Toward an Aesthetics of the Puppet

Book flyer
MS Word
International
MS Word

Toward an Aesthetics of the Puppet Puppetry as a Theatrical Art

(Click to Enlarge)

Steve Tillis

Book Code: TTA/

ISBN: 0-313-28359-1

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-28359-8

DOI:

200 pages

Greenwood Press

Publication: 6/30/1992

List Price: $107.95 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)

Availability: Print on demand

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Literature » Drama

Series Title: Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies

Series Number: 47

Description: Societies around the world have their puppet traditions and puppetry remains a vital theatrical art; yet puppetry has received little attention in the theoretical study of theatre. The present study offers an aesthetic theory and vocabulary for practitioners, critics, and audiences to utilize in creating, evaluating, viewing, and describing the age-old, yet ever-new art of the puppet. Asserting that no satisfactory theory or descriptive vocabulary has yet been advanced for the theatrical puppet, Steve Tillis seeks the underlying principles through observation and analysis of puppetry in all its manifestations. He considers the disparate range of puppet performance and puppet construction to determine what is constant and what is variable and explores such theoretical problems as how a puppet is to be defined; how its appeal is to be explained, and how its performance is to be described. Reviewing standard responses to these problems in a thorough survey of the literature on puppetry, he then offers new solutions. In an interesting coda, Tillis discusses the power of the puppet as a metaphor of humanity and a term applied to particular people. This is an essential text not only for college puppetry courses but also for all serious puppet artists, as well as scholars and researchers in performance theory and practice, and more general audiences.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Introduction
Defining and Explaining the Puppet
Standard Definitions
Standard Explanations
A New Basis for Definition and Explanation
Describing the Puppet
Standard Descriptions
A New Basis for Description
Coda-Metaphor and the Puppet
Works Cited
Index

LC Card Number: 91-43366

LCC Class: PN1972

Dewey Class: 791.5


All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999-2008 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. 88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881, (203) 226-3571