The Highs and Lows of Puppet Shows

By C.J. Hirschfield

Our puppet-theater director, Randal Metz, is also a respected historian of puppets and puppetry. Recently, while researching the history of puppeteers in California, he came across an article in the Puppetry Journal – the quarterly magazine of the Puppeteers of America – that caught his eye. It wasn’t about puppets or puppeteers: It was about shoes. And not just any shoes: the special footwear used by some height-challenged puppeteers to make them tall enough to do their job.

Puppeteers' shoes suggested by Nick LeFeuvre, via the Puppetry Journal

At Fairyland’s Storybook Puppet Theatre, for example, if you don’t happen to be between 5 feet, 6 inches and 5 feet, 10 inches tall, you can just forget about being a puppeteer for our hand and rod puppet shows. If you’re at the shorter end of this spectrum, you’ll need to put on 4-inch platform shoes that allow you to lift your arms high enough to do the job. And that’s easier said than done, given all the movement that has to take place behind the scenes.

If you’re over 5 feet 10, your head would be prominently featured in the show, and that just wouldn’t be right. Randal is exactly 5 feet 10, and so our puppet-theater proscenium is set to that “magic” height.

Back in 1973, Nick LeFeuvre – a puppeteer in Monterey who also created many beautiful puppets for Fairyland – recommended to us the homemade wooden height-adding shoes shown in the illustration. Since then, we’ve found more fashion-forward companies that have supplied better, more comfortable shoes.

Even so, three out of our seven current puppeteers also need to stand on a 2-inch platform to attain the right stature. “If I told them they were too short, they’d be very disappointed,” Randal said. “The shows are often the high point of their day. They love it when children recognize them in the park.” Indeed, our puppeteers are the equivalent of movie stars to the younger set.

 

On average, five of the seven shows we present each year feature hand or rod puppets; the remaining shows employ marionettes, which are manipulated from above, not below. Randal told me that hand or rod puppets are used for shows that require sensitivity and subtlety. Marionettes are better for showing off costumes and scenery—in other words, the spectacles.

Randal Metz and Atessa Shahkar need no extra height to perform "Why Mosquitoes Buzz in Our Ears" (through July 12)

So what do those 4-inch-heel shoes look like? Ugly and strange would be the answer, except for some our former art director discovered online, which are hip and trendy. One pair is no longer in use, which is a good thing, since it looks and probably feels like a torture device. Another pair is a throwback to the disco era. Yet another pair is a custom job done by a former employee who combined parts of two different shoes with industrial epoxy for an unattractive but very stable pair of puppetry shoes.

Shoes worn by our shorter puppeteers while performing. Photo: Jacqui June Whitlock

I don’t mean to shatter any illusions, but sometimes guys have had to wear the female pair of shoes if they were the only ones that fit.

So the next time you’re at the park, enjoying the shows at America’s longest-running puppet theater, think of the bravery and sacrifice of the young puppeteers among us for whom height is, unfortunately, destiny.
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C..J. Hirschfield has served for 16 years as executive director of Children's Fairyland, where she is charged with the overall operation of the nation's oldest storybook theme park.