ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

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lackface. Though he produced a vestige more like a human being, that vestige took the racially characteristic features of its source and exaggerated them. The burden of minstresly persisted even in performances that twenty-first-century scholars, such as John Bell, might hesitate to associate with the tradition of blackface. Between 1872 and 1939, dozens of artists produced their particular frontalities, revealing a variety of essences for puppetry and imagined black life. Sometimes, these seemingly disparate essences coalesced in their blackface puppet shows. David Lano’s blackface-puppet essence synthesized his professional obligation to “clever tricks” with his apperceptions of African American culture. Together, these twin co-presences produced a marionette that was crudely carved, but with startlingly exoticized hair, carrying a fascinating, faux-tribal mallet. He selected John Payne Collier’s Punch and Judy, a text that reinforced the seemingly African identity of the “Negro.” When the Royal Marionette companies devised a seemingly American clown, Lano produced an exotic alternative that integrated the Shallaballa of Punch shows with the marionette minstrel of the late nineteenth century. In other cases, the atomized character of puppetry led to contradictory essences on the same stage. Forman Brown’s use of stereotyped blackface dialogue likely conflicted with the relatively realistic figures produced by the Yale Puppeteers. In Brown’s case, the atomized character of puppetry would have worked to the advantage of his texts. All three of his plays featuring blackface characters, Mister Noah, My Man Friday, and Uncle Tom’s Hebb’n, shared anti-racist themes. The audible verbal stereotypes, relatively realistic puppets, and antiracist challenges articulated by those puppets would have made evident three co-presences: the essence of dialogue from minstrelsy tradition, 235
the essence of less grotesque blackface puppets, and the essence of comic exaggeration. Though produced by several separate essences, the atomized portions of the production would act as constituent parts of a farce with antiracist themes. Even in the D’Arc/Bullock Royal Marionette productions, the sentimental themes of “Belle Mahone” and the antislavery themes of “Old Runaway Joe” seem to conflict with the excessively racialized marionette frontalities. Together in performance, they would produce a puppet essence that is simultaneously debased target of ridicule and sympathetic racial image. In the midst of these contradictions lay the heritage of the minstrel shows, whether the puppeteers manipulated those stereotypes for convienient theatrical turns or progressive values. Many twentieth-century puppeteers adopted the blackface stereotype in its most grotesque essence. Bufano’s Mr. Julius Caesar, the Proctors’ Minstrels, James Juvenal Hayes’ “Rastus,” Lenore Hetrick’s Uncle Tom characters, Tom Fool’s “Negro” family, and the minstrel show of the FTP’s African American puppeteers were paradigmatic examples of blackface clowns. However, the gradual decline of puppet plays featuring blackface characters and the Black Doll memoirs of Diogener suggest that more excessively exaggerated blackface work became part of annals of puppetry nostalgia. Other works suggest that bolder artistic experiments and progressive themes may have helped undermine the most excessive blackface distortions. The blend of eastern and blackface stereotypes in Munger’s Little Black Sambo, and the progressive themes and manipulated black folklore in the plays of Richardson and Dallas, suggest that blackface stereotypes may have given way to alternatives in the puppetry experiments of the 1930s. Efforts to stretch the artistic envelope may have brushed out the most 236
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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:
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Critics and fellow puppeteers prais
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Sarg and Blackface Though Sarg neve
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“Skin me, Brer Fox,” sez Brer R
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possibilities of puppetry led him t
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was common with the so-called “To
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present his particular imaginations
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herself in need of independent econ
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The Essence of Puppetry for Sue Has
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the head to the right and left, to
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art,” and “a descendent of the
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puppeteers to avoid complicated and
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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
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
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
Page 239 and 240: transmitted to, and circulated with
Page 241: Conclusion: Phenomenology, Authenti
Page 245 and 246: used them in plays where puppets ce
Page 247 and 248: minstrelsy-derived Topsy, as genuin
Page 249 and 250: productions featuring blackface cha
Page 251 and 252: _. Race and Ethnic Relations. 3 rd
Page 253 and 254: Durham, Weldon B. ed. American Thea
Page 255 and 256: Hill, Errol. Shakespeare in Sable:
Page 257 and 258: Mahar, William J. Behind the Burnt
Page 259 and 260: Powell, Herbert Preston. The World'
Page 261 and 262: Spurling, Laurie. Phenomenology and
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