This review originally ran on Green Man Review and appears here in a revised form.
Folkmanis Puppets: The Fiddler (Folkmanis: 2004)
You know already that we collect very cool things here and the Fiddler puppet from Folkmanis that’s looking down upon me from the a bookshelf is no exception. The description on the Folkmanis Web site does it scant justice:
‘Before radios and TV’s, CD’s and MP3′s, if you wanted to hear music, most of the time you had to make it yourself. But if you were lucky, there was a village musician who’d make magic with his fiddle and bow. Make magic of your own with this enchanting Fiddler puppet. Hands enter from under his shirt and inside his sleeves to operate his mouth and/or both arms and fiddle. . .’
The Fiddler is much more magical than that description would suggest. There’s a realness to him that definitely belies his physical nature of being ‘merely’ a soft cloth puppet. He looks very much alive.
Measuring a generous twenty-four inches from the black soft soled shoes with teal stockings to the peasant cap with a feather on it, this is exactly what I’d expect to see in a fiddler puppet. According to Elaine Kollias, he has no back story as such, but instead ‘Judy Folkmanis [co-founder of the company] has always wanted a ‘fortune teller’ in the line. When one of our designers designed the fortune teller, we decided she needed a companion, so the fiddler was born!’ I also noted that he, in the press materials that came with him, had no known ethnicity, so I asked her why: ‘Originally, we called them ‘gypsies’, but figured we better be PC about it, so now they’re the fiddler and fortune teller. While the fiddler was originally a companion piece, his sales have been superior to the fortune teller. That’s about it. . .’ Now I assume that some of you that have visited the Green Man Pub have met Bela, our Balkan violinist who amy or may not be of Hungarian origins? Bela, though older than the youthful looking puppet, bears a remarkable resemblance to him: red curly hair, red moustache, hazel eyes, and colorful clothes including a flowery blouse, vest, and even, when Bela’s feeling particularly colorful, a scarf around the waist like this puppet has.
The best feature of this puppet is those hazel colored eyes which really do look like he’s watching you. (I know — you think I had too much of the mulled cider. I did, but that’s not effecting my perceptions that much.) Those eyes bring him very much to life. He must make a very impressive companion sitting on the lap of a storyteller looking out at the listeners. Far, far too many puppets of this nature have eyes that are as dead as the soul of Charon. Add in that both the bow and fiddle, though not wholly realistic as they too are made of cloth, are fully movable, and, from a storytelling viewpoint, they add immeasurably to the feel of this puppet as a character. Now given that I think Folkmanis produces some of the finest puppets I’ve ever seen, this is no surprise.
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