History of puppets. Guignol puppet theatre.
At the beginning of the 19th century French glove theatre had a hero who not only shared Polichinelle's fame, but perhaps even surpassed it. The name of this hero was Guignol. His creator was a Lyon weaver Laurent Murguet. Born in 1769, Mourget started to work as a teenager in one of the famous silk spinning mills in Lyon. During the Great French Revolution, all the factories closed, and young Mourget was left without work. So as not to starve to death, he decided to become a fairground trader. A few years later he learned the trade of a fairground dentist (simply by pulling teeth), and a little later he acquired glove puppets and began to walk around with a screen and a booth, playing street performances.
The hero of his first performances was Polichinelle. At one point a puppet appeared on his screen depicting a weaver from Lyon. And as this character was closer and more interesting to Lyonians, he very soon took the place of Polichinelle in stage performances. The exact date of Guignol's birth is unclear; it probably happened at the very beginning of the 19th century. At any rate, in 1804 Guignol was already reigning on the Murge screen.
At this time Mourge was paired with former singer Lambert Gregoire Ladrée, who now performed under the pseudonym of Papa Toma. Papa Toma stood in front of a screen, played the violin, talked back and forth between the puppets and the audience, invited passers-by to watch the performance and was evidently collecting money. Why the Lyon weaver's puppet was called Guignol is also not exactly known. According to one version, the name comes from the name of a small northern Italian town, Quignolo: in Lyon there were many Italian workers who were employed in silk factories, and it is quite possible - supporters of this version - that among the acquaintances of Murguet was a native of Quignolo.
Guignol is dressed in a French tailcoat. He did not inherit the Polichinelle hump. His triangle has been replaced by a small, tight-fitting dark cap. Instead of a wig, he wears a catognac braid pinned up at the back.
Another very popular character in this theatre is Nyafron. He appeared very soon after Guignol's birth (and some historians believe he is even older). This inseparable friend of Guignol is a cobbler. (Nyafron is from 'nyaf', 'cold shoemaker', meaning a shoemaker who does not have a workshop, working on his own knee).
Nyafron himself describes himself poetically as a "knee-jerk jeweller". Nyafron is a kindly man, but a drunkard. His weakness is evidenced by his blue-red nose sticking out from under his huge, high hat and his husky, cracked voice. A large leather apron completes his costume. He is as poor as Guignol, and when he is hungry and there is nothing to eat he cuts off a piece of the apron and says that if you fry a piece of old leather with a crumb of lard and put a cucumber in it and season it with vinegar, you will have a roast that is to die for! It is said that Murge caricatured Papa Tom's looks and personality into this doll.
Their constant partners were: the rich Lyon landlord Canésu (who always appears in a cloak and fez); Guignol's grumpy wife, Madeleine; the judge (whose face is decorated with huge glasses and blond sideburns); the brigadier (a policeman); the sergeant, the braggart and liar Pifard. Murguet composed his own plays, the dialogue improvised with Papa Toma.
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