French Toy Theatre

Toy Theatre in France was also strongly influenced by the German tradition. All the publishers were found in Alsace and Lorraine. Wetzel of Weissenburg published proper Toy Theatre plays, some taken from German originals, these were continued by Burkhardt and Ackermann into the 1920s. However the best known   French Toy Theatre was published by the great publishing company of Pellerin in Epinal. It was very distinctive in style and very French, but for all that rather second rate. The Pellerin sheets were like its other cut-out products, intended to be made, set up and looked at but not performed. There were no Toy Theatre plays as such, only tableaux. The charm was there but it was slow developing. early sheets were small and cramped, the best theatre “Grand Theatre Nouveau” of 1889 was inspired by Schreiber competition and the need to produce something special for an exhibition. One unique feature of the French Toy Theatre was the use of gilding on sheets. A similar series was produced by another publisher, Gengel of Metz.

In the 1950s old Epinal sheets were considered virtually worthless and many were sold off as scrap paper. as years passed printsellers rediscovered them and prices have escalated. This resulted in Pellerin reprinting some of their original Toy Theatre designs. They sold a mixture of old sheets and reprints. Reprinting was done on traditional presses and the colouring using “Heath Robinson” style stencil painting machines. This venture has unfortunately now ceased.

Spanish Toy Theatre

There were two distinct phases to the history of Toy Theatre in Spain. the only common feature is that both occurred in Barcelona.

In the 1870s Paluzie emulated Pellerin in France by producing a series of scenes, figures and stage fronts without plays or scripts. there were influenced by Pellerin and Schreiber designs but had a native Catalonian tinge, Drawing was simple, colouring bold and the overall effect striking.

From 1920 the products of the firm Seix and Barral, Nualart began to replace those of Paluzie. They are far more striking and without doubt the best of the modern school of Toy Theatre. They were a carefully designed and well thought out “Children’s Theatre” which succeeded in selling far beyond Spain. Twenty-two plays were published for a variety of sizes of model theatre. Play titles were a mixture of traditional and modern and included religious themes. The scenes were the most distinctive feature, they were pressed out of colour printed card and consist of a series of cut-scenes with thin colour paper stuck over openings. When a light was placed behind the scenes it was possible to make all sorts of effects possible. the artwork was simple, often impressionist in style. It was a far cry from Victorian melodrama on the Juvenile Drama stage to these scenes set in Art Deco lounges and on the deck of a battleship.

Nuarlart plays were still being sold in the 1960s, but have now become valued collector’s items.

The whole artwork of the Seix and Barral publications is still available in book form however from Harry Oudekerk on a “print on demand” basis. The hardcover book has 206 pages and features all the figures, scenes (both as composite images to show what they looked like when made up and as separate sheets), playbook covers and a synopsis of the story in German and English.

American Toy Theatre

Toy Theatre was never widespread in the USA. Selz’s American Boys Theater, published by Scott and Company of New York in the 1870s was a reprint of the plays published in England by the “Boys of England” magazine.

This series was followed by a colour printed theatre published by Singer of New York in 1883. This featured traditional European fairy tales and stories from American history such as “Pocahontas” and “The Battle of Bunker Hill”.

Further good quality colour printed plays appeared from McLoughlin Brothers who also published numerous paper toys and cut out sheets. The firm was still selling Toy Theatres after the first world war.

At that time good quality modern plays appeared in the “Delineator” magazine. Each play consists of simple theatre front designed to fit into a shoe box, two scenes, set pieces and characters on a single page. The designer was Robert McQuinn.

Other similar productions appeared, some inspired more by Hollywood than the theatre and designed as children’s toys. Latterly Walt Disney became a Toy Theatre publisher. Plays appeared in his magazines and his artists also designed the “Snow White Theatre” which had the same mounted front design as a classic Pollock stage.

Czech Toy Theatre

 

Theatre by A.Storch and Son of Prague, 1924.

In “Toy Theatres of the World”, Peter Baldwin notes that was aware of “large proscenia together with corresponding backcloths and wings” that, “date mostly from the beginning of the (20th) century.” He also noted that, “there is very little information on publishers, owing to an absence of printed names on the bottom of the sheets.”

The late Frank Bradley kindly gave me a photo (see above) of a Czech “Toy Theatre” in his possession. It was published by A.Storch of Prague in 1924.

On a trip to Prague I easily found the old shop of A.Storch on the Old Town Square. Today it is a souvenir shop but if it was a Toy Theatre shop at one time then it must be the best surviving example in Europe!

