Toy theater: Difference between revisions

The original toy theaterstheatres were mass-produced replicas of popular plays, sold as kits that people assembled at home, including stage, scenery, characters and costumes. They were printed on paperboard, available at English playhouses and commercial libraries for "a penny plain or two pence coloured." Hobbyists often went to great pains to not only hand-colorcolour their stages, but to embellish their toy theatertheatre personae with bits of cloth and tinsel; [[tinsel print]] characters could be bought pre-tinselled, or a wide range of supplies for home tinselling could be bought. Just as the toy-sized stages diminished a play’splay's scale, their corresponding scripts tended to abridge the text, paring it down to key characters and lines for a shorter, less complicated presentation.

In the first half of the 19th century, more than 300 of London’sLondon's most popular plays saw the issue as toy theaterstheatres. Publishers sent artists to the playhouses of [[Georgian era|Georgian]] and early-[[Victorian era|Victorian]] London to record the scenery, costumes and dramatic attitudes of the greatest successes of the day. The Atheatre free seat wasmanagement often provided to these artists bywith thea theatrefree managementseat, as the toy theatre sheets were excellent free advertising.<ref>George Speaight. ''Juvenile Drama (the History Of The English Toy Theatre) (1946)''</ref>

Stage theater of the early 19th century had been based more on spectacle than on depth of plot or character, and these characteristics lent themselves effectively to the format of toy theater. Toward the end of the 19th century, European popular drama had shifted its preference to the trend of [[Realism (arts)|Realismrealism]], marking a dramaturgical swing toward psychological complexity, character motivation and settings utilizingusing ordinary three-dimensional scenic elements. This trend in stage theater did not make an easy conversion to its toy counterpart, and with the fanciful dramas of 50fifty years prior being out of fashion, the toy theaters that remained in print fell into obsolescence.

Despite its fall in popularity, toy theater remained in the realm of influential artists who championed its resurgence. In 1884 British author [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] wrote an essay in tribute of toy theater’stheater's tiny grandeur entitled “Penny"Penny Plain, Twopence Coloured”Coloured" in which he extolled the virtues of the dramas supplied by [[Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop|Pollock's]].<ref>[http://spitalfieldslife.com/2009/12/17/penny-plain-tuppence-coloured/ Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop on the Spitalfields Life website -– 17 December 2009]</ref><ref>[http://craftsmanship.net/the-rise-and-fall-of-toy-theatre/ The Rise and Fall of Toy Theatre -– Craftsmanship Magazine -– 6 December 2015]</ref> Other children’schildren's authors like [[Lewis Carroll]] and [[Hans Christian Andersen]] also dabbled in toy theater, as did [[Oscar Wilde]]. The brothers [[Jack Butler Yeats|Jack]] and [[William Butler Yeats]] both used toy theaters as mock-ups for their work in art and stagecraft. In the 20th century toy theater became a tool for the [[avant-garde]], messed with by [[Futurism|Futuristfuturist]] founder [[F.T. Marienetti]] as well as [[Pablo Picasso]]. Film directors like [[Ingmar Bergman]] and [[Orson Welles]] would use toy theaters as staging grounds for their cinematic masterpieces, and [[Laurence Olivier]] even made a toy theater of his film version of ''[[Hamlet (1948 film)|Hamlet]]'', mass-produced with a little paper cutout of himself in the starring role. But after its second wave boom, toy theater fell into a second recession, replaced in the 1950s, by a different box in people’speople's sitting rooms that needed no live operator and whose sets, characters, stories and musical numbers were beamed in electronically from miles away to be projected on the glass of a cathode ray tube: [[television]].

Toy theater has been enjoying a revival in recent decades. Collectors and traditionalists perform restored versions of Victorian plays while experimental puppeteers push the form’sform's limits, adapting the works of [[Isaac Babel]] and [[Italo Calvino]], as well as that of unsung storytellers, friends, neighbors, relatives, and themselves. Contemporary toy theater may utilizeuse any available technology and cover any subject, and numerous international toy theater festivals occur regularly throughout the Americas and Europe, attracting many well-known actors, musicians and authors to their stages.

* A toy theater isappears featured atnear the beginningend of [[IngmarThe Bergman]]'sRailway award-winningChildren 1982(1970 film)|''The Railway Children''[[Fanny and(1970 Alexanderfilm)]]''.

* Set Designerdesigner [[Heidi Landesman]] based her designs for the 1991 musical'' [[The Secret Garden (musical)|The Secret Garden]]'' on toy theatres.<ref>[[Theatre Crafts]] magazine Oct. 1991 p. 42</ref>

* [[Julie Taymor]] used toy theater puppets in a scene for the 2002 film ''[[Frida (2002 film)|Frida]].''

* In the 2011 [[horror and terror|horror]]-themed [[video game]], ''[[Shadows of the Damned]]'', players battle against a demon in a toy theater like screen with characters appearing as toy theater puppets for the level.

*[http://archives.nypl.org/the/21804 Arthur Weyhe toy theatre collection, 1812-18951812–1895], held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, [[New York Public Library for the Performing Arts]]