Popular Puppet Theatre in Europe, 1800–1914

The first comparative study in English of all aspects of puppetry in nineteenth-century Europe.

John McCormick and Bennie Pratasik provide a study of all aspects of puppetry in nineteenth-century Europe, including the stages, mechanical workings of the puppets, and the repertoire, covering a full range of countries and cultures. The book contains valuable and rare illustrations of puppets and theatres as well as informative diagrams.Banned, marginalised, tolerated or neglected, puppets were a major form of entertainment of the subordinate classes in the nineteenth century. Showmen travelled from one end of Europe to the other bringing everything from biblical plays to melodramas and variety to audiences who experienced them as their only form of dramatic entertainment. The first study of its kind in English, Popular Puppet Theatre in Europe is less a history than a comparative study, highlighting a significant aspect of social and cultural history from a national and transnational perspective. It examines the showmen, their audiences, the performance context, and the technical and practical aspects of the puppets and their stages.