regal in his way, in a sweeping gesture of Prime- Ministerial elegance, caught the queen’s right foot and pulled her gently but firmly from her throne. Imagine the Queen’s position! And the Prime Minister’s! But the court took no notice. Even the King was unmoved, and the prime minister, without even so much as an apology, continued his peroration to the end of the scene hanging resolutely to the queen’s ankle. The show, however, despite this strange interlude of puppet psychology (a psychology, let me say, that no scientist has yet studied) was a success. 213 Though the comment is more likely fanciful hyperbole than evidence of an irrational belief in the puppet as an independent agent of behavior, it is telling in the context of the artistic endeavors of the Yale Puppeteers. Throughout the company’s career, the proprietors experimented with various strategies to increase realistic illusion. Burnett devised a stringing method for the marionette’s knees that “provided a lifelike gait.” 214 Later in their career, the puppeteers developed a great body of near-photographically realistic “portrait puppets” of various famous persons. In 1929, the company produced marionettes of Toscanini, Martha Graham, Helen Hayes, and Greta Garbo. Some of their models actually posed for photographs, in which they stood next to their puppet dopplegangers (see figure 37). Thus, it is not surprising that Brown produced blackface puppets that have a similarly naturalistic correlation to living African Americans. A photograph of the Turnabout Theatre’s collection shows a number of objects for blackface plays, some with 213 Ibid., 6-7. Prime Minister capitalized by the author. 214 Ibid., 10. 164
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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
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the figure, once “folded up prepa
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eginning with a wide variety of mar
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Christy Minstrels, with their reper
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Walter E. Deaves Edwin Deaves, Walt
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some images of minstrel players (re
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Yet, one cannot easily reduce the s
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Daniel Meader Sometime after 1874,
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lackface makeup, rather than authen
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figure 12. His hair is slightly hig
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puppets for the last time, he may s
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The Meader Uncle Tom suggests the e
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Chapter III: David Lano The Essence
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lackface characters for ridicule; h
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doctor. Lano then depicts the black
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A colored quartet now sang. They we
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The Career of David Lano While thre
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Lano’s solo career. One of the la
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human oddities. Like many of its ki
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“continually transforms necessity
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David Lano’s Work Lano’s extant
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such as the kakunga of the Suku peo
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The clothes are a curious blend of
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the age of ten, he presented his ow
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Punch murdering the Servant. Lano c
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form by introducing sentimental mus
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creation on the basis of active mot
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divided between the “Sambo” and
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Though they share in the appercepti
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mild embarrassment on his use of Ji
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“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
Page 161 and 162: Remo Bufano: The Local Emcees the E
Page 163 and 164: Club’s stage (ca 1932) began with
Page 165 and 166: world culture, including a Medieval
Page 167 and 168: impressive aspects of elaborate, la
Page 169: capture the great variety of black
Page 173 and 174: program continued with a pair of ne
Page 175 and 176: no good messin’ aroun’ wid whit
Page 177 and 178: By inaugurating the action with thi
Page 179 and 180: lackface stereotypes, but also mark
Page 181 and 182: Brown’s puppetry work is enigmati
Page 183 and 184: (Marionette Minstrel Show), and Bru
Page 185 and 186: and personality for her/his creatio
Page 187 and 188: Paris’s semiotic choices introduc
Page 189 and 190: characters were common to the varie
Page 191 and 192: However, the essential realism of t
Page 193 and 194: A ninth grade Art Club in Oshkosh,
Page 195 and 196: the Royal Marionettes, with some re
Page 197 and 198: slips away with his clothes. The ti
Page 199 and 200: the same moment, Mumbo commented on
Page 201 and 202: Munger also introduced a range of a
Page 203 and 204: minstrelsy. They would also permit
Page 205 and 206: yo all arrested.” 249 In the same
Page 207 and 208: exclamation; “Oh, my lan’! Now
Page 209 and 210: Tom. Simon Legree was a puppet base
Page 211 and 212: event led to a full season of produ
Page 213 and 214: comic context of their puppet plays
Page 215 and 216: epresentations of blacks would cont
Page 217 and 218: impressive, and touted his enterpri
Page 219 and 220: 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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