High-Wire Acts Attack

When I first stated reading this chapter on High Wire Acts, I thought it was going to be about certain puppets with wire attached to them. I thought "high-wire" to be more of a breed of puppet than what I came to find out it really was. Blumenthal explains what high-wire is after talking about the double vision that theaters give to the audience.

 "While film can lock onto the imagination and virtually transport the audience, spectators at live theaters never quite forget where they are, however much they buy into the fabricate world on stage.....In puppet theater, this so called 'willing suspension of disbelief'' becomes a high-wire act as the gap between normal reality and state truth becomes a chasm."

When i started reading on something that caught my attention was Senor Wences and his "sidekick" Johnny. Johnny is a puppet made from Senor Wences' Hand.



It says he used to construct Johnny in front of the Audience at each performance.

I found a clip on you-tube of one of his performances. He was a guest on the Muppet's. From this clip i realized that he is a lot like Jeff Dunham in his performance. Its very comical and i fell in love with Johnny right away as do most people im sure of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AaIDmiFXmo


From what i understand about the term "hard-wire", what makes Johnny a hard-wire act is the amount of unavailability that Johnny is indeed a puppet. Just from looking at Johnny and knowing that he is just made up from a hand, you wouldn't imagine believing he can convince you that he is real. Senor Wences does a remarkable job creating Johnny making him become real to the audience making it a hard-wire performance.