Enquiries led me from this shop to a chain of antique print shops in the city whose owners kindly supplied information. Using this and material from Czech sources I have finally cleared up some mysteries!

As any visitor to Prague will realise, there is a strong living tradition of puppetry in the Czech Republic.

In the nineteenth century Prague was the capital of Bohemia, a part of the Austrian Empire, so it is not surprising that Toy Theatre material was “imported” from Germany, Austria and France.

In 1894 Karel Stapfer published the first Czech Toy Theatre prints in Prague, these had scenes size 30 x 21 cm. Unfortunately the entire stock was burnt in a warehouse fire so native production was further delayed.

Although other Toy Theatre prints followed the puppet tradition forced its way in. The unique Czech “Family Theatre” resulted from this. These theatres used large “Toy Theatre style” stages and scenery, which were printed by colour lithography and published in large numbers in a number of series. Instead of using sheets of characters they substituted small marionettes suspended on wire, the larger ones having strings as well to control movement. Many well-known artists contributed to these designs and the stages developed a highly decorative and distinctive style. The Family Theatre was an important part of Czech culture in the early twentieth century.

 One of the earliest to adopt this style was Anthony Muenzberg, who began production in 1911. When he died in 1950 the Communist regime would not let his son take over the business and all the production facilities were scrapped. However in 1988 Milos Kasal began to sell replicas of Muenzberg stages, scenery, marionettes and props. This has now expanded to a substantial range (see www.loutky-kasal.cz). Ironically I had already purchased several of his delightful marionettes in Prague, without realising the Toy Theatre connection.

Toy Theatre lives on in the Czech Republic albeit in a “morphed” form. Two other spin-offs still exist as popular children’s toys. These are the little magnetic theatres and the wooden theatres that use small marionettes or cardboard figures suspended by wires from above.

So the A.Storch stage that Frank Bradley owned was designed for the Family theatre not the Toy Theatre. It is easy to see now  how this confusion arose.

 

 

Toy theatres in other countries

England, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark and the USA all had a tradition of “Toy Theatre” sustained over a number of years. We also know of more “transient” publications from a few other countries as follows. Further information on this topic would be very welcome.

Italy

There were no less than six publishers recorded in Milan between 1860 and c.1920. The publications were in the French style, i.e. theatres to set up and look at rather than perform. Some sheets were direct copies.

Ireland

Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957), the brother of Willam Butler Yeats, the great Irish poet, was also a noted playright and artist. He was born in London but educated in Sligo and Dublin and came from an old Irish family. He was a Toy Theatre “enthusiast” and progressed from collecting and performing the plays of Webb and Pollock to writing and drawing his own plays. From this he later became a writer for the full size theatre.

Three of his Toy Theatre plays, “James Flaunty”, “The Treasure of the Garden” and “The Scourge of the Gulph” were published by Elkin Mathews in London in book form between 1901 and 1903. Although these were published in London and influenced by the English Toy Theatre, culturally they belong to Ireland.

Japan

A tradition of “paper drama” (Kamishibai) has existed in Japan since the 12th Century! Men travelled the country with a miniature stage and told stories using a series of wooden boards with pictures that were revealed in turn, a bit like a modern slide show. This art form has survived and is sometimes called “Japanese Toy Theatre” although there were no publishers as such.

During the Edo period in the eighteenth century a technique was developed for making perspective scenes from paper. This developed into commercial publications that can be seen as something close to European Toy Theatre tradition. Prints were sold to enable three-dimensional constructions to be made from them. Variously known as kumiage-e, kumitate-e and tatebanko they were brightly coloured woodblock prints. Some constructions needed as many as 10 sheets. The subject matter included tableaux of scenes from the traditional Kabuki drama.

Kabuki involved rapid changes of scene and costume and effects similar to the tricks of the Victorian pantomime. All these features were reproduced in miniature. Interestingly, as with the English Toy Theatre, the best quality prints were published in the early nineteenth century and printing degenerated and paper got thinner and coarser as it hit the more popular market later.

The original sheets are now very rare and almost forgotten in Japan. Examples can be found in museum collections and occaisionally come up for sale.

Netherlands

Only one publication is known, a stage front published by D.Bolle of Rotterdam and illustrated in “Toy Theatres of the World” by Peter Baldwin (Fig.88).

Norway

The only publication we know of is a very late one. In 1963 C.Schibstedt of Oslo published a colour printed cardboard kit to make a small Chinese style theatre with characters and scenes and a text to perform, “The Emporer’s Nightingale”.

Russia

Toy Theatre is believed to have been published in Russia but we have no details.

Sweden

The only publications we know of are modern.