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| Puppet House: Iidabashi | |||
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Down a tiny alley near Iidabashi crossing, there's a little signboard with an image of Punch, that icon of spousal abuse, and the name Puppet House. Climb the stairs to the second floor and you enter a different world: a world of fantasy and fable, folktale and cartoon.
The Puppet House is a marionette shop and museum run by the very friendly Fukazawas. They specialize in original puppets, marionettes, ventriloquist dummies and finger puppets created by European, American and Japanese artists. According to Mr. Takuro Fukazawa, all the marionettes in the store are fully operational - unlike many of the souvenir-style puppets available today which are suitable only for interior decoration. He picks up Greenfly, a leafy sprite by the German artists known as Pendel, to demonstrate. With just a twist of the wrist, the puppet walks, bows and gestures elegantly. "Anyone can master it in a few days," he says, as the Pendel puppets have very sophisticated mechanisms that allow even novices to deftly manipulate them. The puppets on show range in price from 5,000 yen to 600,000 yen. The styles range from traditional Czech and German marionettes of Commedia dell'Arte figures and puppet-show characters to modern manga-influenced Japanese finger puppets or cartoonish American mini-marionettes. There are several classic style Kasparek dolls (the Czech version of Punch from "Punch and Judy"), including a surreal puppet with its head growing beneath its shoulders that looks like it came straight out of Baron Munchausen's tales. American artist Don Becker's miniature marionettes, the cutely grosteque Skeleton Busstop and Blue Monster, come with elaborate background stands, making them look like characters on goth movie sets. The bizarre stone-heads in suits Theodore and T-2 were created especially for Puppet House by Belgian puppeteer Bernard Clair, and are Mini Me versions of their life-size stage counterparts. Young Japanese female artist, the delightfully named Aya*Shi, has a bunch of toothsome "stranjanimal" finger puppets that are both cutesy and unnerving. The shop also hosts occasional exhibitions of puppets in its first-floor gallery space. While the gallery attracts more women than men, it seems that men are more likely to become fascinated with the puppets and turn into serious collectors. by Richard Jeffery |
Puppet House
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