This company is the only one of its kind in Ukraine. The Puppet Theater was founded in 1989 thanks to the imagination, ardent desire, and impassioned efforts of stage director, artist, and actor Mykhailo Yaremchuk and his like — minded friends. The theater’s emblem-the dreamy, shining eyes and huge loving heart of Pierrot — leads the visitor into the quiet courtyard of this fairy-tale house located on a quiet street yard in Podil. During every performance the theater’s miniature stage turns into a universe whose meridians come alive thanks to the talent of the creators of these scenic masterpieces.
In the years since its founding the Puppet Theater has become extremely popular in Ukraine and beyond its borders. Its productions of The House that Swift Built and The Cherry Orchard have won the prestigious Kyiv Pectoral Prize, and its actors have repeatedly brought back prestigious awards from numerous international festivals where the theater troupe has represented Ukraine.
The Puppet Theater’s repertoire once consisted of plays for children and adults. Then a new creative stage emerged. After a painstaking renovation of the premises artistic director Mykhailo Yaremchuk developed a new program marking a cardinal change in his approach to the company.
Mykhailo Yaremchuk talks about the new face of the Puppet Theater.
M.Ya.: The company’s new concept is to make it something more than a puppet show, to turn it into a creative workshop where various creative experiments can be carried out. I want as much sincerity and truth on stage as absolutely possible. And, of course, I want our productions to be on a higher professional level.
What do you mean by ‘creative workshop’?
M.Ya.: I have entered a phase in my creativity when it’s no longer interesting to stage productions for the box office or just to keep the ball rolling. I want to advance and do something I’ve never done before. I want to experiment, and this is possible only with a young team that is open to new creative horizons. That was why I selected a group of students from Karpenko-Kary University of Theater, Cinema, and Television, with whom I can share what I’ve accumulated over long years and what they’ll find useful as actors and stage directors.
I want to try and do several projects with them. The most important feature of our workshop will be the creative quest and process. This requires a certain theater base and I think that the Puppet Theater is the best place for this. Our plans include a quest in the field of marionette art and other theatrical genres. I want artists, writers, and musicians to join us, so that our workshop will have an interesting and eventful life. I’m dreaming of an art club whose renovated lobby will gather interesting individuals for themed soirees and meetings.
The theater means primarily staging plays. What are you planning to stage?
M.Ya.: We are working on Macbeth and rehearsing Mrozek. As for the puppets, I’m going to try to prove — to myself first, and then the audience — that a puppet must play a puppet, not replace a human being. It’s important for me to study the nature of the puppet, see how best it can be used in the theater. A puppet is not just a toy; it’s a much larger concept.
When you select a repertoire, is the emphasis on adult rather than children’s audiences?
M.Ya.: I wouldn’t categorize the audiences by age groups. There is certain drama material for adults and for children. I’ll stage plays as I conceive their ideas, then the type of audience will become clear. I don’t want to make any far-reaching plans. For instance, I’d like to stage plays for very small children, when they’re just beginning to understand things.
Unfortunately, there are very few such productions. In most cases, those that are meant for children turn into the service sphere in its worst meaning (plays staged during school vacations and holidays). There is no real inspiration between theaters and children, not here and not in any other post-Soviet countries. Unfortunately, everything is done just to make money; no one bothers to study precisely what our children want to see on stage. If I make up my mind to make a production for children, I’ll try to have a clear picture of their psychology; what the theater is to them, why I want to stage this production — all of this must be motivated.
It’s strange to hear that you’re trying to understand children’s psychology, for your plays give the impression that you are very familiar with it.
M.Ya.: Maybe it looks that way to the audience. But at a certain point we in the theater felt that we were not thinking about children or our creative sentiments; we had become slaves of our schedule and compulsory repertoire. Of course, it is possible to exist that way, as an academic or national company, but there is no creativity in the team. I was looking for something new when I founded the Puppet Theater. Now I want to fulfill my main task: move ahead without stopping.
The solutions we had found no longer make sense. So I want to start a creative workshop where we can search for something real instead of exploiting what we already have. To me the theater is above all getting to know myself. It’s not a means of enrichment, not a profit-generating business. Spiritual discoveries must be made in the theater.
What literary material are you going to use?
M.Ya.: I’m planning several works by Shakespeare and Bulgakov. I’m very interested in these authors; their works are highly dramatic and there is space for the director. The days when I simply staged plays or did something else are long gone. Now the main thing is the creative quest, I live for this.
THE DAY’S REFERENCE
Mykhailo Yaremchuk is a graduate of the Puppet Theater Faculty, Cherkasov Theater, Music, and Cinema State Institute of Leningrad, where he majored in stage direction. He has worked in the theater since 1976 as an actor, property man, sculptor, production designer, and director. He has staged dozens of productions as director and production designer in various puppet theaters in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, and Spain. He is the recipient of international festival diplomas for best direction, best production design, and best performance, as well as the Kyiv Pectoral Prize. In 1989 he founded the Puppet Theater, where he has worked on all productions and made all the puppets.
