Winds of Change: Seeing Australian Puppetry into the New Century

Back in the mid-1980s, Australia had a healthy Puppetry community, led by the successes of the seven major annually funded companies: the Marionette Theatre of Australia (New South Wales), Handspan Theatre and Polyglot Puppet Theatre (Victoria), Terrapin Puppet Theatre (Tasmania resurrected from the ashes of the Tasmanian Puppet Theatre), Spare Parts Puppet Theatre (Western Australia), Carouselle Theatre Company (South Australia) and Skylark Puppet and Mask Theatre (Australian Capital Territory). These companies were funded by the Australia Council and by state and territory arts-funding bodies. There was also a healthy group of independent, unfunded, small puppetry companies performing the length and breadth of Australia, together with other small companies who enjoyed occasional project funding. It was a time when the artform was being experimented with and explored on many fronts and puppetry also began to emerge across a broader spectrum of the performing arts. It appeared in Music Theatre, for example with Handspan's remarkable Cho Cho San (1984, subsequently remounted and toured by Playbox Theatre and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust and others in 1987-88), and in Dance, with Australian Dance Theatre's Wild Stars (1977). It made a substantial contribution to more mainstream theatre and festival works like Nigel Triffitt's The Fall of Singapore for the Melbourne Spoleto Festival in 1987 remounted by the Sydney Theatre Company in 1995 - and in Cabaret, in shows by the likes of Murray Raines and David Hamilton. The Nigel Triffitt phenomenon of creating large-scale visual works was in full swing, including his critically acclaimed Momma's Little Horror Show (for Tasmanian Puppet Theatre, 1976, and frequently restaged and toured thereafter), secrets (for Handspan, 1983) and Moby Dick (Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, 1990 - also remounted by Sydney Theatre Company in 1998). Triffitt used puppetry and large-scale imagery like no one else; in search of an alternative language, Triffitt composed his extraordinary visual landscapes in order to expand our visual vocabulary and understanding of a particular moment. Many puppeteers began to find that they could make a career in their artform and they had the security of being attached to one of the many funded companies, or working as independent artists securing contracts and commitments from across many areas of the corporate world or schools programming. Theatre in Education, introduced into Australia in the 1970s, became the main new raison d'etre for doing puppetry in schools throughout the 1980s. Puppet companies sought to 'educate school audiences across the whole spectrum about curriculum subjects and wider social issues',1 using puppetry across all techniques through unique theatrical imagery. Companies such as Terrapin, Skylark, Polyglot and Handspan Theatre created a wide range of works that gave opportunity to instruct the young - both primary and secondary students - on such diverse matters as environmental issues, sex education, health education and self-esteem. It was a healthy time for the development of puppetry and puppeteers moved freely from company to company and from project to project. Towards the end of the 1990s, and into the early twenty-first century, we suddenly became aware of a change in the national landscape of the artform. In the space of fifteen years, several of the major national and state-funded companies had ceased to operate - for different reasons - including the Marionette Theatre of Australia, Carouselle, Company Skylark and Handspan Theatre. A number of smaller companies - like the long-serving Paper Bag in Adelaide and the Queensland Marionette Theatre - were also no longer in operation. Many puppeteers increasingly struggled to find work in the industry and were forced into seeking alternative employment outside puppetry. State and federal funding also began to shrink - in real terms and as a proportion of the total quantum of performing arts funding - in favour of newer performance styles from companies working in new circus, physical theatre, contemporary performance and 'hybrid arts'. …