Editor of the program in competition comment

THE MIRACLE OF REVIVING THE INANIMATE (And is it really inanimate?)

Ever since God created the first man from dust and breathed life into him, man has been trying to imitate Him. Legends, stories, and fantasies are full of homunculi, golems, and monsters like Frankenstein’s. But we also see evidence of this in everyday life. Wendy Passmore-Godfrey says: “our human inclination is to animate objects around us, whether we put words in our dog’s mouth or kick the tyre when the car has broken down on the side of the road.” When I would stumble into the table as a child and cry, I was told: “Hit it back!” I never did because I knew that the table was stronger and that it would hit me again. Just now, I got into a heated fight with a jar that wouldn’t open. It really didn’t want to! I don’t even want to tell you the things I say to the artificial no intelligence of my laptop when it acts wilfully. After all, this text was written for decent people. People call it the meanness of dead things. And they argue with them. Even those who would be mortally offended if you told them that such behaviour was irrational, childish or even, God forbid, puppetry.

Puppeteers, on the other hand, are not ashamed to admit that deep down they are actually animists. Perhaps some of them conceitedly believe that they are the ones who bring the inanimate to life with their “divine” breath, but others know that, even in the seemingly inanimate thing, there is already at least a seed of life. They know how to use it and, in their hands, objects really come to life. (In the hands of former, they become clumsy.) Animistic (puppetry) thinking seems to be gaining popularity. On television, I see a toilet bowl moaning to a psychiatrist and a dirty kitchen bowl crying for help because negligent people have left scraps of food in it all night.

For more than half a century, PIF has demonstrated the wonder of animated matter, its spirituality, and the transcendence of the material world. In the plays, you can see the different ways in which this happens.

We are most used to puppets in human form, but those can surprise us as well. We will see traditional marionettes, which, although capable of a wide variety of tricks and skills, are rarely seen on puppetry stages. Probably because they require special skills. We’ll see how a balloon becomes a character and a boy’s best friend. A dog will speak in human language. An axe that will commit a crime is not only a tool and not only a prop – it is also a character with its own free will. Some plays will show how a puppet, defying expectations, can better reach the core of the problem and evoke stronger emotions than a live actor. The characters of a little bear and piglet will help children become aware of their own behaviour in friendship: their differences of character, disagreements, and reconciliation. Tabletop puppets, seemingly realistic, will also allow the otherwise invisible Mrs. Dementia to become a character herself, and will strongly impact the audience, evoking intense emotions, compassion and understanding, even though their hands are the size of a walnut. Even a play performed without words will be eloquent in its thunderous silence about militarization, war, and enormous tragedy, expressed through the interplay of figurative puppets, each of which is breathed into life by several animators.

The presence of evil forces in today’s world, with a contemporary motif of looming mechanical organ transplantation, is vividly illustrated in the play based on an old legend, retold countless times throughout history of puppetry, about Mephistopheles and Faust. We will see a puppet with a detachable head, which portrays the confusion of the character, his contradictory feelings and his uncertainty when faced with a new situation. Wood fragments of various shapes will create a real forest – a puppet forest. In one lively show, the puppet remained only at the level of a sign, but the life-giving breath of the whole performance comes from the three actors and their inspired play around the puppets. Another play speaks in very loud silence about the current problem of migration, all through puppets, live performance, projections, acrobatics, and model puppetry. Through the combination of live performance and object theatre, one play examines the meaning of art. Indeed, what would the world be without art! And without puppetry!

We tend to think of mechanical puppets as soulless automatons and barely acknowledge them as theatre puppets. However, they will show us the fantastic world of the medieval Gothic era, full of secrets and magic, fights, wars, parties, weddings, fear and joy, love, and beauty.

A puppet always needs and loves its human. It knows how to help the actor, just as the actor complements the puppet with their skills. The puppet and the actor make up the character together. In one play, we will see actors and their tiny puppets using their (albeit limited but very purposeful movements) to emphasize the words, behaviour, and emotions of each character.

It is a miracle how figurines, that cannot be animated, can depict a whole world with very modern problems. The scene seems to be set for children’s play and the actors seem to be playing: they move the figurines and stop them in a certain situation. However, through them we experience a tragic event more strongly and we reflect more deeply on the world in which we live, on responsibility and other ethical issues. We are drawn into this world and feel as if anyone and every one of us could be such a figurine, manipulated by others.

Faith in the puppet is also evident in a slightly different depiction of Pinocchio, where the puppet does not turn into a boy. Instead, a character of a naughty boy represented by a live hand with an attached ball as its head turns into a real puppet – a rod puppet, and thus fits in with other rod puppets. 

A puppet knows how to open our inner eyes, to help us see the world in new ways, tear our heart out or heal it, make us cry with laughter, or make us cry and then laugh. Sharply and directly, it shows us the world as it really is. It can also quite easily transcend it. The puppet is amazing. A puppet is a puppet … is a puppet.

The official program editor, Livija Kroflin,
PhD, Full Professor