L’Epica e il Teatro di Figura Mondiale, edited and presented by Jo Ann Cavallo, is a collection of twelve articles on puppet theater traditions in different regions: Europe, sub-Saharan and North Africa, the Middle East, and East, South, and Southeast Asia. They touch on various problems, from using literary sources to expressing political struggles in the scripts.
Part I starts with Anna Carocci’s research material based on the Carolingian epic and adapted for the traditional Sicilian Opera dei Pupi. It focuses on the exile theme and examines the performance’s traditions and innovations. The following article by Alessandro Napoli is based on the same epic and studies the fate of Rinaldo, whose life served as an “example of social mobility” (42). The texts are richly illustrated with images of the puppets and the backdrops.
Yanna Kor’s research uses the same epic but analyzes a lesser-known Belgian tradition of Liege in its representation. The author explores two plots related to Huon de Bordeaux and Four Sons of Aymon. By examining the dramatization techniques of the published texts, the author studies the transformation of the narrative into the scripts targeting different audiences. Besides textual analysis, Kor observes the characters’ rebellious features and battle participation. Continuing the study of the epic adaptation, Flora Mele examines the role of humor in altering the stories for the eighteenth-century puppet theater, focusing on A. d’Orville’s Don Quichotte Polichinelle, which in turn was based on a comic ballet about the character. Mele concludes that applying a comic element results in a puppet parody.
The book's second part includes two studies of sub-Saharan puppet theater traditions. Elizabeth den Otter’s “The Legend of Biton and Faaro: A Reinterpretation of a Creation Myth from the Epic of Bamana Segu Performed with Puppets and Masks in Mali” gives an overview of regional puppetry. She points out the comic elements of the performances, including their social criticism. The research focuses on the Bamana Segu presentation, in which masquerade-like performances include masks and large rod puppets. The mythical powers of depicted humans, spirits, and local animals are glorified, symbolizing past historical leaders and a variety of local trades. The author sees the performances as remnants of the collective memory of the animistic rituals, which help preserve the regional communities' cultural identity. The other article, Brunhilde Biebuyck’s “A Boastful Man Borne by a Brave Woman: The Mubila Epic of the Lega,” deals with the Democratic Republic of Congo’s epic tales. In the bard Kambara Mubila’s recordings, there is talk about everyday life and also about the mythological adventures of the legendary community founders. Biebuyck examines the themes of struggle for power, rebellion, exile, and war, pointing out women's vital role in the plot.
The peculiar features of puppetry and its role in the Middle East and North Africa are described in the article by Yassaman Khajehi. Its title, “A Fearless Hero: The Puppet in the Socio-Political Context of the Middle East,” specifies the researcher's focus. Describing past and present performances, Khajehi demonstrates puppetry’s influential role in modern-day societies as a unique way to protest social-political pressure. She notices that puppetry is still widespread mass entertainment because its adventure plots and content involve themes of resistance, often humorously expressed.
Two articles in the book’s fourth part present the puppetry of East Asia and characterize the past and present of Japanese theater. Claudia Orenstein’s “Japanese Epic Puppet Tales of New Year” is enriched by illustrations from Ishikawa Prefecture theater. The plots are based on folk stories, mythology, and the Tale of the Heike epic. The distinctive feature is the combination of puppetry with a narrator’s chanting. Orenstein emphasizes the essential role of the theater in strengthening community ties but expresses her concern about the prospects of preserving this important local tradition.
Elizabeth Oyler’s “Shunkan Devil Island: Domesticating Political Exile in the Puppet Play ‘Heike Nyogo No Shima'” examines the same epic, Tale of the Heike. However, it focuses on the version created by the eighteenth-century playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon. The play's plot touches on social and political problems and includes the themes of war and exile. Oyler points out the synergy of puppet and kabuki theaters in using the story, though emphasizing the more pronounced closeness of the puppet performance to the original, as compared to the kabuki performance, because of the participation of a chanter and a musician. Thoroughly examining Monzaemon’s adaptation of the epic into the play, Oyler traces the plot development from exploring criticism of despotism and injustices in the caste system into a personal drama story. This motif became prevalent as a result of refocusing the storylines on a more emotional, love-involved psychological choice leading to self-sacrifice.
Two researchers represent South Asian puppetry in the book’s fifth part, which includes articles analyzing performances based on the Ramayana. The first touches on a feature of the play's religious aspect, namely, animism. Matthew Cohen examines the specifics of Indonesian tradition in the epic presentation in Wayang puppet theater. His analysis emphasizes such peculiarities as the involvement of animistic and mythological characters in war and rebellion stories. Cohen concludes that attributing human characteristics to inhuman objects shows their interdependence, stating that Indonesian performances can be considered an expression of animist ontology. The author also mentions a possible modern-day interpretation of the traditional puppet theater: its association with environmental protection activism.
The following article, Kathy Foley’s “Traditional Puppetry, Changing Times: The Ramayana in Indonesian and Malay Puppetry,” explores the performances of Ramayana in different regions. While the author expresses concern about the negative influence of Hindu and Islamic fundamentalism on keeping the tradition alive, she points out the popularity of the epic, specifically the Mahabharata, in the Java region. The article is logically structured with a collation of a “trunk story” with a “branch” one. Foley emphasizes that puppetry art assumes flexibility in its interpretations, which creates numerous versions of the Ramayana scripts while keeping the core plot stable. This makes it possible to compare episodes and supports the observation that the play's content reflects local culture and political and religious issues. The same idea is also included in the last part of the book—the interview discussing the Ramayana plot on Delhi’s stage, namely, the play About Ram. Its director, Anurupa Roy, and Professor Paula Richmond analyze ways to make the epic more appealing to the contemporary audience. In the interview they justify the original performance modification approach, combining shadow and three-dimensional puppets, music, and dance. The script uses the Ramayana’s regional variations, focusing on love and self-sacrifice drama intertwined with the motifs of exile and war.
As stated in the introduction, the goal of the collection is “exploring the epic traditions in popular oral performance” of puppet theaters (8). Each contributor presents original research; some articles are richly illustrated and supplied with numerous quotations and a detailed analysis of the puppet theater performances based on regional epic traditions. The essays embrace all types of puppetries—shadow, rod, marionette, and their combinations—and the research tracks a variety of problems, from the history of a specific regional tradition to the reflection of modern-day events in performances. However, not all the plays analyzed in this book are rooted exclusively in regional epics. Some, instead, are also rooted in other folklore genres and literary sources. One of the essays presents a detailed description of an epic narrative but without exploring its connection to puppetry (the piece on the Mubila epic). The collection includes texts in Italian and French, which will be a challenge for a reader unfamiliar with these languages, who will have to rely only on abstracts for these sections. A wish for the future is to see research articles on puppetry based on epics from other regions, for example, Greece and the Slavic countries.
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[Review length: 1258 words • Review posted on March 3, 2025]