The American Boy's Handy Book/Chapter 35
The puppet-show is certainly an old institution; and, for aught I know, the shadow-pantomime may be equally ancient. But the puppet-show here described originated, so far as I am aware, within our family circle, having gradually evolved itself from a simple sheet of paper hung on the back of a chair, with a light placed on the seat of the chair behind the paper.
The puppets (not the most graceful and artistic) originally were impaled upon broom-straws, and by this means their shadows were made to jump and dance around in the most lively manner, to the intense delight of a juvenile audience. As these juveniles advanced in years and knowledge, they developed a certain facility with pencil and scissors; the rudimentary paper animals and fairies gradually assumed more possible forms; the chair-back was replaced by a wooden soap or candle-box with the bottom knocked out; and the sheet of paper gave way to a piece of white muslin. Thus, step by step, grew up the puppet-show, from which so much pleasure and amusement have been derived by the writer and his young friends that he now considers it not only a pleasure, but his duty, to tell his readers how to make one like it for themselves.
The construction of properties and actors, and the manipulation of the puppets at an exhibition, are by no means the least of the fun. To start the readers fairly in their career of stage-managers, this chapter tells how to build the theatre, make the actors, and the next chapter gives an original adaptation of an old story, prepared especially for a puppet-show.
Among the rubbish of the lumber-room, or attic, you can hardly fail to find an old frame of some kind—one formerly used for a picture or old-fashioned mirror would be just the thing. Image missingFig. 203.Wooden Frame for Puppet-Show. Should your attic contain no frames, very little skill with carpenters' tools is required to manufacture a strong wooden stretcher. It need not be ornamental, but should be neat and tidy in appearance, and about two feet long by eighteen inches high.
On the back of this tack a piece of white muslin, being careful to have it stretched perfectly tight, like a drum-head. The cloth should have no seams nor holes in it to mar the plain surface.
A simple way to support the frame in an upright position is to make a pair of "shoes," of triangular pieces of wood. If the top of each shoe a rectangular notch should be cut, deep enough to hold the frame firmly. Fig. 203 shows a wooden frame, and the manner in which the shoes should be made.
can be cut out of card-board. Very natural-looking trees may be made of sticks with bunches of pressed moss pasted upon the ends. Pressed maiden-hair fern makes splendid tropical foliage, and tissue or any other thin paper may be used for still water. Thin paper allows the light to pass partially through, and the shadow that the spectator sees is lighter than the silhouette scenery around, and hence has a sort of translucent, watery look. Scenery of all kinds should be placed flat against the cloth when in use.
And now that you have a general idea how the show is worked, I will confine my remarks for the present to the play in hand. It is a version of the old story of "Puss-in-Boots," and there will be given here patterns for all the puppets necessary, although in the court scene you can introduce as many more as you like.
The first scene is
This scene should be made of such a length that, with the bridge, it will just fit in the frame. Take the measurement of the inside of the frame. Then take a stiff piece of card-board of the requisite length, and with a pencil carefully copy the illustration (Fig. 204), omitting the wheel. Lay the card-board flat upon a pine board or old kitchen table, and with a sharp knife (the file-blade is the best) follow the lines you have drawn. Cut out the spaces where the water is marked, and paste tissue-paper in their place. Take another piece of card-board and cut out a wheel; in the centre of this cut a small square hole, through which push the end of a stick, as in Fig. 205. Drive a pin into the end of the stick, allowing it to protrude far enough to fit easily into a slot cut for that purpose in the bridge where it comes under the mill (see Fig. 204). The wheel can then be made to turn at pleasure by twirling between the fingers the stick to which the wheel is attached.
To make puss, take a piece of tracing-paper and carefully trace with a soft pencil the outlines of the cat, from the illustration here given. Tack the four corners of the tracing reversed (that is, with the tracing under) on a piece of card-board. Any business card will answer for this purpose. Now, by going over the lines (which will show through the tracing-paper) with a hard pencil, you will find it will leave a sufficiently strong impression on the card to guide you in cutting out the puppet.
Almost all puppets can be made in the same way. Puss as he first appears, the rabbit, rat, and bag, should be impaled upon the end of a broom-straw; but the remaining puppets should each have a stick or straw attached to one leg, or some other suitable place, just as the stick is pasted to the donkey's leg as represented in Fig. 206.
are made of two separate pieces, as indicated in Fig. 206. The dotted line shows the continuation of the outline of the forward piece. Image missingFig. 206.Corsando on his Donkey. Cut out the two pieces in accordance with the diagram, and then place the tail-piece over the head-piece, and at the point marked "knot," make a pin-hole through both pieces of the puppet. Tie one end of a piece of heavy thread into a good hard knot; put the other end of the thread through the holes just made, draw the knotted end close up against the puppet, and then tie another knot upon the opposite side, snug against the cardboard; cut off the remaining end of the thread. Having done this, tie a piece of fine thread to the point near the knee of Corsando, and fasten a stick to the foreleg of the donkey, as shown in Fig. 206. Paste a straw in one of Corsando's hands for a whip, and two pieces of string in the other hand for a halter or bridle. By holding in one hand the stick attached to the leg of the donkey, and gently pulling the thread, marked "string" in the diagram, the donkey can be made to kick up in a most natural and mirth-provoking manner.
