The interview discusses the puppet tradition in France with a puppeteer named Veronique Dumarcait. She describes some of the beneficial psychological effects of puppet play for children, such as allowing children to express themselves in new ways. She then discusses some of the major puppet traditions still alive in France, such as Guignol puppets in Lyon and mentions efforts to keep the tradition alive through festivals and schools of puppetry. Finally, she suggests ways puppetry could be integrated into education to make connections between history and modern puppet theater.

1. INTERVIEW
withpuppeteerMmeVERONIQUEDUMARCAIT
aboutgameswithpuppets’traditionsin France

2. 1. What are in youropinion the beneficial effects of games withpuppets for
the child’s psychology?
• The puppet is an object which has multiple functions. It is an
inanimate object, which, by means of the puppeteer’s gestures, becomes
alive. It comes to life from movement, it is as much an actor, as is an actor in
flesh and bone, but it has got the power to transcend the physical limits of
the human body and we endow it with a soul.
• The combination of the immobile (death) with the mobile (life), which is a
puppet’s characteristic feature brings about particular fascination. In
primitive societies the puppet was attributed magic powers.

3. Furthermore, it is used for educational and therapeutic
purposes. The puppet is our double, it can express the
things that we wouldn’t dare to, it disguises and
discloses our own self. The puppet may resemble us, it
may be an animal or any object - this effect works
anyway. When a child, or an adult focuses on the
puppet as they animate it, they forget themselves and
let their intuition or subconscious speak.
The puppet also allows us to get to know ourselves, to
play alone or to play with others. This game is very
important, because the puppet permits everyone to go
to all spheres, the allowed ones as well as the forbidden
ones – the puppet can transgress, can tell everything,
and do anything. It’s a vast means of expression.

4. The puppet game always addresses
somebody, an audience, in itself it
has a taste for gathering together, a
pleasure to narrate, share ideas and
imagine.
• The puppet can play in various registers:
classical and contemporary theater, farce,
tale, stories for children.
• What is more, puppet creation is also very
interesting. It allows to elaborate the
building of a character from A to Z: starting
from the choice of the character, then
drawing, choosing materials, modelling and
lots of handcraft, choice of colours and
colouring, pasting, assembling. Afterwards
the creator imagines the puppet’s identity
card and learns to operate it.

5. 2. What can you say about the puppet tradition
in France? Is it alive or disappearing?
• I can assure you that the puppet
tradition is very much alive in
France. The puppet has got a few
homes in our country: Lyon with
“Guignol” – a most famous type
of glove puppet.

6. Amiens, a region of Picardie has got
“Lafleur” – a rod-and-string puppet
(above). We’ve also got Polichinelle , a
wooden muppet which came from Italy
(on the left)

7. • The puppet tradition has known a great revival since the creation of the puppet
theater world festival in 1972 in Charleville-Mézieres and the founding of the
international puppet institute ESNAM (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la
Marionnette) in 1987.
• Innovative pedagogics focusing on the actor-puppeteer is evolving, which takes
into account the developments of the contemporary puppet theater.
• The year 1996 sees the inauguration of Villa d’Aubilly, a place of residence for
researchers and creators. A great number of theater, dance and circus
companies in France as well as other countries use the puppet. Therefore, the
puppet hasn’t lost its importance.

8. 3. Are there any activities to be carried out in order to
maintain this tradition alive?
• The best way to keep this tradition alive is for everyone to go and
see the puppet theater plays, in our region we have a rich and
varied program of puppet events. We must be aware of the fact
that this art is not reserved to the young audience. Puppet plays
will inspire the theater goers to create and play with puppets at
school, at home, at workshops open to all public in cities.

9. 4. How could puppets be integrated into programs and syllabuses
of education in order to build a bridge between the past and the
present?
• We could tackle different topics in history of France and
Europe from the viewpoint of “Guignols” (glove puppets).
Guignol, a hero originating from Lyon, who was born in the
19th century, was a manservant . All these characters
invented by man retrace great historical events. The first
traces of puppet tradition takes to antiquity. Therefore
puppets offer plenty of openings to treat historical themes.