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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

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The “Celebrated Christy Minstrels”<br />

British scholar John Phillips has done puppet theatre history a considerable<br />

service by filling in a major gap in Paul McPharlin and George Speight’s research. Prior<br />

to Phillips’s article in The Puppetry Yearbook (1998), Paul McPharlin had traced the<br />

progress <strong>of</strong> the D’Arc/Bullock Royal Marionettes and companies carrying their<br />

namesake, while George Speight had detailed the development <strong>of</strong> the D’Arc and Bullock<br />

companies in English theatre. In addition to providing extant photographs <strong>of</strong> the D’Arc<br />

puppets, Phillips corrects an important inconsistency in their research. According to him,<br />

both historians confuse the marionette company <strong>of</strong> William John Bullock with that <strong>of</strong><br />

Lambert D’Arc, erroneously identifying Bullock as the originator <strong>of</strong> the Royal<br />

Marionettes. 37 More likely, Phillips concludes, Lambert D’Arc, a Parisian waxworker<br />

who established a marionette company in 1869 Dublin, originated the company, and then<br />

sold it to Bullock. 38<br />

Extant historical records support Phillips’s conclusions. Speight attests that<br />

Bullock ran a marionette theatre in Dublin (1868-1871), but no records <strong>of</strong> a Bullock<br />

company located in Ireland exist. 39 Advertisements in The Dublin Advertising Gazette,<br />

however, show that D’Arc established a permanent waxwork exhibition at the Rotunda in<br />

Dublin, 1868, which presented marionette shows for the next four years. 40 Bullock<br />

37<br />

John Phillips, “The Origin and Progress <strong>of</strong> W. J. Bullock’s Royal Marionettes,” Puppetry<br />

Yearbook 4 (1998): 145.<br />

38 Ibid: 144-49.<br />

39 Ibid: 145.<br />

40 John Phillips, “D’Arc’s in Dublin,” Theatre Notebook 48 (1994): 19-35.<br />

33

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