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PHENOMENOLOGY OF A PUPPET THEATRE: CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE ART OF JAVANESE WAYANG KULIT. By Jan Mrázek. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2005; pp. 588. $45.00 paper.
While puppetry has attracted scholarly attention in recent years, and performing objects of every kind appear on Broadway and in avant-garde houses alike, the field of puppetry criticism has yet to define itself fully. Books on puppetry range from short descriptions of traditional forms to more substantial works, often from an anthropological or historical perspective, which may use puppetry as a way of uncovering larger social or political patterns, but can veer quickly away from performance concerns. Some scholars have found the work of the Prague semioticians valuable because of their seminal understanding of puppetry as a unique art rather than merely an inferior form of live-actor theatre. Jan Mrázek's Phenomenology of a Puppet Theatre, a revealing, detailed study of the multiple elements that make up the shadow-puppet tradition of Java and how these function together in performance, also offers scholars a promising alternative method for studying all forms of puppetry. Mrázek's phenomenological approach pushes through the often cumbersome language of semiotics to a more direct description and understanding of puppet performance.
At over five hundred pages, the book might strike some as a prime candidate for a bit of editorial downsizing. But Mrázek's methodical analysis, his attention to every detail of the performance experience, his mulling over particular elements, seeing how each fits with and influences the others, is what affords him the interesting...