Brer Rabbit & Friends - Center for Puppetry Arts

Synopsis
Brains beat brawn when Brer Bear, Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit, and Sister Mud Turtle find themselves in a briar patch of trouble!
The day gets off to a rousing start with a jam session of live banjo, piano and tambourine when the gang gathers to sing
an early morning ode to the day. As the day passes, our colorful friends act out the stories of “Brer Rabbit’s Laffin’ Place,”
“How the Bear Got His Tail,” “Sister Mud Turtle Shows Her Strength,” “Brer Fox Plays Dead,” “Brer Rabbit Scares Brer
Fox and Brer Bear” and finally, “The Wonderful Tar Baby.” These delightful stories illustrate classic standoffs between the
weak and the powerful that are a part of every culture’s folklore.
About the Stories
Joel Chandler Harris (1845-1908) was born in Eatonton, Georgia, and
was raised by his single mother. He grew up very poor. When he was 14
he became a printer’s assistant on a plantation so large that it published
its own newspaper. On the plantation, Harris was introduced to African-
Americans who were forced to work as slaves. He befriended two elderly
slaves, George Terrell and “Old Harbert”, who entertained him with
folktales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. Many of these tales were retellings
of West African trickster stories, featuring Anansi the Spider, that had
been passed down for generations. Harris had an ear for the dialect in
which the men spoke and recorded the stories exactly as they were
spoken at the time. Like the Brothers Grimm, Harris did not invent the
stories he published, but dedicated himself to documenting an important
oral tradition for posterity. The result was the single largest collection
of African-American folktales ever published. His first collection of
poems and proverbs was published in 1881 as Uncle Remus: His Songs
and Sayings. (Harris created the fictitious character “Uncle Remus” who
served as the narrator of his books.) A contemporary of Mark Twain,
Harris also worked as a newspaper writer and editor. Harris lived in his
Atlanta home, The Wren’s Nest, from 1881 until his death in 1908.
Style of Puppetry
Brer Rabbit & Friends is performed by five skilled puppeteers using a variety of puppetry styles. As students will observe,
certain types of puppets work best for certain types of characters. One type of puppet used in our show is a hand-and-rod
puppet. Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox are examples of hand-and-rod puppets. A puppeteer operates a hand-and-rod puppet by
placing one hand inside the head of the puppet to turn the puppet’s head and operate its mouth. A puppeteer opens and
closes that hand to make the puppet’s mouth move as she/he provides the character’s voice. This is known as lip-synching.
The puppeteer’s other hand operates the control rods attached to the puppet’s hands (or paws). Our puppeteers perform
their hand-and-rod puppets from behind a low wall known as a playboard. Seated on low rolling carts, the puppeteers
stretch their arms above their heads to perform the puppets in the lighted playing area on top of the playboard.
You will also notice shadow puppets in our production – projections of the 3D puppets, hand shadows and painted
plexiglass. They are performed either on an overhead projector or in an “alley” between a shadow screen and a very bright
halogen bulb. This way, the silhouette image that the puppeteers create on the shadow screen can be much larger than
the actual puppet itself. A shadow puppet of Sister Mud Turtle is used in the scene where she swims to the bottom of
the pond.
In order to bring their characters to life, the puppeteers in our show sometimes appear in special costumes. Brer Bear is
an example of a costumed puppeteer. All of the character voices and animal sounds are performed live by the cast. Each
puppeteer wears a cordless microphone to amplify her/his voice.
© 2008 Center for Puppetry Arts. All Rights Reserved.
Joel Chandler Harris
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