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Critiquing Puppet Plays-What’s That?

One of the things that helped improve my puppetry the most is called critiquing. Critiquing is when someone watches your performance and gives hints, helps, and suggestions to help you improve.

The first team my wife and I worked with had a director who was a stickler for details. He didn’t work the puppets, but expected quality from us. As we practiced, he regularly called out things to do.

• “Priscilla, you’re sinking…get back up.”
• “Bernie, stop leaning on the stage.”
• “Skip, keep your mouth closed when not speaking.”

Those instructions were fine for him; he wasn’t the one working the puppet. When your arm is tired, the last thing you want someone to tell you is to stop leaning on the stage or get your puppet up, but we listened and followed his directions.

The result of his critiquing was quality puppet programs. I learned more about proper puppetry in six weeks with him than in all the seminars I’ve attended combined. His teaching wasn’t just theory, it was practice, and that practice wasn’t easy.

Now, I’m the director with a team of my own. I’m the one hearing “Do we have to do this play? My arm is tired.” My natural tendency is to give in and say we’ll do it later, but I know we won’t have quality if we give in every time our arms are tired.

When I hear the complaints about arms being tired, I know that strengthening and conditioning is taking place. Muscles are being built and strengthened. So my answer is, “Yes we need to do it again. Let’s go.”

Our team is made up of Middle Schoolers, so I don’t push them quite as hard as I was pushed as an adult. But in the six or seven months we’ve been together as a team, I’ve seen notable improvement in their skills.

Critiquing helps build quality into your puppet team when done properly. The better the quality of your team, the better the quality of your programs and the greater impact you can make on the audience. But it needs to be done properly.

My next couple of posts will cover how to critique properly.

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