Puppets for Adults: The Theatre du Manitout

Abstract

Something important happened when in spring 1976 the Theatre du Manitout opened in a small cellar at Montparnasse. It is not easy to describe the work done by this young company headed by Dominique Houdart on its new premises (the Dominique Houdart Company itself is not new, it has been active since 1964.) To call it an avant-garde theater would be utterly misleading since for the last two decades at least this label has been given, more often than not, to all sorts of attempts to rehash the experiments for the 1920's and 1930's and repeat their devices without any concern for their spirit-attempts, in other words, to repeat what was a tragedy in the form of a farce. As regards this aspect, then, suffice it to say that the Theatre du Manitout is unmistakably original. Furthermore, although it operates with puppets, it would be misleading to call it a puppet theater. Not only has this theater nothing in common with the meaning given the term in the prevailing Western tradition, according to which it applies to an area ranging from folklore to productions for children. The respective functions of the puppets, the puppeteers, the reciters and, last but not least, the literary text are also distributed here in an entirely different manner than the term suggests. The present paper is not intended as a piece of criticism. Its purpose it not to indicate what the author likes or dislikes or to judge whether this experiment will develop and grow or fail but to examine a few of the many theoretical problems which it raises. The only implied value judgement is that a coherent artistic structure has been created and that its particular combination of theatrical components and procedures has so far proved viable. The primary inspiration of the Theatre du Manitout springs from the Far-Eastern puppet theater, especially from the Japanese Bunraku (or Joruri, according to an older nomenclature). In Japan, as in Indonesia, Malaysia, etc., the puppets (or shadow puppets) have their place at, or close to, the top of the dramatic art, rather than at its periphery. Four facts among many others may illustrate this: First, towards the middle of the 18th century the Kabuki lost much of its popularity to the Joruri and, to overcome the crisis, it took over much of the repertoire and acting techniques of the puppets.1 Second, in order to keep their own standards up to the mark, the great Kabuki actors of our century have always made a point of going regularly to the Bunraku theater.2