Censorship

Another of the early Mime Troupe puppet skits had to do with censorship.  A little puppet came out holding a script .... soon the other puppet arrived with a little wooden vaudeville cane to pull the little puppet offstage ... this was carefully crafted so the cane never touched the puppet's neck (NO!  That's wrong!  That might hurt the gentle little puppet) and the puppet would protect his neck with the papers he had rolled into a tube.  Then ... more dialogue which I forget .... the ATTACK!  The Censor puppet grew more alarmed and rose up as if shrieking and shivered as he did in absolute outrage and disgust, and the other little puppet would collapse over the edge of the stage in laughter .... (ha! ha! you're ridiculous, Censor Puppet! Everybody's laughing at YOU now!)

Then ... the near punch and judy duel in the sun ....

The little puppets parried and thrust, vaudeville cane against rolled script, but they'd never hit each other (NO!  That's wrong!  That might hurt the gentle little puppet) but as this was the CENSOR puppet being attacked, he was brushed on the head with the script (to whistle and boing and gong sounds from backstage people) and was almost knocked unconscious by it, and then was struck by surprise he couldn't win this round of the censorship war against the little Actor puppet.  And I think at one point the Actor puppet had little boxing gloves put on his hands so he could continue this battle.  (Little bells like fight bells would sound to bring them back into the ring.)  And he would SWING and the Censor puppet would block his swing with his cane a la Toshiro Mifune and LAUGH an evil little Censor puppet laugh.  And as I recall, as the show evolved the little Censor puppet even for the first time (like Beanie, like when they showed Beanie's legs) HAD A LEG (whoever heard of a hand puppet with a LEG? This was a THEATRICAL BREAKTHROUGH) with a soft little shoe on the foot and kicked like Bruce Lee not just hit but tried to KICK the little Actor puppet below the belt ...  who defended himself with the script because it was WRONG! for even little puppets to do such things that might hurt another little puppet.  But still .... the little Actor puppet had the wind knocked out of him and seemed to be going down for the count (and the audience said OOH!) But it ended up the little Actor puppet won the fight against the Censor.  And at the end, the puppets came out for an encore from behind the little curtains and held hands like stage people do and then thrust their little arms in the air together held high (and they were still a little feisty towards each other, but they eventually worked that out before they disappeared behind the curtain). 

Great show!!