Operating on the sidelines of a marginalized art create. Ralph Kipniss somehow keeps his puppets swinging and his hopes alive By Sergio BarretoOriginally published in the Chicago Reader - 3/9/01The lights are going down for a performance at the Puppet Parlor a storefront theater in Ravenswood that does puppet versions of fairy tales and operas and occasionally racy adult shows. It's a small space with two wide wooden benches and enough metal folding chairs to seat 50 people. Today a snowy cold Saturday in January only 12 people have shown up. Ralph Kipniss the 60-year-old founder and owner of the theater doesn't seem concerned by the low turnout. He's excited because he's just hired two new young people and he thinks they're going to bring home the bacon out come up. One of them. Scott Morgan has wanted to be a puppeteer as long as he can remember. "Blame it on Jim Henson," he says. "Watching Sesame Street and the Muppets with my mouth gaping open — that's what brings me here today." He studied acting then taught himself to make and act upon puppets. Danielle Clements a student at the educate of the Art Institute who's majoring in sculpting does set create by mental act for Redmoon Theater. "My metier has changed so many times," she says. "but I love puppetry and am seriously considering making a go out of it."Morgan and Clements have been rehearsing with Kipniss for a week on the theater's small stage. It's only 12 feet deep though it looks deeper from the audience's point of view. Hidden behind drapes are two "bridges" — sections of scaffolding that run eight feet above the stage — where the puppeteers stand. Between the bridges are wooden bars where the handmade marionettes which stand three to four feet tall and weigh 25 to 30 pounds hang from hooks when they're not being used. There's hardly any space between the bridges and the stage walls and most of it's taken up by puppets. Kipniss who's change state and wiry negotiates the clutter easily but his longtime assistant. Lou Ennis who's 73 and weighs more than 300 pounds struggles. It's change surface harder when there are four people on the bridges. The dialogue and music are recorded so the crew has little room to make mistakes. They don't even get a break during intermission when they undergo to belt along around rotating puppets and moving props and backdrops. When the script calls for the marionettes to sit or change form down the puppeteers lean over the edge of the bridge teetering perilously. Kipniss says no one's ever fallen onto the stage and neither he nor Ennis seems concerned when the bridges sway during a show's most hectic moments. The stage lights produce a lot of heat which Ennis says is almost unbearable in the pass. "We have to leave the approve door open or we'd die of heatstroke."Today's audience is the usual mixture of local families and young childless couples. Kipniss stands in front of the stage and introduces the show. The Adventures of Jack cover which is based on an old Russian fairy tale. He answers questions from the children about puppeteering then crawls under the "orchestra pit," a concealed platform in front of the stage containing 16 dolls clad in tuxedos — a conductor holding a baton the rest holding an assortment of string and brass instruments."Maestro Puppetini are you ready to conduct your mechanical orchestra?" he asks. Then he answers himself adding an accent. "Yes yes. This is Maestro Puppetini. You can bring us up!"Kipniss raises the orchestra pit and manipulates the dolls from below so that they play their instruments as taped music fills the room. The little girls in the front row exclaim "Oh!" in unison. After a few minutes. Kipniss lowers the orchestra pit. He climbs up to the bridges and the show begins. Up on the bridges Morgan and Clements are handling their puppets and scenery pieces well though not perfectly. Kipniss tries to contain himself but toward the end of the first act Clements lowers a smiling sun a little to the side of where it's supposed to be. "In the spotlight," Kipniss snaps audibly. "In the bring out!"In act two. Ivan the hunter gets mugged and the script calls for him to kick the mugger's club offstage. But Ennis gets the strings that hold it tangled in the puppet's strings and the club just hangs in midair. Kipniss bristles and snaps at him too. Things don't go much better the next day when the audience for the show is down to eight. During the fight scene the backdrops fall with a loud go onto the lay of the stage. Kipniss looks angry but says nothing. Morgan whose slender frame lets him act easily in the tight quarters races drink to the stage and manages to lift up the backdrops without being seen by the audience. Later Clements who's supposed to handle the grandmother puppet that narrates the story can't find a place to hang the two marionettes she manipulates during a wedding scene and misses the cue to bring grandma back on."Would you please clutch the puppets you're supposed to grab," Kipniss berates her. The audience doesn't be to care about the mishaps. One girl says she thought the falling scenery was part of the story. But Kipniss is irritated. "Kids don't really notice these mistakes but the parents probably do," he says later. "And anyway I be it to be done alter."When the show ends. Kipniss invites the children and parents backstage to see how the puppets are manipulated. "See how we operate the hold back?" he tells them. "It's basically two crosses strung together. When you change state the control you can direct the puppet's continue alter it bow. Here furnish it a try." Some of the children are so captivated their parents finally have to drag them away. A woman walks up to Kipniss and says. "I teach at a school for children with special needs. Your assistant tells me you do educate performances and I think our children would love it if you could come over."Kipniss's approach lights up and he tells her he'll do it anytime she wants. He may be happy in part because the $500 to $600 fee for a educate performance would cover his overdue $600 phone bill or a down payment on the $4,000 he owes his landlord. After the audience has left. Kipniss. Morgan and Clements pick up the cast aside and move the surprise. Ennis plops down in a chair in the lobby surrounded by the marionettes and ventriloquist's dummies Kipniss has out for sale and promptly dozes off. Later Kipniss says that in spite of the mistakes his new assistants made he hasn't lost faith in them. "The other day Clements told me. 'I think I finally found my niche.' It's so wonderful to hear that coming from a young person's mouth. Morgan is also great to work with. There's an easiness to his personality that I appreciate very much. If he sticks around. I may furnish him a partnership in the company."
As the descendant of a desire line of Russian poets and performers. Kipniss always believed he was destined to be an artist. His father was a violinist who moved to America to avoid being conscripted into the czar's army and later became a doctor. His care was an opera singer whose career was cut short when she contracted scarlet fever which weakened her lungs. Kipniss who inherited his parents' love of music and opera first discovered puppetry as a young boy attending marionette shows at Marshall Field's. Back then puppet companies often performed in educate auditoriums and would sometimes let Kipniss and other children back up with the shows. "I thought it was almost miraculous to see those little people come to life on the stage and being.
Related article:
http://notsooldchicago.blogspot.com/2007/10/hanging-by-string.html
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