This feature is about the Kyiv Puppet Theater — about the puppets rather than the plays or puppeteers, or perhaps the man who is the creator of the puppets, plays, and the theater. Of course, this story would be incomplete without mentioning the plays, actors, and especially that man. It would simply make no sense. Yet, we will try to concentrate on the puppets.
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The overall striking interest currently taken by artists (those in Kyiv in particular) in puppets (proudly referred to as author’s puppets) has its trends and logic that cannot always be explained. Somehow or another, they usually make puppets meant as mascots to suggest a direct link with age-old traditions or as soft toys or luxurious costumed beauties with surprisingly similar faces. By and large, all this is a collection of expensive (and often inordinately so) knick-knacks.
Puppets meant for puppet shows (so-called professional ones) have never been a part of this competition for the simple reason that they are not meant for sale. In theory, of course, they can be sold, just as some other kind of puppet made not for sale (as the author’s whim), but this is an exception to the rule if not totally absurd (Imagine an ad reading “Puppet show for sale...”). True, there is the pleasant estate of non-theater puppets craving to be like the theater ones: suppose we call them pseudomarionettes (wannabes on strings? — Ed.). They also have strings attached to wooden frames and can move, sometimes even gracefully. Most importantly, they can be used in dramatizing simple plots. The general impression, however, is that of bored society beauties whiling away the time by staging an amateur performance.
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Mykhailo Yaremchuk, creator of the puppets, theater, and plays, believes that his cast of marionettes, if not a coincidental occurrence (it simply could not be a coincidence, could it?), is something world-asserting and all-subordinating. His puppets are the means, while the play — or rather the message carried by the stage director with his plot — is the end. This is a straightforward statement, albeit with a crafty touch. After all, The Cherry Orchard and The House Built by Swift won three Pectorals thanks to the marionettes — and the awards would not have been his but for how the puppets did it. In addition, Mykhailo Yaremchuk has a philosophy concerning his puppets, strikingly human-like, pulled by strings operated by someone mysterious somewhere above, hidden from the audience. This philosophy does not apply to hand or glove puppets, and he is not really interested in them.
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A banal, rather childish yet perfectly logical question: What are these puppets made from? Ranevskaya, Stella, Vanessa, Old Firce, Little Zaches? The answer is: from all kinds of material, whatever is on hand. The material is not as important as the artist’s desire to make them. Of that desire there is plenty and materials include papier- mЙchО, wood, and plastic. The clothes and laces used in the wardrobe often come from flea markets. The inescapable condition is that everything must be hand-made, every single stitch. A sewing machine is simply out of the question.
The technical aspect is a miracle unto itself, entirely provided by the puppeteer’s manual skill. Animation is truly magic. After all, skilled puppeteers have for ages been known for their gift of complete identification with their puppets, precisely what makes the puppet show so attractive (one is reminded of the famous [Soviet] films An Old Story and Do Not Leave Me...) Of course, marionettes have to move, blink their eyes as well as open and close their mouths. In The House Built by Swift we see Stella, a puppet barely two feet in height, actually writing, using a pen, quickly and gracefully inserting it into the inkstand. Good Grief! This could perhaps be matched only by Gayev (even smaller than Stella) reciting Chekhov’s “Venerable bookcase...”
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Another question just as banal and childish, but also logical is who came first? Meaning the first stage character. In this sense the fact that Mykhailo Yaremchuk has spent his whole adult life in puppet theater is irrelevant. The important point is his own reckoning of the time and puppets at the theater (the Yaremchuk Theater would sound magnificent!).
Surprisingly, there is such a benchmark. It is a play by E.T.A. Hoffmann that never appeared onstage. Or, rather, its characters: a simple-hearted father, his beautiful daughter, a femme fatale incarnate, an exhaled poet, an as exhaled violinist, and Little Zaches. This list alone shows that the plot was not based on a single definite tale. The project was a fantasia З la Hoffmann — or, in his own words, “fantastic pieces in the manner of Callot.” All the marionettes are still at the theater, embellishing it, perhaps serving as its talismans (after all, lucky charms and mascots are often puppets). Although it is a bit sad to realize that Little Zaches’s mouth (very functional, indeed) has never opened onstage to utter the mewing “I’m not in the mood...”
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Mykhailo Yaremchuk would very likely object to this, but since the theater’s inception until 2000 (almost a decade) the company remained popular mainly with mothers and children who must have taken it for what they saw: a puppet show. The theater made its name after staging Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard three years ago, a play for adults, of course, and the awarding of three Pectorals only confirmed what was already obvious to all.
The very title, Cherry Orchard, sounds magically thrilling, combined with the words Puppet Theater. The play and the marionettes were made in one go, in a single highly inspired and tireless effort.
Chekhov’s last play was for Mykhailo Yaremchuk a “look from above” cast by the brilliant author on his way from this sinful world (besides, the very concept was in harmony with Yaremchuk’s philosophy of the puppets). Be it as it may, it was perhaps the first production best answering Chekhov’s definition of “comedy” (even Stanislavsky refused to interpret it that way, much to the author’s chagrin). As for that look from above (even more so one cast in parting), it does not mean looking down on anyone or anything. Yaremchuk’s production lacks that touch of the grotesque, even burlesque, traditionally considered inherent in a puppet show (perhaps courtesy of the great Obraztsov and his world’s largest puppet theater in Moscow). Save for Ranevskaya taking off to soar over the trees after exclaiming “Oh, my orchard!” The Cherry Orchard remains its true poetic, elegiac, arresting self, graphically evidenced by the final scene with Old Firce.
To an extent Gorin’s House Built by Swift is also a look from above (the author was also brilliant and dying). Although this time the onlooker seems a full-fledged albeit silent participant, he and the other personae (except the Doctor) are placed in different dimensions and, consequently, spaces. The point is not that Dean Swift and the Doctor are live actors and the rest are marionettes (actually more of them than in Chekhov’s comedy, including the crowd scenes). This production emerged in a different way, compared to The Cherry Orchard. The sense of some subtext remains in the final stage version. It lacks melodiousness, and the plot has its ups and downs (as does the original story), at times becoming almost arrhythmic. Also, The House can hardly be described as a chamber performance (contrary to the 2000 Pectoral nomination). It is rather a desire not to repeat the existing version, however successful.
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The third banal, childish, and logical question: What are the troupe’s creative plans? Answer: Federico Garcia Lorca, followed by Hamlet.
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Incidentally, one ought to remember that puppets on strings in the Middle Ages were entrusted with such important roles as the Virgin Mary (hence the term marionette, meaning Little Mary).
