INTERVIEW with puppeteer Mme VERONIQUE DUMARCAIT about games with puppets’ traditions in France

1. What are in your opinion the beneficial effects of games with puppets for the child’s psychology?

• The puppet is an object which has multiple functions. It is an inanimate object, which, by means of the puppeteer’s gestures, becomes alive. It comes to life from movement, it is as much an actor, as is an actor in flesh and bone, but it has got the power to transcend the physical limits of the human body and we endow it with a soul.

• The combination of the immobile (death) with the mobile (life), which is a puppet’s characteristic feature brings about particular fascination. In primitive societies the puppet was attributed magic powers.

Furthermore, it is used for educational and therapeutic purposes. The puppet is our double, it can express the things that we wouldn’t dare to, it disguises and discloses our own self. The puppet may resemble us, it may be an animal or any object - this effect works anyway. When a child, or an adult focuses on the puppet as they animate it, they forget themselves and let their intuition or subconscious speak. The puppet also allows us to get to know ourselves, to play alone or to play with others. This game is very important, because the puppet permits everyone to go to all spheres, the allowed ones as well as the forbidden ones – the puppet can transgress, can tell everything, and do anything. It’s a vast means of expression.

The puppet game always addresses somebody, an audience, in itself it has a taste for gathering together, a pleasure to narrate, share ideas and imagine.

• The puppet can play in various registers: classical and contemporary theater, farce, tale, stories for children.

• What is more, puppet creation is also very interesting. It allows to elaborate the building of a character from A to Z: starting from the choice of the character, then drawing, choosing materials, modelling and lots of handcraft, choice of colours and colouring, pasting, assembling. Afterwards the creator imagines the puppet’s identity card and learns to operate it.

2. What can you say about the puppet tradition in France? Is it alive or disappearing?

• I can assure you that the puppet tradition is very much alive in France. The puppet has got a few homes in our country: Lyon with “Guignol” – a most famous type of glove puppet.

Amiens, a region of Picardie has got “Lafleur” – a rod-and-string puppet (above). We’ve also got Polichinelle , a wooden muppet which came from Italy (on the left)

• The puppet tradition has known a great revival since the creation of the puppet theater world festival in 1972 in Charleville-Mézieres and the founding of the international puppet institute ESNAM (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette) in 1987.

• Innovative pedagogics focusing on the actor-puppeteer is evolving, which takes into account the developments of the contemporary puppet theater.

• The year 1996 sees the inauguration of Villa d’Aubilly, a place of residence for researchers and creators. A great number of theater, dance and circus companies in France as well as other countries use the puppet. Therefore, the puppet hasn’t lost its importance.

3. Are there any activities to be carried out in order to maintain this tradition alive?

• The best way to keep this tradition alive is for everyone to go and see the puppet theater plays, in our region we have a rich and varied program of puppet events. We must be aware of the fact that this art is not reserved to the young audience. Puppet plays will inspire the theater goers to create and play with puppets at school, at home, at workshops open to all public in cities.

4. How could puppets be integrated into programs and syllabuses of education in order to build a bridge between the past and the present?

• We could tackle different topics in history of France and Europe from the viewpoint of “Guignols” (glove puppets). Guignol, a hero originating from Lyon, who was born in the 19th century, was a manservant . All these characters invented by man retrace great historical events. The first traces of puppet tradition takes to antiquity. Therefore puppets offer plenty of openings to treat historical themes.