Mark is off to Theatre Drak - renowned state theatre for puppetry in Hradec Králové, Czech Republic - for 3 weeks of R&D this month. As they rework some early 'Moses' ideas for for a show this autumn, Assistant Producer Alex takes a look at some Czech-puppetry facts you may not have heard of...
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| Divadlo Drak ('Dragon Theatre') |
- In its beginnings (late 1600s) puppets in Czech theatre were used as cheap alternatives to actors, made in large, real-life proportions
- Made for adult audiences, puppet shows (1700's) were performed in pubs and village town squares
- With state-run city theatres performing exclusively in German (the official language) it was the provincial puppetry shows, performed in Czech, that came to represent the indigenous nation
- The puppeteer became a cultural hero in the Czech nationalist movement (1800's), with funding flooding into community ‘amateur’ theatre that was created by professionals. The audience shifted from adults to children
- 1928: UNIMA founded in Prague, where amateur puppetry theatre Rise Loutek still operates
- 1920's: "Spejbl and Hurvinek" were comic puppet characters critical of the Nazi regime, until their puppeteers were sent to a concentration camp
- 2016: Czech puppetry made it onto the UNESCO cultural heritage list
Puppet-stop-motion
Delve into Czech mythos and
witness the mastery of Bitva s Lučany (Battle with
the Luczans) by Jirí Trnka (1953)
Some Links
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