ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

include such dramas as The Emperor Jones, and works as diverse as Robinson Crusoe
and the “Uncle Remus” stories.
Similar to D’Arc, Meader integrates the formula of the minstrel show with the
essence of nineteenth-century puppetry to achieve an essence of spirited innovation.
Meader’s minstrel duo is attached to the same crossbar but connected by a separate set of
ten strings, allowing the objects to be manipulated as a unit or separately (figure 12).
Given the typical difference in size between Interlocutor and the endmen, it seems likely
that the figure to the left/rear is Interlocutor, and the figure on the right/front is either
Tambo or Bones. He carries no instrument, but his loose neck and angled right leg
suggest that he has been designed to permit the “wild and grotesque manuevers” expected
of Tambo. 86
The puppeteer could easily attach a tambourine to the right arm of the object. It is
less probable that these two figures were both Tambo and Bones, since the endmen
usually stood on opposite sides. If this is Interlocutor and Tambo, or even Interlocutor
and Bones, Meader’s strategy is to connect the two figures that the obligatory straight
Interlocutor/joking endman featured in the typical minstrel format may be more easily
presented.
Thus, Meader borrowed the essence of D’Arc’s Interlocutor, giving the
marionette a corporeal form similar to that of the blackface player. Both are wide-eyed.
Their heads are covered in fabric suggesting the tangled hair of the most racialized
images of black persons. Meader has painted both objects coal black to indicate
86
Carl Wittke, Tambo and Bones: A History of the American Minstrel Stage (Wesport:
Greenwood Press, 1930), 140.
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