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Pulling strings

A new book explores the history of Czech puppetry

By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 21st, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Puppets by Anna Suchardová-Brichová for a 1942 production of The Cricket Violinist.
By their prominence among the Kafka and crystal souvenir bric-a-brac, the average tourist quickly realizes that puppets play an important role in Czech culture. Is there any other major European city that has a puppet shop on almost every corner?
This national affection for marionettes (the principal Czech puppetry form) is understandable when one discovers that during many dark hours in Czech history, it was often puppeteers who kept the culture alive. “In spite of their naivety and limited literary skills,” writes one of the authors of the new book Czech Puppet Theatre: Yesterday and Today, “puppeteers managed to communicate the ideas of the Enlightenment and National Revival to their audiences.”
Czech Puppet Theatre: Yesterday and Today Published by the Theatre Institute of Prague. 68 pages, 280 Kč
Published by the Theatre Institute of Prague, the glossy four-color book is a finely produced and succinct summary on the history of the art form in the Czech lands, and of puppetry’s importance to the survival of the culture. The book is published in Czech and in an English translation by Don Nixon, coordinator of international projects for the Theatre Institute.
The story begins in the 18th century with Jan Jiří Brát, who began touring with puppet shows that were based on Czech folklore and fairy tales, a revolutionary movement that provided his fellow countrymen with a theater in their own language. As with his great successor, Matěj Kopecký (whose descendant Rosťa Novák continues to puppeteer), Brát sired a dynasty of puppet-makers and performers.
The early days of Czech puppetry were also a golden age for native folk and Baroque craftsmen, who supplied the growing puppet movement with carvings and designs. By the time Czechs briefly found themselves as masters of their own fate, puppetry was promoted by leading intellectuals as an indispensable component of the culture.
The greatest part of Czech Puppet Theatre concentrates on the art form’s explosion in the 20th century, profiling various important innovators and directors who moved the classic marionette-based discipline in new directions.
Thriving under oppression
Perhaps one of the most interesting characters of this period is Josef Skupa (1892–1957), who is best known as the creator of Spejbl and Hurvínek, the ubiquitous father and son puppets that one sees everywhere from shop windows to nightly appearances on Večerníček. As Spejbl and Hurvínek are so identified with children’s entertainment, it comes as a shock to learn that Skupa first presented them in his adult cabarets in Plzeň, west Bohemia, before the war. In fact, it wasn’t until after the communist takeover that the puppet pere and fils began appealing to children, a move which allowed Skupa to avoid the more severe propagandistic dictates of the authorities.
However restrictive they were in most facets of life in Czechoslovakia, the communists were great patrons of puppetry, and the art form thrived behind the Iron Curtain. Czech Puppet Theatre charts the growth of various important companies, many of which are still in operation. The book also expands its focus to puppetry in film, where the leading geniuses, Jiří Trnka and Jan Švankmajer, were responsible for many important pieces of Czech cinema.
For true puppet fans, the book is an invaluable guide to the contemporary puppet scene, providing informative abstracts on the work of such artists as Petr Nikl, the Forman brothers and the Švandovo Divadlo–based company Buchty a loutky.
If there is a criticism, it’s that the book seldom reveals what impact Czech innovations in puppetry had internationally. We learn that the great puppet director Jan Malík was inspired by the methods and theories of Russian master Sergei Obraztsov, and that he introduced many of Obraztsov’s ideas into his company based at Divadlo Minor. But Malík also pioneered the combination of puppets and live actors on the same stage in the 1960s, a technique that Soviet puppeteers didn’t achieve until the ’70s. Could there have been some cross-pollination?
Beautifully illustrated with more than 100 photographs, Czech Puppet Theatre is an excellent introduction to a truly national theater, as well as an attractive souvenir for any puppet-smitten visitor.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


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