Since his demise in 1987, Charles Ludlam, a key Þgure in the N.Y. avant- garde theatre during the'70s and '80s, playwright, performer, author, teacher, and fearless leader of the Ridiculous Theatre has become an increasingly important inþuence on continuing experimental theater efforts of the Absurdist strain. Since Ludlam credited his exposure at age 6 to a Mineola, N.J.fairground Punch & Judy show, as the start of his lifelong quest for"supreme" theatre, his own Obie-recognized Punch show, produced for children in Manhattan on West 11th St. starting in 1975 is worth remembering.
In the same year Ludlam published his "Manifesto:Ridiculous Theatre, Scourge of Human Folly" in The Drama Review. ** His production used a collection of hand-puppets, some antiques, from various sources. These Þgures became part of the collection at the City College of N.Y.C. at Kingsborough on Staten Island. They've sinc been transferrered to the Ballard Institute collection associated with the University of Connecticut at Storrs. His script was based on traditional sources, but unlike his other pieces, this ouevre was never published. Charles was the chief puppeteer. As he writes, "(The show) was an orgy - an acting addict's orgy. It's an illusionary scale, so I feel like a ghost. With hand puppets, it's your hand that's acting. Your hand becomes a metaphor for the whole human body. The puppet is a purely theatrical creation; almost the most pure expression of the performer in the sense that the mis en scene, or scenic element, and the performer are one. The puppet has unlimited expressive possibilities. What we today call special effects is basically puppetry. All special effects in Þlm is based on either double exposure or puppetry. These techniques really originated in the theatre - not double exposure, of course, but the idea of extending the human being's expressive possibilities through the use of puppets" (Actually, the separation of the vocal performances from the physical seen in traditional oriental theatre, including the Bunraku, or even the English "ballad opera" with singers to the side, might be taken as a kind of "double exposure". WJS )
Ludlam continues. "(Puppetry) is part of my vocabulary as an artist Puppets keep their looks forever. I started doing children's theatre because I thought it would be fun. Not having any children of my own - and I won't - it's a very high experience for them. We draw off each otherI have this opportunity to give children their Þrst theatrical experience. That's a real trust for me - helping create future audiences." (Attempts by his theater to create additional children's shows were not successful, however WJS) "I have since learned that when you do plays for children, you are not really being judged by the children, but their parents" * Amen! Quotes are from "Confessions of a Farceur", an unÞnished manuscript published postumously, edited by the Ridiculous Theatre's business manager, Steven Samuels.
Compared to his "camp" burlesques derived from the styles and genres of the last 200 years of popular theatre, including opera, Ludlam's Punch show was rather traditional, even if his performance was introduced by a "grande dame" puppet claiming to be an exiled member of the Moscow Art Theatre. Ludlam was an omnivorous student of theatrical traditions, particularly the popular commercial stage of the 19th century. But there's an echo of his early encounter with Mr. Punch in each of his 29 published plays: short scenes where the antagonist takes on authority of some sort and wins, temporarily, through frontal assault usually preceded by slyness. "Olde Vice", the Lord of Misrule, survives. Charles received a second Obie for life-time achievement after his death.
**MANIFESTO Ridiculous Theatre , Scourge of Human Folly AIM: TO GET BEYOND NIHILISM BY REVALUING COMBAT Axioms for a theatre for ridicule:
1) If one is not a living mockery of one's own ideals, one has setone's ideals too low. (Orig. You are a living mockery of your own ideals. If not, you have set your ideals too low.)
2) The things.one takes seriously are one's weaknesses.
3) Just as many people who claim a belief in God disprove it withtheir every act, so too there are those whose every deed, though theysay there is no God, is an act of faith.
4) Evolution is a conscious process.
5) Bathos is that which is intended to be sorrowful but because of theextremity of its expression becomes comic. Pathos is that which ismeant to be comic but because of the extremity of its expressionbecomes sorrowful. Some things which seem to be opposites areactually degrees of the same thing.
6) The comic hero thrives on his vices. The tragic hero is destroyedby his virtue. Moral paradox is the crux of the drama.
7) The theatre is a humble materialist enterprise which seeks to produce riches of the imagination, not the other way around. The theatre is an event and not an object. Theatre workers need not blush and conceal their desperate struggle to pay landlords their rents. Theatre without the stink of art.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE: "This is farce not Sunday School. Illustrate hedonistic calculus. Test out a dangerous idea, a theme which threatens to destroy one's own value system. Treat material in a madly farcical manner without losing the seriousness of the theme. Show how paradoxes arrest themind. Scare yourself a bit along the way."
** Chapter 7, "Ridiculous Theatre - Scourge of Folly" Ludlam/Stevens,Theatre Communications Group, NY1992 ISBN 1-55936-042-9 ** The Drama Review Dec.1975 T-68 (Vol.19, #4), pp157-8