Re/shaping the other: Puppetry as phenomenology and the ethics of representation

Scholars such as Steve Tillis, Wanda Strukus and Paul Piris have already highlighted the need for a phenomenological approach to puppet theatre but have generally conducted their analysis from the subjective viewpoint of the audience. This paper considers my short puppetry piece Chang and Eng and Me (and Me), in which the practice of puppetry becomes an active site of phenomenological investigation, considering this from the subject position of the puppeteer. Drawing on Emmanuel Lévinas’ Ethics of the other and my own practice as a puppeteer and theatre-maker, I argue that a practice of puppetry-as-phenomenology offers unique tools through which we might apprehend the other, and in doing so grapple with pressing contemporary issues of violence and representation. This paper is supported by an extract from the work itself, which is available online: https://vimeo.com/wattleanddaub/cemmextract