Stagolee: a Punch and Judy Show

       For my senior thesis, I wanted to apply the reemerging artform of puppetry to the dying American folktale. The story I decided to focus on was that of Stagolee (or Stack O Lee, Staggerlee, "Stag" Lee Shelton, etc), as I saw many clear parallels between the original Bad Man and the great-grandaddy of crass misogynist violence and infanticide, Punch. The various tellings of the Stagolee story compiled fit very well into the Punch and Judy format: our protagonist encounters various characters one at a time, leaving each one whupped, culminating in a showdown with the Devil himself.

Stagolee: The Puppet Show

Stagolee: The Characters

That bad man, Stagolee

That sad man, Jesse James

That unwitting devil, Billy Lyons

That poor enforcer, High Sher'ff

That mean swingin' mama, Stack o' Dollars

Old Scratch himself