Théâtre d'Ombres

Archived under the title ‘Toy Shadow Theatre: Theatre d’Ombres’ in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum catalogue (BDCM, 69332), the Théâtre d’Ombres is a cardboard theatre designed for use in shadow shows, prominently displayed alongside other optical toys and shadow puppets in the museum. Composed of a cardboard frame, modelled off of a theatre stage, two latches at the back allow for the backgrounds to be removed and replaced as necessary. Figures would be animated by hand, as opposed to more complex, wire-operated shadow or guignol theatres, suggesting that this artefact may have been designed more for domestic use than similar shadow theatres in (for example) Germany, for which Lotte Reiniger argues ‘audiences […] were limited to a narrow circle of literary people in the various courts or towns’ (Reiniger, 32).

It is interesting to note that this item is on display in the museum itself, unlike many of the other toys in this collection. It is displayed alongside other shadow puppets—including Chinese and Turkish shadow figures (for example, items 69251 and 69320)—as well as examples of silhouette portraiture (for example, items 70100 and 46203), with an entire section of display dedicated to filmmaker and shadow puppeteer Lotte Reiniger, who is credited as the principal filmmaker who continued the tradition of shadow theatre into cinema. As a result, visitors to the museum are encouraged to view the Théâtre d’Ombres not as an independent artefact, but rather as one component of a broader context of international shadow puppetry, and its continuation and evolution with the emergence of cinema.

Also of note is the construction of this object, which is almost entirely composed of cardboard (the exceptions being the two metal latches, to enable the changing of background scenery). In toy production, cardboard is commonly associated with home-made toys or construction sets; in 1915, author A. Neely Hall released the book Home-Made Toys for Girls and Boys, in which he argues that the handmaking of cardboard toys ‘trains the mind to think clearly, the hands to work cleverly, replaces destructive thoughts with constructive ideas, and, in making the boy or girl dependent upon himself or herself for toys, is invaluable in developing resourcefulness’ (Hall, vi). This object perhaps reflects this attitude, as although the theatre itself is pre-assembled, the backgrounds and figures form a separate booklet.

Handwritten on the bottom left-hand side of the box is the signature Jean Kerhor, a pseudonym of French illustrator André Dupuis, who lived from 1876 to 1974 and worked primarily with the Parisian company Nancy et à Paris (Antiq Photo, 2024). Although the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum retains the label from the box (catalogued as item 77265 in their collection), the accompanying booklet containing shadow figures and additional backdrops, entitled ‘Gloires de France – Ombres en Huit Tableaux,’ does not feature in the museum catalogue, though the French archive Antiq Photo retain a copy with their own theatre.

There is much debate around the term shadow theatres, with many (Reiniger included) suggesting that the theatres might be more accurately referred to as silhouette theatres. The word silhouette originates from the Marquis Etienne de Silhouette, who was the Controller-General of Finance in Paris in 1959. His unpopular economic decisions coincided with a cheaper and easier to produce form of portraiture—composed of black scissor-cuts known as shadow portraits—in Paris, which lead the Parisians to colloquially refer to the portraits as ‘Silhouettes’ (Reiniger, 12). With this in mind, silhouette theatre may indeed be a more accurate descriptor of this object, which does not incorporate a light source to cast shadows on its backgrounds, but instead utilises scissor-cuts filled in with black ink, similar to the portraits from which silhouettes got their name.

Furthermore, Richard J. Hand, writing on the decline of the French Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (which translates into English as great puppet), argues that ‘like so many other things during this time, it was abandoned as obsolete by a new generation and replaced with […] more technologically sophisticated offerings’ (Hand, 25). This decline was not limited to physical theatre, however, but also extended to shadow-play; shadow theatre as both a domestic and a performance practice had not originated with the Théâtre d’Ombres, and by the time of the artefact’s creation in France in 1920, the popularity of shadow theatre had begun to wane in favour of the emergence of the more ‘technologically sophisticated’ cinema. Much of European shadow-play had been directly inspired by China; Reiniger continues that ‘all the activities concerning shadow-plays were called Ombri Cinesi in Italy, Ombres Chinoises in France, and Chinese Shadows in England’ (Reiniger, 31). In France, the Théâtre d’Ombres was predated by the shadow theatre of François Dominique Seraphin in Versailles, 1770, which was ‘visited alike by the aristocracy and their children and by the ordinary people and their offspring’ (Reiniger, 31), and by the 1887 incorporation of guignol and shadow-play into the Cabaret du Chat Noir in Montmartre, which Hewitt argues ‘rapidly became hugely popular and, under Rivière’s direction, highly sophisticated’ (Hewitt, 42). As a result, the production of the multiple identical copies of this artefact might instead be read as a novelty, intended to capitalise off of the nostalgia for more traditional forms of shadow theatre.

