ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

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lack Americans. That arrow may have lead to a puppet that represents its target as a sex object, but it drew the tradition away from subhuman grotesques. Paris’s object demonstrates that racialized exaggerations are not inevitable results of depicting a race in performance. The Josephine Baker marionette proves that, for all the impact the co- present heritage of minstrelsy might have on puppeteers, there were alternatives to blackface stereotyping even in the 1930s. Paris broke with the standard categorical distinction by applying his highest artistic practices to a local blackface puppet. Granted, Josephine Baker’s European performance credits placed her vaguely outside the idea of a standard American “negro” that a marionettist might imagine. Nonetheless, she was an African American woman. Paris depicted this African American woman through a puppet, with the same realistic detail he applied to marionettes of Henie and Zorina. Other vaudeville puppeteers, among them the Lauer Sisters, manifested the distinction Paris rejected. The Lauer Sisters did so with nearly schizophrenic visibility. 233 Little is known of the career of the three nightclub performers/puppeteers known as the Lauer Sisters. Sometime prior to 1937, they played an elaborate variety production that included two “Spanish Dancer” marionettes, as well as portrait puppets of the sisters themselves. These objects performed with a portrait puppet depicting popular screen actor Greta Garbo on roller skates, a Tap Dancer, a Ballerina, a Music Professor at a piano, and a Seal marionette. The amusing diversity of the Lauer Sister acts and 233 I am using this word in the linguistic (referring to any psychotic disorder characterized by a withdrawal from reality), rather than the medical sense (the dellusion that imaginary persons or beings communicate with the patient inside her/his head). From a medical perspective, the Lauer Sister puppets capture an artistic impression not of Schizophrenia but Multiple Personality Disorder. 181
characters were common to the variety stage. Their self-portrait marionettes suggest a dualistic interpretation of McPharlin’s categories. The standard realistic detail of the portrait puppets gives way to the aggressively racialized image of the “mammy” stereotype (see figure 40). By Fig. 40. Front and side views of “The Lauer Sisters” portrait puppets. Photographs by the author. From the Detroit Institute of the Arts Collection (Detroit: DIA, 2003). manipulating a pair of strings attached to the masks, the puppeteer can shift a blackface mask from its invisible place above the marionette’s head to hang in front of the object’s face. If the Lauer Sisters followed the thematic essence of the categorical distinction to its logical conclusion, they would have used the unmasked portrait puppets to perform more sophisticated material and then added the masks for lowbrow moments, such as bawdy jokes. If the Lauer Sisters added blackface masks to their portrait marionettes only when the marionettes were behaving more like “clowns,” then they interpreted the categorical 182
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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
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he [can] find them.” 147 Calthrop
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of the Moor, who is, though still m
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slanted and sharp, the nostrils are
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perhaps the beginning puppeteer, wh
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taken it from playwright Tsou Ku Ch
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figure, who dismisses his complaint
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Thus, the structure of the play pre
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Chapter V: The Majors The major pup
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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 and 170: capture the great variety of black
Page 171 and 172: tangled a Prime Minister marionette
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: Paris’s semiotic choices introduc
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
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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
Page 221 and 222: of the play to connect with African
Page 223 and 224: its length (see figure 52). Finally
Page 225 and 226: O’Neill’s take on Henri Christo
Page 227 and 228: audiences, then goes on to suggest
Page 229 and 230: Chesse’s reading of Brutus was th
Page 231 and 232: meticulous artistic strokes then, c
Page 233 and 234: Many of the lost objects may have b
Page 235 and 236: sketches would be well-served by th
Page 237 and 238: 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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