Puppets bring the human story to life

WHAT do Hillary Rodham Clinton and George W. Bush have to do with mythology -- and puppetry?

They both play a role in an exploration of the power of story and archetype, revealed through an exhibition of puppets at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.

Tucked into the museum’s third-floor gallery, “Mythical Creatures and Characters: Tales From Around the World,” running through May 18, offers visitors close-up encounters with marionettes, finger, hand and rod puppets crafted over the decades, from the 1920s to the 21st century.

They include the troll king from “Peer Gynt,” Robin Hood, the Sultan from “One Thousand and One Arabian Nights,” Italian knights in tarnished armor, an African Cinderella, four very different Pinocchios and many more. Carved and sewn, eyes fixed, they’re suspended by strings or sit in display cases, illustrating a running narrative written on surrounding walls.

Puppets are one of the earliest “interactive” art forms, said Melinda MacInnis, the exhibition’s narrator-curator. “And since we couldn’t move them, which is what they’re born to do, we wanted to look at them symbolically.”

Borrowed from the expansive collection of the Pasadena-based International Puppetry Museum, these varied creations can be appreciated for themselves or as representatives of archetypes in stories and myths that reveal the universality of human experience: the Mother, the Goddess, the Seeker, the Hero, the Villain.

“Once you start to look at all of the world’s stories, from ancient and religious texts to familiar fairy tales, even if they are 5,000 years old,” MacInnis said, “a commonality pops up across religions, cultures and time periods.”

And something else is evident, she said. “Because archetypes resonate with us so deeply, if you twist an archetype or use it to control, you can manipulate entire cultures, even entire religions. You can teach your children, you can keep women in line, you can stir up a country against its perceived enemy.”

As they leave, visitors can move pictures of real and fictional characters on a wall under archetypal categories as they see fit. Among images of newsmakers, said Maryna Hrushetska, the museum’s executive director, “George W. Bush has stayed under the ‘Villain’ category the entire time. Hillary Clinton goes from ‘Hero’ to ‘Villain’ to ‘Scapegoat’ to ‘Fallen Woman.’ She’s probably been moved more than anybody.”

lynne.heffley@latimes.com

FOR THE RECORD: Due to a technical glitch, an earlier version of this story did not include the name of the museum. It is the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.