Punch & Judy

Punch and his wife, ludy, the popular British marionette and puppet characters, date back to the character of Pulcinella from the 16th-century Italian Commedia dell'Arte. Punch and ludy follow a set formula and the audience provides opportunities for improvisation performed with a transportable booth stage known as a fit-up. Punch and ludy present grotesque slapstick comedy that juxtaposes stock characters that are known and understood across generations and cultures.

Puppet theatre became a venue where distinct national sensibilities related to humor, wit, and satire emerged. Pulcinella (Italy), Kasperl (Germany/Austria), Kasparek (Czech Republic), Polichinelle (France) and Petrushka (Russia) are so imbedded in their collective national consciousnesses that they have been adopted into adult and children's play like other historic fictional characters from Shakespeare and Pilgrim's Progress. Punch, the British trickster character, exhibits characteristics of the English court jester, and dons a jester's motley. He is a hunchback with a hooked nose and a jutting chin. In professional puppet shows, the character Punch, manipulated by the right hand of a single puppeteer, known as a Professor, remains on stage for the duration of the performance. The other puppet characters, performed by the Professor's left hand, appear one by one, acting-out slapstick comedy with sausages. The character of Punch engages in backchat with a human performer in the audience who attracts a crowd and then collects money at the end of performances. Punch's distinctive squawking voice is achieved with a swazzle (consisting of two pieces of metal that hold a strip of tissue paper that vibrates) positioned in the back of the Professor's mouth.

A traditional and popular English puppet show, Punch and Judy puppets perform in a booth in Dorset, England.

The character of Punch was derived originally from the Commedia dell'Arte figure Pulcinella, and was introduced in England as a puppet play in 1662. The Italian character of Pulcinella was also a hunchback with a long crimson nose, who generally wore white clothes with a black mask and cloak (uniting the opposites of life and death) along with a three cornered cap. Pulcinella, as a trickster character, was a rascal, who presented an archetype of humanity with its contradictions.

He can be vicious and crafty—he physically beats people—but his main defense is to feign ignorance to what is going on around him. With Pulcinella, the peculiar voice serves to make him stand apart from the other stock characters. In the British puppet theatre, Punch introduces himself and is then bitten on the nose by the dog named Toby. His wife ludy gives him the Baby to nurse, and when it cries, Punch throws it into the audience. [Page 585]Judy hits Punch, so he kills her, and is arrested by the Constable. Punch gets sentenced to hanging by Jack Ketch, but then tricks Ketch into stringing himself up on his own nose. Punch always outsmarts the Devil (or sometimes a Crocodile) after a battle, and kills Death.

Punch and Judy stimulated British puppetry during the late-18th century, when it became popular street theatre at fairs and seaside resorts. As early as 1800, European toy catalogs included puppets, gloved puppets, marionettes, and shadow figures purchased for home play. By the early 1830s, elaborate lithographed paper and picture sheet theatres were manufactured for use, but were enjoyed by adults more than children.

...