Writing on the role of toys in the construction of French national identity in La Dette de Ben-Aïssa (Maréchal, 1873), Lise Schreier argues that the protagonist’s doll was ideologically significant as it ‘enlist[ed] young readers into the project of republican colonialism in very specific ways—notably by enjoining them to comply with its principles both in the domestic realm and overseas’ (Schreier, 109). Though Schreier was writing on the use of dolls in children’s literature, I would argue that the construction of national identity both within and outside of the domestic space is equally applicable to the Théâtre d’Ombres. With the domestic quality of the artefact in mind, it is particularly interesting that its accompanying booklet was entitled ‘Gloires de France,’ which translates into English as ‘glories of France.’ The backgrounds featured in the booklets prominently display both naval and land battles, with the shadow puppets themselves often taking the form of soldiers. The nationalistic quality of these images hint at a propagandistic purpose, where—when incorporated into either children’s play or shadow productions made with larger audiences in mind—colonial ideologies are naturalised through play.

Copyright under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which stipulates that ‘member countries must […] recognise the rights of foreign creators, thus facilitating the international exchange of creative works’ (Generis Global, 2024), this shadow theatre is at once national and international, referential of its historical context whilst retaining relevance when placed alongside international works (as it is in the BDCM). Equally, this artefact is particularly compelling in that it appeals to both high and low culture, emerging out of a context that features in both the Palace of Versailles and the comparatively working-class forms of the Cabaret du Chat Noir and the horror Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. Finally, the object itself also transgresses the boundary between public performance and the domestic space. Taking this object’s transgression of boundaries into account, we might look to the Théâtre d’Ombres as revealing the ideological assumptions that underpin the production of many toys—particularly considering Hall’s earlier assertion that interactive cardboard toys ‘replace destructive thoughts with constructive ideas,’ which lends credence to Lise Schreier’s argument that children’s toys are a form of enlistment into perceptions of national and colonial identity.

Works Cited

Antiq Photo. ‘Théâtre d’ombres Jean Kerhor.’ Antiq Photo, https://www.antiq-photo.com/en/collections/museum/pre-cinema-2/thtre-dombres-jean-kerhor-2/. Accessed 10^th December, 2024.

The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum (BDCM). ‘Toy shadow theatre: Theatre d'ombres.’ https://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/explore/item/69332/. Accessed 11^th November, 2024.

Generis Global. ‘Understanding Copyright Protection Laws in France.’ Generis Incorporated, November 15th, 2024, https://generisonline.com/understanding-copyright-protection-laws-in-france/.

Hall, A. Neely. Home-Made Toys for Girls and Boys: Wooden and Cardboard Toys. Boston: Lothrop, Lee, and Shepard Company, August 1915.

Hand, Richard J., and Wilson, Michael. Grand-Guignol: The French Theatre of Horror. England: University of Exeter Press, 2002.

Hewitt, Nicholas. ‘The Artistic Cabarets.’ Montmartre: A Cultural History. Liverpool University Press, 2017, pp. 35–63. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ps31hz.7.

Maréchal, Marie. La Dette de Ben-Aïssa. France: Hachette, 1873.

Reiniger, Lotte. Shadow Theatres and Shadow Films. London: B.T. Batsford Limited, 1970.

Schreier, Lise. ‘“A Toy in the White Man’s Hands”: Child-Gifting, African Civilizability, and the Construction of a French National Identity in Marie Maréchal’s La Dette de Ben-Aïssa.’ Children’s Literature, vol. 43, 2015, pp. 108-138.