Sunday Herald (Sydney, NSW : 1949 - 1953), Sunday 19 June 1949, page 1


«»Efl People's lieatre Opens

(Children's Theatre at Burnie Park, Clovelly, has

»ed its season with marionette and puppet shows.

1EY are to be seen every Sat-urday afternoon at 2.30 p.m. dmission fee for children is i and for adults 2/.

bc shows are sponsored by Children's Library Movet They hope to be able to I ¡dean a'll-the-year round proa ime for young people.

eton holding two characters from the V Woncttc plays are producer Mrs. '!»pfc Champion and her stage manager.

In time they want to have simi-lar theatres operating in many more suburbs of Sydney and in the country.

The Children's Theatre at Clo-velly was once' a library. Now it has newly painted cream walls, a stage, and an auditorium which seats J 75 people.

Marionettes are little

jointed figures, gener-ally about 20 inches long. They arc opera-ted from above by a scries of strings at-

tached to all movable parts of their bodies. This necessitates a special stage structure for marionette plays so

that thc audience can-not see the operators but only thc little performers.

Glove puppets arc much smaller than marionettes. As their name suggests they are worked by the hand. "Punch and Judy" is a typical glove puppet show. The operator is concealed in a box. By moving his hands above his head inside the

glove part of the puppet he produces the re-quired action on the "stage" or in the window of the box.

The actors' dressing

rooms now house the

marionettes. Hanging from every available hook are life-like fig-ures, dressed and ready to take their part in

the show.

Thc marionettes rep

resent characters from four wellknown stories now in production. There Ls thc giant from "Jack and the Beanstalk," and the widow's cow, who can move all its limbs. Hansel and Gretel share a hook and below them is thc golden fish from thc Russian folk tale, "Thc Golden Fish." One of thc most popular characters is the little black hero "Epaminondas."

C^OUR fairy-tales are performed *? every Saturday. Two feature marionettes and two glove puppets. .

The cleverly moulded marion-ettes, which so amazingly "come -to life" on stage, have been lent

to the theatre by Mr. W. D: Nicol of the Melbourne Youth Theatre which has been presenting marion-ette shows in Melbourne for years.

Mr. Nicol thinks there is a good opening for puppet work here in Sydney. Recently a Puppetry Guiid of N.S.W. was formed.

After each show, boys and girls who are interested, arc shown how to make their own glove puppets, and how to manipulate them. They are also encouraged to write puppet plays. Later thc best of these will be performed.