PORTRAIT PUPPETS
-A DRAMATIC INNOVATION
CURRENT OPINION
Published by CURRENT LITERATURE PUBLISHING CO.
WM. H. WISE, President
FRED DOLAN, Secretary and Treas.
50 West 47th Street, New York City
CONTENTS for APRIL 1923

Photo: Kadel & Herbert A PIERROT AND HIS PUPPET REPLICA Showing Hamilton Condon, puppeteer and dancer of the Greenwich Village Follies, and the puppet made in his image by Lilian Owen.

PEOPLE have had their portraits done in oil, in water-color, in ink, pastel, in clay and marble, or been photographed, but it has remained for Lilian Owen, of New York, to introduce the idea of portraits done in puppets. Imagine seeing an exact replica of yourself about two feet high, walking, bowing and gesticulating, with the added touch of drollery which is a puppet possession.

A number of prominent stage people have had these unique portraits made of them-here a miniature Irene Franklin, singing her famous "redhead" song; there an Al Herman telling funny stories in black-face, carrying a large cigar; here a Ted Lewis with his saxophone, which the puppets played with humorous mimicry of its original; there an Ada Forman with aloof picturesqueness caught with startling veracity in the puppet which imitated her Javanese dances. James Watts, the eccentric female impersonator, has, among others, been puppeted. Miss Owen recently has made portraits of Paderewski and Harry Lauder.

Hettie Louise Mick, in The Drama, says that in presenting her early productions to audiences Miss Owen felt the need of an introduction by which the usual shock to human beings in the auditorium of adjusting themselves to the puppet world could be alleviated. It was to meet this need that she made her first puppet in likeness to a specific human being. Hamilton Condon, a clever dancer, and puppeteer of the Greenwich Village Follies, was at that time a member of her company. Dressed in the world-old costume of Pierrot, he appeared before the audience in front of the puppet curtain, with a few dance poses, banging a Chinese gong of musical tone, and pointing to the puppet stage with an air of mystery, hinting at the delights to come. He then dived through the proscenium opening, and for a moment all was suspense; then out walked a puppet, his exact image, and made an appropriate ventriloqual speech. The close likeness can be seen in the accompanying photograph.

Miss Owen, in telling how she conducts her "sittings" for these portraits, says that "if the portrait is to be the likeness of one in stage make-up he comes to my studio and dons his makeup and takes various characteristic poses while I model the general facial likeness in clay. After I have got the facial likeness and caught an impression of the character of the person it is a comparatively simple matter to carry out the portrait in the actual making and dressing of the puppet."
Miss Owen holds the puppet record for New York production, having had four separate groups of puppets showing in as many different theaters on Broadway during the holidays. Her puppet of Jackie Coogan, handled and spoken for by Lael Corya, of the Stuart Walker Company, delighted many audiences, of grown-ups and children during the last Christmas holidays.