Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 84

Day 84: Friday 19th September

It is hard to believe that we only have 4 days left of this really big adventure! Today we had the opportunity to visit the workshop of a well known Czech puppet maker and he allowed us to make our own Czech puppet while he worked on some other puppets! His name is Pavel Truhlar and he owns the shop that we visited yesterday and made the robot Miss Hannaford bought. This is what his work bench looks like:

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Our puppet making started with a sketch of the puppet we were going to make. Miss Hannaford wanted to make Kaspar the Jester- the central character of Czech puppetry.

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The next step was to draw the face of the character onto the wooden head and colour it in using watercolour pencils and regular colouring pencils. We decided to make Kaspar a friendly character who like to smile and be silly when it is appropriate.

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The next stage was to paint the body. Pavel showed us how you can use a drill to help paint neat stripes around the legs to make it look like the puppet has stripy socks!

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The final step was to assemble the puppet, put his clothes and bells on and put strings from the hands and legs up to the control rods! He looks fanastic! It took Miss Hannaford 3.5 hours to design, paint and assemble this puppet.

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After a short rest at our hotel, it was time to go back to the National Puppet theatre to see their long running, famous production of the Italian Opera Don Giovanni.

The performance opens with the puppet of Mozart ‘walking’ up to the orchestra conductors position in the orchestra pit. The difference between this puppet and all other Czech puppets is that it is operated from below using rods and levers.

Here is what part of the opera looks like- only one of the puppet’s mouths move using a trigger on the handle:

As we left the theatre we had the opportunity to see up close one of the older versions of the actual Don Giovanni character. This version of the puppet is no longer used in the production because some of its joints had been repaired so many times that it was not possible to repair it any more. In puppetry, exact replica puppets are often made to replace puppets that are damaged beyond repair after many years of use.

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It was a really interesting and fun puppet day!

– Lucy

Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 83

Day 83: Thursday 18th September
Today Miss Hannaford and I visited the National Puppet Theatre in Prague. Czech puppetry is very different to other forms of puppetry around the world in that the puppet has a metal rod coming out of its head that connects to the control handle as well as strings to move the hands and feet.

Miss Hannaford is a member of the International Puppetry association called UNIMA so we were given the rare opportunity to go under the stage at the National Puppet Theatre to see their collection of old puppets and puppet costumes. Some of the puppets are over 100 years old and some of the costumes are nearly 100 years old.

This is the special sign at front of the theatre

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The characters are important traditional puppet characters from different countries (from left):
Techantches from Belgium
Pullcinella from Italy
Punch from Great Britain
Kasparek from Czech Republic
Petrushka from Russia
Guignol from France
Kasperl from Germany

Miss Hannaford was allowed to photograph the very old puppets under the stage. All of the puppets have been hand carved out of wood including the faces but the carving has been made so smooth that you can’t tell that they have been carved. Because all the puppets are made of wood, they are very, very heavy.

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Miss Hannaford’s favourite part of the display was of all the puppet costumes. It gave her the opportunity to look closely at the amount of detail that goes into the costumes but also an opportunity to look at how the costumes look from the inside so she can design interesting costumes for her puppets.

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After we finished under the stage, we were invited to come back tomorrow and see their resident puppet show- Don Giovanni performed in the original Italian. We accepted their kind invitation!

After visiting the theatre, we walked across the Charles Bridge- a very famous pedestrian only bridge. At each end of the bridge is a huge stone gateway and along the bridge are lots of bronze statues of famous religous figures. You can also get a really great view of Prague Castle up on the hill.

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Hidden at the end of the bridge is a famous puppet shop called that Miss Hannaford had been told is the best place to buy puppets in Prague. It has lots of different characters but Miss Hannaford really liked the robots so she bought one!

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Our last stop for the day was to visit St Wenceslas Square and to see the statue of the Patron Saint of Czech Republic- St Wenceslas.

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It has certainly been a very puppety day!
– Lucy

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