Puppetry as an art form

For kids who grew up on Sesame Street, Batibot and other shows with muppets and puppets, watching them is always a magical thing. But for people like veteran puppeteer Juancho Lunaria — more popularly known as Wanlu — puppetry is not just a form of entertainment; it’s an art.

But one kind of puppet is not like the other, explains Wanlu. There’s ventriloquism, which is when you are beside your puppet (also called a “hard figure”) and there is the illusion of you talking to it. There are hand puppets that are manipulated by simple hand movements, and the more complicated types, which have mechanisms inside them that move different parts of the puppet up, down and from side to side. There are levers for different parts — for the mouth, the eyebrows, the hands, and so on. “It seems simple, pero mahirap din ‘yon, how to make him appear live,” says Wanlu, who started doing this seriously in 1988.
One of the most challenging forms of puppetry is when you use a marionette, which is “a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings.” Although he is familiar with and adept in all forms of puppetry, Wanlu finds using a marionette one of the hardest. If you’ve seen the movie The Sound of Music and remember that scene where the children sing The Lonely Goatherd, the puppets they used were marionettes. Wanlu used a marionette when he joined season four of ABS-CBN’s reality show Pilipinas Got Talent. He didn’t get lucky and make it past the first round, but learned a lot from the experience.

“Yung marionettes, ‘yun yung puppets na may tali. Yung nag-o-operate, hindi nagsasalita, sinasabay lang sa music ‘yung galaw ng puppet, and you manipulate it with strings kaya medyo mas mahirap because each string controls a different movement,” he explains.

Wanlu has a Dolphy marionette inspired by the late King of Comedy who passed away in July last year. Wanlu’s Dolphy marionette has at least nine strings, and even has a special animation where a string that is pulled makes his pants fall down to reveal his trademark puruntong shorts.

Wanlu has been doing this for several years now and is considered an expert in the field of puppetry. He is a member of the ASEAN Puppetry Association and has traveled to different parts of Asia for workshops and training. He has also traveled around the country, using the art of puppetry to reach students and teachers and teach them different concepts and values. When he’s not busy doing that, Wanlu earns his keep performing with his puppets at corporate gigs and private events like birthday parties, where they are very much in demand. Puppet masters and magicians of his caliber and training can earn up to P25,000 to P30,000 per appearance.

And like his other colleagues in the field, Wanlu treats his puppets — who are made of different materials like fiberglass, rubber and wood — as almost human. He refers to them by name. In fact, one of the “closest” to him, and one of his favorites, is a boy puppet he named Nicolo. He often uses Nicolo in performances around the country; when they travel abroad, Nicolo has a special Barong Tagalog that was made for him. He wears it as part of Wanlu’s efforts to educate audiences abroad about Filipino customs and culture.
“Ganoon talaga, parang tao sila, parang buhay,” says Wanlu. “We buy them clothes, may lalagyan sila na hard case, sa sasakyan, di mo sila puwedeng iwan, baka mainitan. My puppets even have their own room in my house.”

Wanlu has about 15 puppets, although he sold some of them to a collector a few months ago. The collector saw them on Wanlu’s Facebook page and offered to buy them for a fair price.

He hopes the time will come when puppets and puppetry will really be seen as an art form and educational tool, and not just as something kids can laugh at and be entertained by.

Christine launches 6th children’s book

Christine Babao invites everyone to the book launch of SuperHero Nio, her sixth children’s book on the last day of the 2014 Manila Book Fair, Sept. 21, 5 p.m. at Goodwill Pavilion SMX Convention Center. The book launch is free to the public. For tickets and invites, call Gilbert Nitro at tel. no. 895-8684 (office hours) or e-mail at [email protected].

Her second book, the best-selling Basura Monster, has sold over 100,000 copies. She is the creative director and host of www.parenTIN.tv.