“An actor struggles to die onstage, but a puppet has to struggle to live” explains Adrian Kohler, from Handspring Puppet Co. This quote echoes the unfortunate place of puppetry in theatre in the US. Puppetry is more often dismissed as novelty or sidelined to children’s entertainment. Yet in other parts of the world such as Japan, the master puppeteers of the classical form of Bunraku are honored as living national treasures. In Java, super-star Wayang Kulit puppeteers draw crowds of thousands to all-night performances. In fact almost every culture in the world has some form of puppetry. However, here in the west over the last 60 years, perhaps due to a striving for theatrical realism, we somehow lost our patience for the humble puppet.

Shadow puppet of Dr Jeffries from “Voyage to the Skies,” design by Kate Leitch

Today the mood is changing. Last month’s arrival in New York of “War Horse” from the National Theatre, London is a landmark event. The play follows a young boy who enlists to fight in the First World War to find and bring back his beloved horse that was purchased by the British army. In this human war it is, however, the puppets that are the principal characters; full-size horses made of metal and bamboo crafted by Kohler’s Handspring Puppet company. Each horse is operated by three controllers who collectively create movements from simple breathing to mounted cavalry charges in the heat of battle. Rave reviews, sell-outs each night and standing ovations have caused such a sensation that Steven Spielberg has signed up to make “War Horse” the movie. Predictably Spielberg has turned away from the puppets in favor of real horses, despite his self-confessed fear of them.

Beyond the smash hits of War Horse, Avenue Q or The Lion King, New York is a hotbed of avant-garde puppetry. Recent productions such as Disfarmer by Dan Hurlin and Peter and Wendy by Mabou Mines (now being re-staged at The New Victory Theater, May, 6 to 22) have begun to find new adult audiences. Dan Hurlin was the subject of a new documentary film Puppet by David Soll that follows the puppeteers’ artistic triumphs and commercial perils (hampered in part by an anti-puppet New York Times theater section).

If you’re curious to see for yourself, catch this year’s LABAPALOOZA! festival (St. Ann’s Warehouse, in Dumbo, June, 2 to 5). This adult puppet festival is the product of a nine-month project development at the “puppet lab.” Nine short productions have been developed at the lab that include: Senseless, a murder mystery based in the Helen Keller School for Music; Planet Egg, the adventures of a small electronic device which crash-lands on a planet made of egg; and Voyage to the Skies, an ill-fated balloon flight during the age of eigteenth-century science. This last play is Rockefeller University’s own contribution to the lab created by myself, Kate Leitch, Roman Corfas and Donovan Ventimiglia.