M'sieu Frog Marionette

Monsieur Frog , is a character from a traditional Latin American folk tale "Perez and Martina: A Portotican Folktale" written by Pura Belpre and published in the United States in 1932. . Belpre was the first Puerto Rican librarian at the New York Public Library and a puppeteer. The story she wrote was told to her by her grandmother when growing up in Puerto Rico.

The traditional folk tale tells of a cockroach, named Martina, who finds a coin on a walkway and decides to buy with it a tin of face powder. She primps and then waits on her veranda above her garden for suitors to call. She settles on marrying a rat, Perez, who, unfortunately, becomes carried away by his own curiosity, falling, the next morning, into a vat of soup Martina is cooking. In some versions, he succumbs and in others, he is rescued.

In this version of the story, produced by Elizabeth and her husband, Frank Haines, (Martina is a cricket and Perez is a mouse) Monsieur Frog competes for Martina's favors along with Perez and Major Rooster. Martina ultimately marries Perez with the blessings of the aging Duenna and her faces turns into a woman, and she lives "as happy as a cricket" with Perez ever

Monsieur Frog is made of wood with a swivel head ,moveable jaw and hinged appendages. He is painted an electric shade of green with yellow and black eyes on the top of his head ,a bright pink mouth and green hands. He is stylishly dressed in a red velvet jacket over a white ruffled shirt , and white pants with an orange cummerbund. This puppet is operated with a 5- wooden airplane control with nineteen strings.

Throughout the 1940s the Haines performed this version of the play, ( with Martina a cricket and Perez a mouse), before school groups in the Philadelphia area. The marionettes and stage props were created by Frank and Elizabeth made the costumes and the backdrops.

Currently not on view