French Guignol to speak for the voiceless in four cities

JAKARTA (JP): French puppet master Guy Baldet is to stage the 190-year-old Guignol puppet show in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Surabaya.

Beginning April 2, the comedy marionette show will be staged for five days in Jakarta. On April 7 and April 9, Baldet will perform in Depok, West Java. He will tour Bandung from April 13 to April 18, Yogyakarta, April 20 to April 25, and Surabaya, April 27 to May 2.

Further information on locations is available from the French Cultural Center, Jl. Salemba Raya 25, Central Jakarta (Tel. 3908580 and 3908585).

Guignol might remind one of Si Unyil, a local television puppet show popular with children in the 1980s and early 1990s. But unlike the hand puppet Si Unyil, an elementary school student, Guignol is a French seasonal laborer. His story is set during the debilitating economic crisis of the 19th century which had followed the French revolution.

After nearly two centuries, he remains a popular attraction, an out-of-work laborer who loves his job in the silk industry and is shamelessly in debt.

Ridiculing the ruling powers of his era, he plays hide-and- seek with the French police and his creditors, running through the misshapen, congested alleys of La Croix-Rousse slum.

Guignol has been performed in Finland, Switzerland, Algeria and at the 1985 World Marionette Festival in Charleville, northeast France.

To Baldet, Guignol is not just a wooden doll. He represents the voice of the "little people", who can say "no to whomever, in any situation, without any buts".

The puppet show of Guignol and his buddies has been adapted from a centuries-old European folklore.

Guignol was created by Laurent Mourguet, who was born into a family of seasonal workers in the silk industry in Lyon, France, in 1769.

Mourguet began his puppetry with Polichenelle, a traditional Italian marionette. He got bored with this and created French a marionette called Gnafron, a drunkard with a red nose, and Coquard, a house owner, before coming up with Guignol.

Ever since, Guignol has served as the mouthpiece of French laborers and the poor.

Baldet, born in Milan, comes from a family of artists, was 8 when he saw his first Guignol show at school. He has been hooked ever since. (02)