The ERC PuppetPlays project : contribution for a non-linear history of the European theatre

Résumé En

This article is a presentation of the ERC Advanced Grant projectPuppetPlays - Reappraising Western European Repertoires for Puppet andMarionette Theatre (GA 835193). After a short overview of the projectitself, it begins with a definition of puppetry, based on thephenomenon of double vision. Then it explains the choice of thecorpus limitations, describes the variety of the available resources,and underlines the great discrepancy in the amount of materialavailable in the different countries.The article continues with a brief overview of the role played bypuppetry in the wider frame of performing arts: how much can weconsider that puppeteers developed specific repertoires? What kind ofdifferences can be observed between puppet or marionette theatreand actors’ theatre? The answers to these questions differ in aconsiderable way according to the cultural and sociological contexts:sometimes puppet and marionette theatre were the only forms ofperformance allowed, and they acted as substitutes for actors theatre;but sometimes also - and this is increasingly the case since the end ofthe 19th century - these instruments were chosen for their specificexpressive qualities.In a last movement, I emphasize that collecting and analyzing puppetand marionette repertoires brings us to reconsider the generalhistoriography of theatre: firstly, because we bring into the lighttheatrical genres that have been neglected by the historians; andsecondly, because the plays written by the puppeteers, when we lookclosely at them, reveal a stratification of different layers that can beconsidered as a kind of heterochrony ; an alternative construction tosocial time. The forgotten patrimony of puppet and marionettedramaturgy conceals therefore many possibilities for research inhumanities and social sciences.