The puppet theater is a theatrical spectacle in which dolls operate (may vary in size and shapes, for example, to be bulky or flat), moving with the help of actors. For the most part, the actors who control the dolls are hidden or masked by the viewer, but recently the theater of puppets became “live” – when viewers are able to see how the doll’s management process is taking place.
The main idea of the theater of dolls, irrespective of its type and form, is the ability to create with the help of dolls a play that can be entertainment (almost always), a cultural event with a didactic, informational or other accent (the functional side of the puppet theater, theater and generally art) . With the help of dolls, the actors of the theater of dolls (called puppets) are able to create vivid images, to transmit the characteristic features of human nature and / or behavior, the actors invest in the “mouth” of the dolls (and sometimes and without words, but only the game) instructive content, important information, or even social manifestos.
In addition to playing dolls in a puppet show, as a rule, there is a voice support – this is often the “sounding” of the dolls (their roles, which, moreover, often read dolls, sometimes other persons or one person), also in the puppet show may be a story (the role narrator), which can be both in the minds of the viewers, and beyond their eyes. Very often, especially in national theaters of dolls, performances take place under the accompaniment of musical instruments, using other types of traditional art, etc.
The theaters of dolls are distinguished by the designs of dolls and their means of management on the following types:
theaters of the higher dolls – glove, canes, demonstration of plays with dolls often takes place above the screen, closing the actors. In all these cases, the actor moving the doll at the bottom of her, and the doll – respectively, above;
theaters of the lower dolls or puppet theaters – the use of puppets, that is, dolls move with the help of threads or wires, and actors who control them, in most cases over them;
theaters where the dolls are not top and not at the bottom of the actors they control – this group includes a large number of varieties of the puppet theater, in particular, the famous theater of shadows (with all its national subspecies, as, say, the Javan Vayang, Turkish Karagyoz or its Greek adaptation Karagiozis), as well as the theatrical sights of the vertep plan (Ukrainian vertep, the Belarusian butleak, etc.), as well as various types of synthetic theater of dolls (can be singled out) – from puppets that are not managed at the top, but at the level of actors (from the national their subspecies, the Japanese bunraku) to actors dressed in doll (now quite popular type of costumed performances can be seen as a kind of puppet theater).
The variety of the forms and nature of the plays of the theaters of dolls is mostly due to national traditions (yes, in some countries, the puppet theater was the first and for a long time even the only type of theatrical art), as well as the specificity of staged and dramatic tasks facing the actors, the conditions in which they occur performances and interconnections with other types of art (graphics, folk toys, sculptures, theater masks, etc.) [1].
The methods of creating the puppet theater are brightly manifested depending on its functionality – sometimes with the help of the puppet theorized a satire against the existing orders and authorities (everywhere in Europe for the Middle Ages, when the doll allowed himself to say what people could not pronounce), but in a whole series Eastern countries thanks to the exceptional skill of the only traditional theater of shadows achieved staging large-scale heroic-epic tales, love stories with a significant number of actors and events, or reyncents on the topic ational history. For example, the Ukrainian vertep is a kind of Christmas narrative about Christ and biblical events.
The main indispensable feature of any puppet show is the ability to entertain the viewers, and sometimes not only make them laugh, but also think.
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