Puppetheque

Make Me a Coffin for Him from 1993 is an anthology piece of the 1990s because, as Barbara Orel wrote, it is "primitive in its iconography, infernal in its content, demonic in its energetic charge, in a word: murderous." Directed by Jan Zakonjšek and designed by Silvan Omerzu, it settled into the Slovenian puppetry space with a masterful freshness of staging. Twenty-five years later, it returns to the stage refreshed with Brane Vižintin and Boštjan Sever once again playing their iconic roles.

In 1936, the Czech puppeteer Jan Malík created one of the most performed puppet plays in the world. Speckles the Ball, which premiered at the Lutkovno gledališče Ljubljana in 1951, is one of the puppet performances that has survived the many creative, fashionable and modernist currents in the development of puppetry and has been performed in its original form more than 1371 times and in front of 155,000 spectators. Grandpa with his barrel organ, Grandma with her drum and the mischievous little ball have delighted audiences young and old time and time again.

Slovenian children could not even imagine growing up without the fairy tales, written by Svetlana Makarovič. Over the years there has been a myriad of puppet performances based on her literary material that have enchanted our young viewers. The clever and brave Sapramouse is considered the greatest Slovenian puppet hit ever. It’s best known staging was the one premiered back in 1986 in the Lutkovno gledališče Ljubljana (and directed by Nace Simončič) that has remained uninterruptedly on the theatre’s repertoire until today. 

Sleepy Star is a radio play, a picture book, a film and a puppet show. In Slovenia, this is one of those stories one cannot grow up without. It is built around one of the most important archetypes: a star falls from the sky to evoke love in a man (the bandit), love, which brings sense to life. Ježek took this archetypal story, which talks about uniting a mother with an idea, and skilfully disguised it into a story of a sleepy star, a very strict Mr. Moon, and a heartless bandit. The story spans from the sky to the earth, among ice-cream men, circus artists and collectors. In 1972 the entire show was destroyed in a fire, but we took old plans, photos and the filmed material, and recreated the puppets -  long string marionettes. We made a new set, remade the show and brought everyone back to life, stars and bandits alike, on Earth and in the sky.

Doctor Faustus is one of the oldest restored Slovenian puppet performances. The story of the scholar who pledges his soul to the devil has inspired European art for centuries. It was adapted for the miniature puppet stage by the painter and photographer Milan Klemenčič, the founder of Slovenian puppet theatre, based on the Leipzig inscription. The puppet show was staged in 1938 and represents the culmination of the artist's work. The Lutkovno gledališče Ljubljana revived the performance for the first time in 1982 and refreshed it with a new cast in 2016. It is one of only two Klemenčič performances that have survived in their entirety.

The Owl Castle, one of Klemenčič's two fully preserved plays, was first performed in his miniature puppet theatre in 1936. It was first performed again in 1990 and again in 2013 at LGL Kulturnica. It also served as artistic material for the production of Open the Owl (2016) directed by Renaud Herbin.