Stage Hands

At a time when technology reigns, an art form based on something as basic as a doll with strings attached might seem unlikely to be the next big thing. But that’s the essence of one of the least likely trends of the ‘90s.

Like a cosmic antidote to the Computer Age, the ancient art of puppetry has been enjoying a surprising resurgence. One of the most cross-cultural of theater arts, puppetry has been rearing its hand-guided head lately in places as disparate as avant-garde theater and mainstream film.

Witness, for instance, the animated “puppets” of the film “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” On Broadway, longtime puppet mistress Julie Taymor has given new life to Disney’s “The Lion King.” And experimental theater director Lee Breuer has also employed the form in “The Warrior Ant” and “Peter and Wendy”--the latter seen at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood last winter.

Driving much of the recent rise in interest in puppetry is the Jim Henson Foundation’s International Festival of Puppet Theatre, which has become a biannual event in New York since it was launched there in 1992. Recognized with both Obie and Drama Desk awards, the festival is currently showing work by 24 international companies, performing at a dozen venues through Sept. 27.

After the New York performances, many of the groups will set out for venues across the country. In L.A., three companies--the South African Handspring Puppet Company, the Peruvian Teatro Hugo and Ines and the American-Indonesian collaboration of Wayang Listrik / Electric Shadows--will perform at UCLA this month and next in UCLA’s new puppet theater series, presented by the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts in conjunction with the newly inaugurated Cotsen Center for Puppetry and Arts at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia.

Why puppets, when the Y2K computer glitch seems more to the point of the millennial moment?

“In the arts, the counterintuitive almost always happens,” says Steven D. Lavine, president of CalArts, where the new interdisciplinary program will be headed by film and theater director Janie Geiser. “Part of what’s at stake in puppetry is that we’re in the midst of all this technology, and you want some relief.”

Then, too, there is the appeal of artistic control. “A great puppet artist can have control of every part of his artistic process,” Lavine says. “At a time when more and more people are working at computers--where what you can do is limited by what someone has done--the idea of being in control is appealing. And finally, puppets go together very well with animation, which has resurged.”

The emergence of a major donor also played a role in enabling CalArts to launch its new puppetry program, but setting up such a program has been on Lavine’s wish list, he says, since he came to CalArts a decade ago. The timing, however, is undeniably fortuitous, given the groundwork that’s been laid by the Henson festival.

“The Henson festival has really brought exposure to experimental puppetry from around the world in a serious and sustained way,” Lavine says.

The festival was created to honor the Muppets’ creator, partly in response to a wealth of artistic activity already extant. But while puppetry for adults has long had a place in international performing-arts culture, America has lingered under the misimpression that it’s primarily a kids’ medium.

This began to change in 1980, when an international festival of puppetry was held, for the first time, in Washington, D.C.

“That festival was the first time American artists were exposed to the international community,” says Cheryl Henson, one of Jim Henson’s five children and the driving force behind the New York-based festival. “That challenged a lot of American artists to do better.

“Now, in the ‘90s, the work starts being ready to be seen,” Henson adds. “And now, coming into the second half of the ‘90s, there’s the audience for the work.”

The proof lies, for instance, in the sellout crowds that have graced the Henson festival’s previous outings. That success can be attributed to a combination of producing savvy (comparatively small venues, limited runs) and positive feedback, both critical and word of mouth. But the main ingredient is the art itself.

South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, for instance, was well-received when it appeared at the Henson festival in 1994. The company, which was founded in 1981 by Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler, will make its L.A. debut Sept. 25-27 at UCLA.

The company will present “Ubu and the Truth Commission,” which combines the characters from Alfred Jarry’s classic “Ubu Roi” with documentary text from the findings of South Africa’s investigation into the apartheid era. Set in contemporary Johannesburg, the piece, written by Jane Taylor and directed by William Kentridge, includes live actors as well as puppets and film.

The group had originally wanted to adapt “Waiting for Godot” but was dissuaded by the Beckett estate’s unwillingness to allow changes in the late playwright’s text. “We thought, we’ll do our own piece about waiting,” Jones says. “We were at the point of sending people out to do research when the Truth Commission started [releasing findings] in South Africa. Suddenly, we started hearing all these incredible stories about people waiting--for compensation and retribution.”

The need to provide some counterpoint to the tragedy led to the Jarry characters, which director Kentridge had explored in previous works. “There needed to be some sort of levity to these tragic stories, so we put this grown-up boy [Ubu] together with the very sad testimonies,” Jones says.

“At that point, we had to decide who are the people and who are the puppets,” he adds. “We did the counterintuitive thing and made Ma and Pa Ubu the human actors, and somehow that worked well.”

Of course, such a move is no more counterintuitive than a puppetry boom in the ‘90s. “It’s taken a number of years to build an awareness,” Henson says. “A great deal of what we’re doing in our festival is introducing the concept of puppetry for adults to the audience. We want to let people know about this art form.”

* “Ubu and the Truth Commission,” Handspring Puppet Company, Schoenberg Hall. (Recommended for adult audiences only.) $28. And “Short Stories,” Teatro Hugo and Ines, Freud Playhouse. (Recommended for ages 7 and up.) $22. Both: UCLA, Sept. 25-27. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. $28. (310) 825-2101.

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* “Wayang Listrik / Electric Shadows,” Royce Hall, UCLA. Oct. 24, 2 and 8 p.m. $15-$25. (310) 825-2101. (Recommended for ages 12 and up.)