Appeal Of Puppets Endures In France
PARIS — The children hurried with their parents toward a jewel-box puppet theater in Luxembourg Gardens, the popular park at the center of Paris.
Around 40 small spectators, ages 2 to 8, clambered into a brightly lit hall with black walls and red leather benches that faced a miniature stage. Françis-Claude Desarthis, 73, the theater’s owner, ambled down the aisles, swinging a brass bell to signal the start of the show.
“Silence!” cried a 4-year-old girl, raising a finger to her lips. “Guignol is coming!
Mr. Desarthis, who had slipped behind the stage, pulled a 90-centimeter tall wooden puppet with arched eyebrows, cherry-red cheeks and a brown coat on his arm. Guignol, a talkative, impulsive character, was instantly recognizable to the crowd.
Guignol defeats bad guys — on this day, an evil French chef — and defends the oppressed. On a starry set with Montmartre and the Eiffel Tower painted into the background, he dispensed justice to other wooden marionettes as the children cheered.
“The kids are completely transfixed,” said Patrice Seme, 54, who had brought his grandchildren, ages 2 and 4, to the Théâtre des Marionnettes du Luxembourg, one of the oldest in Paris. “You can’t get this from an iPhone.”
The timeworn art of French marionette theater continues to capture minds and hearts in this country. About 600 marionette companies operate in France, with the biggest concentration of theaters found in parks around Paris. Many are run by the descendants of marionettists. Mr. Desarthis began learning from his father at age 6.
From Cinderella to Gnafron, a poor shoemaker, puppets in elaborate costumes animated by hand, string or stick keep audiences of every age rapt. They sing familiar songs, defy authority and confront life’s dramas.
Mr. Desarthis’s atelier near the Luxembourg Gardens is filled with 2,500 Guignol figures, from chimney sweeps to poodles, that he has fashioned over the decades. He also paints the sets, records voices and arranges special effects on 80 projectors.
Mr. Desarthis was inspired by his father, who built Paris’s first standalone puppet theater in 1933. Back then, the Luxembourg Gardens swarmed with three times as many visitors. “There were almost no cars, and people didn’t leave on vacations and holidays,” he said. “Le tout Paris went there, and every puppet show was packed.”
These days, Mr. Desarthis said, children have more distractions. “But once they come inside my theater, they have a direct interaction with the Guignols, and they forget about all that.”
He slipped his hand into a floppy piece of brown fabric topped with a wooden ball. Suddenly, Guignol sprang up, waving his arms and pointing around the theater.
“People don’t understand how much of an art it is, to make a puppet come to life,” Mr. Desarthis said. “The magic is in the wrist.”
The marionette took on a life of its own in the 17th century, when characters were aimed at adults. The most popular was Guignol, created in 1808.
Guignol struck a chord among the working class. He railed against misery and injustice, mocked authority and beat puppets who harassed the poor. The message was so pointed that Napoleon III briefly censored the plays.
“People identified with Guignol,” said Lucile Bodson, the former director of the International Institute of Marionettes. “He entered the popular culture and gave them power to express themselves against the powerful.”
These days, Guignol is a toneddown version of his former self.
“It’s the tension between good and evil, and that justice rewards the good,” Mr. Desarthis said.
He stepped backstage to prepare for another show. As a new group of children toddled in, a ballad about the puppeteer played on a video.
“He’s hot, and his arms hurt,” the song went. “But he makes the children laugh. What a beautiful thing, my friends, to be a child forever!”