When you make the king and princess in their coach, by cutting out the king separately and fastening the lower end of his body to the coach in the manner described for joining the two parts of the donkey, the king can in this manner be made to sit upright, or to fall forward and look out in the attitude shown by Fig. 207, which explains the construction perfectly, A and B being two small blocks pasted on to the card-board
for the king's arm or body to rest on. Fig. 208 shows the first horse of the royal coach; the second horse is a duplicate of the first, minus the rider. Fasten the horses and coach together by pasting a long flat stick extending across from horse to horse, and to the coach, where the traces would be.
Fig. 209 shows Carabas in a bathing suit.
Fig. 210 shows the same gentleman in court dress.
To make puss carry the bag, the operator will have to use both hands, holding in one hand the stick attached to puss, and in the other the straw attached to the bag. Then, by keeping the bag close against pussy's paws, it will appear to the audience as if he were holding the bag. In the same manner he is made to carry the dead rabbit to the king. When the rabbit seems to hop into the bag, he in reality hops behind it, and then drops below the stage.
The operator must remember never to allow his hands to pass between the light and the cloth, as the shadow of an immense hand upon the cloth would ruin the whole effect. All the puppets for each scene should be carefully selected before the curtain rises, and so placed that the operator can at once lay his hand upon the one wanted. There must be no talking behind the scenes, and the puppets should be kept moving in as life-like a manner as possible while their speeches are being read for them. Several rehearsals are necessary to make the show pass off successfully.
One would naturally suppose that with only a candle and a cloth screen for a stage, and some puppets cut out of card or pasteboard for actors, that the stage effects would be very limited, and consequently the plays stiff and uninteresting; this is, however, not true; any of the familiar old fairy tales may, with a little alteration, be arranged for a puppet-show and put upon the stage in such a manner as to amuse and interest an audience of young and old people. Jointed puppets, by the aid of movable lights, sticks, and strings, may be made to go through the most surprising contortions and manœuvres.
Boys that have a talent for drawing will find an unlimited amount of amusement in drawing and cutting out the puppets; but for those boys who have neither a talent nor a taste for the use of the pencil, original puppets are necessarily out of the question. All the characters of any play can be made by selecting appropriate figures of animals and men from illustrated books and papers, and enlarging or reducing them after the manner described in Chapter XXVI., page 250. In this manner the puppets given in this chapter may be enlarged to almost any required proportions.
At a Sunday-school entertainment, given in Brooklyn last winter, the following play of "Puss-in-Boots" was produced by pasteboard actors a foot high, to the great delight of a large and enthusiastic audience of mixed young and old folks.
Have one or two jointed figures appear and commence to dance, and while they are capering around, let another light be brought in; immediately there will be two figures for every one that first appeared upon the scene. Each light casts a shadow, and the shadows are all that is visible to the audience, so to them the puppets appear to fall into doubles in the most unaccountable manner. If the puppets are kept stationary, and the two lights moved backward and forward, the puppets will appear to move around, pass and repass each other; thus, with two or three lights moving behind the screen, two or three puppets can be transformed into a crowd that will be in constant motion.
Cut two duplicate pieces of pasteboard in the form of waves (see Fig. 211). Let each piece be a little longer than the
frame of the puppet-show stage. When the light throws the shadow of one of these pieces of pasteboard upon the muslin screen, it looks like a simple row of scallops; but when the two pieces are moved backward and forward, it gives motion to the shadows, and they have the appearance of rolling waves; a pasteboard ship rocking upon the waves will add to the effect. A lighthouse can be cut out of pasteboard and placed upon a pasteboard rock at one side; thunder may be imitated by rolling croquet balls over the top of a wooden table, and lightning represented by small flashes of gunpowder.
If the puppet ship be held at first some distance from the screen the shadow will be large, and if the puppet slowly approach the screen it will decrease in size and have the appearance of gradually sailing away. In this manner the hero and heroine may be made to escape aboard a vessel from the irate and stern parents. Many other scenes can be produced with very simple means that will suggest themselves to the young showmen after a few experiments with the puppet-show. Colored lights used very sparingly often come in with telling effect. A phantom ship can be made to follow the real one by having another light some distance off; one light will cast a heavy shadow and the other a faint one, which will move as the light moves; move the light up and down, and the ship and waves follow and keep time with the light. Many other effects I used to produce in my puppet-shows that at present escape my memory, but no doubt the reader will think of them himself if he becomes interested enough to make a puppet-show for the entertainment of himself and friends, Christmas or New Year's eve; in which case Old St. Nicholas, with his sleigh drawn by deer and loaded with toys, must form part of the show.