The Puppets

Although all types of puppetry have been performed at the Harlequin Puppet Theatre what it is most famous for is marionettes, a marionette being a puppet controlled from above using strings.

The majority of the marionettes in regular use at the Harlequin were made by Eric Bramall himself, some dating back to before the theatre was built. Eric’s marionettes have either a carved or moulded head with a wooden body. For the moulded heads he would first sculpt from clay, then make a plaster mould and then using plastic wood cast the heads.

Eric made his first marionette in 1944;

“I set to work fashioning my first twenty-four inch marionette from such oddments as I found about the house, hands and feet I modelled in plastic wood the head also over a foundation made from a section of postal tube, body from an odd piece of fire log, legs and arms from an old white curtain rods, the whole fastened together with pieces of tape over screw-eyes. Undressed the creature looked a freak and no mistake. Hurriedly I searched for materials for his clothes, for I had at the outset decided my first creation should be Omar Kayyam.”

And from that first marionette followed hundreds more.

Eric and his puppetry partner Chris Somerville were always keen to share their ideas and methods and wrote three books and many articles giving tips, viewpoints and insights into their process of both making and performing marionettes.

‘Expert Puppet Technique’ written by them both was published in 1963. However, by that time Eric had already published ‘Making a Start with Marionettes’ in 1960 and ‘Puppet Plays and Playwriting’ in 1961.

Here Chris Somerville takes us through the key characteristics of a Harlequin Puppet Theatre Marionette

The Harlequin Puppet Theatre – Marionette

The basic formula marionette developed by Eric Bramall and used at the Harlequin Puppet Theatre evolved through years of experience. It is a relatively simple puppet to construct. It is a basic design which readily allows alteration to suit character and is easy to costume. In the right hands it works very well.

It is not necessary to slavishly copy this design for jointing or stringing (although if you do you can be assured that it is the distillation of years of trial and error) but it can be taken as a general guide, and might offer useful clues if you are having difficulties in a particular area of manipulation.

THE HARLEQUIN PUPPET THEATRE MARIONETTE – DESIGNED FOR PERFORMANCE

HEAD – suspended slightly above and behind the centre of balance. Generally, the head and neck can be modelled together. Joined to the body with a screw eye and long wire staple.

SHOULDERS – must be wider than the head strings.

ELBOW – needs generous movement in one direction only. We use a small brass hinge as at the knee, but the dowel arm is shaped to allow greater movement.

WRIST – very restricted rotation, moderately restricted up and down movement. We use a screw eye and links of thin chain secured by a pin.

WAIST – joints are a waste of time.

HIP – very free front and back movement, with a slight left and right turn. We use a long wire staple and a strip of thin leather glued in a slot.

KNEE – restricted to allow NO backbend but cut to allow more than 90 degrees bend. We use a small brass hinge with brass pin removed and replaced with panel pin to allow free movement.

ANKLE – very slight up and down movement avoiding toe drop. We use a wooden tongue shaped on the end of dowel leg pivoted on a wire pim through slot cut in foot.

THE HARLEQUIN PUPPET THEATRE MARIONETTE – CONSTRUCTION

The head of our marionettes are usually of plastic wood cast in a plaster mould from an original modelled in plasticine. The body is of soft wood shaped with saw, rasp and sandpaper. Hands and feet are carved from hardwood, or hands may be modelled. Arms and legs are from dowel shaped with saw and rasp.

We construct the wooden control from dowel rod. Sizes vary with the size of puppet and size of hand. Many puppeteers favour a larger control than we use, and since the whole is a system of levers then a larger control does mean longer levers and therefore more movement for less effort. Eric Bramall first experimented with a rather small control for aesthetic reasons. He was inspired by a photograph in Beaumont’s Puppets and the Puppet Stage which shows a very small, neat control. Apart from the appearance, a smaller control has practical advantage when it comes to packing or transporting puppets, and also when working on the bridge alongside another puppeteer.

As a rough guide, with our 24-inch theatre puppets the main bar of the control is around 5.5 inches of half inch dowel. The head bar is 5 inches long, the back bar 3.5 inches and the shoulder bar 4 inches. These are of five sixteenths dowel, as is the leg bar which is around 8 inches long.

THE HARLEQUIN PUPPET THEATRE MARIONETTE – STRINGING

The numbers refer to the sequence as well as identification.

Strings should be attached firstly to the puppet, then adjusted at the control.

Elbow (4) strings go behind the head (1) strings

Suspend the puppet throughout the stringing. Check the function of each string as you progress.