Editor of the program comment

A FORENSIC SCIENTIST FROM A DRY-CLEANING SHOP AND AN ELECTRICIAN SURGEON

I have already written about the lady from the dry-cleaning shop on my street. There’s more. The other day, I brought her a blouse to be cleaned and showed her a stain about which I had no idea what it was or how it got there. She looked at it carefully and started developing a theory of what it could be because different stains should be cleaned differently. The colour is such and such; it changes under the effect of this or that… I wouldn’t even know how to repeat it. But she knew everything. I told her she was a real forensic scientist. She loved it.

Years ago, my electric heater, already quite old and worn out, broke down. I don’t give up easily on people or things, so I asked my electrician to take a look. He was very polite and did not comment on the appearance or age of my heater; he did not advise me to throw it in the trash. Instead, he started working on it. (He’s also from a time when things would get fixed, not thrown out.) He took the entire thing apart, arranged all the wires and screws and, with endless patience, began to connect some wires. I told him he was acting like a real surgeon. He loved it.

I could also talk about a hairdresser who knows everything about hair as soon as she sees it: whether it is thick, thin, dry, oily, stiff, or supple, whether it will colour quickly or slowly, how it will react, how it should be cut or combed, and what she needs to do to get the desired shape. I must tell her that she is a real hair whisperer.

There are more such masters. They are rare and all the more precious.

You must be wondering what cleaners, electricians, hairdressers, and other masters of their craft have to do with puppet shows and PIF. Quite a lot. At PIF, we present the masters of the puppetry craft. And when I say craft, I mean mastery of the highest degree.

At this year’s PIF, performances deal with a wide variety of topics: victory over death by taxidermy (?), ubiquitous wars, a man stork, the robber’s daughter, the land of paper and books, the Sisyphean task of finding oneself, a flying house, Georgian patriotism, an elephant in love with the frog and the rain, a fawn growing up, refugees, a creative crisis, a secret garden that heals the wounds in the soul of two unfortunate children, a wolf who loves cakes and not tough grandmothers, a mischievous bee who becomes a responsible bee, the triumphant victory over Evil Discord, the adventures and misfortunes of the resourceful Petrica Kerempuh, and even life in Yugoslavia.

In addition to classic puppets, we can see taxidermied animals, documentaries, object theatre, shadow theatre, black theatre, three-person animation, and actors and puppets playing off each other in different ways.

Perhaps some of the performances will seem controversial. But I won’t say which ones!

What has not happened at PIF for a long time and gives it a special colour, taste, smell and charm this year is the noticeable presence of Croatian puppet shows. There haven’t been so many good ones in a long time! This proves that even our puppet theatres give birth to masters who do not find it difficult to “connect the wires,” no matter how long it takes to find the right connection. It is not difficult for them to spend days exploring how to make a three-person animated puppet convincingly sit, walk and breathe while each animator feels the other two and is ready to anticipate their movements. They do not find it difficult to make a small apartment tailored to the puppet and equip it with a small sink and tap with real running water, a small refrigerator with small carrots, milk and eggs, a small computer, a small teapot… and countless other small things that make a big impression. It is not difficult for them to interview parents, grandparents and professors for days about life in the former state and to work painstakingly on very demanding dramaturgy. It is not difficult for them to investigate the refugee crisis, breathe sand and stick their face in the mud because they have the “will of an excavator.” There are more and more puppet actors and puppet directors who unwaveringly invest physical and psychological efforts to achieve the performance they want and are happy doing so, as is the audience, even when their tears flow like waterfalls.

The critic Olga Vujović said the following about one such director: “She does not spare herself, the actors, or the audience. Her actions are clear and uncompromising, and, as far as I remember, it was never difficult for her to roll up her sleeves and rip our hearts out.”[1]

The official program editor Livija Kroflin, PhD Full Professor

[1] The director is Tamara Kučinović, play is The Soul’s Whisper, and the text is titled What do we need? The will of an excavator! published on the portal Kritikaz on January 30, 2024. https://kritikaz.com/vijesti/Kritike/53810/ %C5% A0to_nam_treba?_Will_excavator&fbclid=IwAR0SB8dgu090XTI25_4tvTxYY9vYmUsyj191c1V5R9TG33J__3Sv2p4SOMs