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A selection box of fascinating examples from thirty years of Applied Puppetry practice set in a heavily academic framework.Summary
Rating
Good
In Applied Puppetry: The Theory and Practice of Object Ecologies Matt Smith draws a picture of Applied Puppetry by drawing on his fascinating experience of thirty years working in theatre. Using an academic framework around samples of his practice research, and offering suggested follow-up exercises, he compiles ideas, philosophies, theories and findings that give context to and insight into the field, as revealed within ecologies created by the environments of applied work.
Smith’s projects are varied and interesting, with a wealth of information and insight outlining the uses of puppetry and object performance in non-traditional places and community settings. He describes the unique ecologies of each experience, giving contrast and comparison of methods and results, whilst mapping networked relationships that are disclosed by the practice. His writing comes to life when describing the human and political impact of his work in detention centres, across cultures, at public events, redefining waste. In his analysis of the field, he addresses the impact of a huge range of puppetry styles from giant puppets to marionettes and toy theatre. The comprehensive work is supplemented with illustrative photographs, adding extra depth.
Smith writes informatively about materialism and how puppetry can sit in an ambiguous, interstitial position, creating space to prompt new ways of thinking. He covers everything from object autonomy to relations of object, time and place. We are encouraged to reposition our thinking away from the anthropocentric, the Western, instead imagining a world with new ways of listening with objects, attuning to how they inform potential for change; this to help place us in a position to rethink and understand our global ecology differently.
There’s a great deal of interesting reading here, but to get to it you may need to grapple with the structure and tone of the book. The introduction states that puppets and performed objects have “the ability to help us explore our climate crisis” which led me to expect a thread of this theme throughout; yet it’s not explicit in the reading of it. Elsewhere it’s suggested that the structure of the book is like a tree, but without the climate crisis theme as a trunk I found it more of an assemblage of chapters. There’s a lack of journey as we jump between separate examples of work and theory that really only make a whole at the very end. It’s not until page 167 that Smith summarises how “A focus on materiality in multiple networks makes us reconsider our positionality and by doing this we rethink our relationship to the world instead of just towards each other”; which surely seems to be the whole point if we’re considering the human role in the climate crisis?
Although aiming to be playful, the book is academic in tone, and whilst Smith hits all the markers for this style, careful to give terms and definitions and to include references, it is at times quite a heavy read. The text can be repetitive, weighing down the otherwise interesting content. It also feels like it has missed a final edit, with several typos, claims unchallenged (such as Punch & Judy is dying out in the UK – tell that to the crowds at the annual Covent Garden Puppet Fayre!) and the misnaming of the Theatre-Rites company as Puppet Rites, to name a few oversights.
Smith clearly has a huge amount of exciting, enlightening thinking to impart and this book feels like a selection box of ideas to help guide and define Applied Puppetry practice by acknowledging the impact that objects have upon us – and in their own right – whilst understanding that we can never know everything about them and the ways in which they affect us, nor the outcomes of interacting with performance objects and their ecologies. It would, however, benefit from a rethink in its format to maximise its impact.
Written by: Matt Smith
Published by: Bloomsbury, Methuen Drama
