Group P2 is made up of participants who have been attending the studio for several years and range in age from seventh-grade primary school pupils to secondary school students. Following last year’s production, Live from Olympus, which received the award for Best Visual Design at this year’s SKAZ (Zagreb’s amateur theatre revue), the group turned its attention this year to exploring comedy through the medium of puppetry.
The group selected around ten stories from a German collection of Ephraim Kishon’s works called Stories about Animals, and sought to establish several thematic threads that would bring together the collage-like structure into a cohesive stage production. Their first challenge was to find a way of portraying the human characters, who are vividly depicted in the stories yet remain overshadowed by their pets and animals that actually drive the story and propel the plot.
This led them to the idea of presenting human characters across a spectrum ranging from completely abstract forms, through simple two-dimensional figures, to actors wearing masks, and finally to actors appearing without any theatrical mediation. The animals, as the principal protagonists, remain at the same level of figurative representation throughout.
The group also explored the question of speech and language. Text itself became a distinct theatrical element, developing from non-verbal expression through written text, sounds, and voice-over narration, ultimately culminating in spoken dialogue.
The Zvjezdana Ladika Puppetry Studio of the Zagreb Youth Theatre College brings together around one hundred participants, ranging in age from preschool children to university students. The starting point of our work with children and young people is to use a variety of creative approaches to demonstrate the breadth of the puppetry medium and to challenge the misconception that puppetry is an activity and art form intended exclusively for younger children.
An important first step in this process is introducing the concept of the theatrical puppet and highlighting its diversity and versatility. Practical workshop-based work with a wide range of materials is an essential part of the creative process – sometimes serving as the starting point and at other times as the result of stage exploration.
Participants create their own puppets, masks, and stage designs using a variety of materials and techniques, limited only by their imagination. Our efforts to connect puppetry with related technologies and media – such as animation, film, video, comics, and design – stem from the desire of our participants to broaden their own creative horizons, guided by their individual curiosity and interests.
