Just as Pooh can never have enough honey, kids can never have enough Pooh.
Ever since a doting dad named A.A. Milne brought the stuffed playmates of his only son, Christopher Robin, to literary life in 1926, generations of children have delighted in the antics of the silly old bear and his friends Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Tigger, Kanga and Roo.
Kathy Burks, founder of Kathy Burks Theatre of Puppetry Arts talks about the history of her Pooh puppets as the troupe prepares for the upcoming performance of "The House on Pooh Corner". (DMN-Video/editing: Ron Baselice)
02/27/2008
Today, two local theater companies will launch Pooh tales. The Dallas Children's Theater will present the Kathy Burks Theatre of Puppetry Arts' production of The House at Pooh Corner with antique marionettes dating back more than 70 years. While that show will run through March 30, the Irving Arts Center's musical theater adaptation of Winnie the Pooh happens only today. It's produced by Two Beans Productions for TheatreWorks/USA with live actors.
At right and below are a look at the two shows.
In this production, adapted by B. Wolf for Kathy Burks' marionettes, Pooh and his friends go through a lot of changes. Pooh and Piglet help build a house for Eeyore, the friends help Owl move after his tree blows down, and Christopher Robin leaves the 100 Acre Wood to go to school.
And change is something these magical marionettes know a lot about.
Acquired by the Kathy Burks Theatre of Puppetry Arts in 1971, the puppets are the same set that performed in the White House for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, his wife, Eleanor, and their grandchildren in December 1937. Originally part of the famed Sue Hastings collection, they were sculpted by Harriet Babcock in the early 1930s, not long after Winnie the Pooh was first published.
Just as Mr. Milne's creation was a labor of parental love, so was the sculpting of these puppets. Ms. Babcock worked from the book's original illustrations by E.H. Shepherd, and she may have used her daughter, Louise, as a model for the face of Christopher Robin.
"That's what she always told me," Louise Pauly, 78, says by phone from her 50-acre farm in Bombay, N.Y., where the population is less than 1,000. "I think it looks like the one in the book, but she might have used my face because it was round like Christopher Robin's, and I had my hair bobbed like Christopher Robin."
Whether or not she was the model, there's no doubt that Ms. Pauly has left a piece of herself with many of the puppets that her mother carved for $35 a week at the height of the Great Depression. One of her jobs was to sand the wood that her mother used to make the handcrafted creatures. The job she preferred, though, was being a plant in the audience, responding when the puppets asked the kids questions that then inspired other kids to participate in turn.
Ms. Pauly says she was thrilled when
she found out a few years ago that Ms. Burks had bought the collection of more than a thousand puppets. It had changed hands three times since Ms. Hastings had closed her company in the 1940s, and Ms. Pauly never knew what had happened to her childhood companions.
"I was delighted to know that they
were not flooded in a basement or burned or sold off piece by piece," says Ms. Pauly, who now converses with Ms. Burks by e-mail and is satisfied that the puppets have found a good home. "I'm so glad the puppets are doing their job, making the kids happy."
Ms. Burks says that getting to know Ms. Pauly and, indirectly, her late mother, deepens her joy in this upcoming show.
"I'm so excited to get to know this wonderful woman who made all these wonderful puppets," says Ms. Burks, who takes care not to overuse them; this production is just the second time in two years that they've been used after a rest of more than two decades.
"She did such a beautiful job," Ms. Burks says. "They've lasted so long, they're still alive, they still breathe. It's just wonderful to see them and to work them again."
In this new live-action musical adaptation, Winnie the Pooh has to complete his stoutness exercises, catch a heffalump, play a trick on Kanga and Baby Roo, and find Eeyore's missing tail. Expect lots of singing and dancing in this show by Two Beans Productions for TheatreWorks/USA.
Want more?
CREATIVE DRAMATICS WORKSHOP: Dallas Children's Theater artist Preston Wood will lead a free workshop in which children can explore characters from Winnie the Pooh. For ages 3 and older with an adult. No reservations required. Saturday from 1 to 2 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, 5301 Belt Line Road, Suite 118. 972-980-0853. www.bn.com.
Performance details: 
