ALWAYS WEARING A MASK

(Actor in Puppet Theatre: Tendencies and Facts)

Alexei Goncharenko

Theatre is impossible without actor (rare exceptions such as Rimini Protokoll’s Remote X or Heiner Goebbels’ Stifter’s Dinge provide examples of the contrary, but now let us speak about the kind of theatre we are used to). One may remember the time-worn phrase that all you need for a performance is a rug,   however, this is not enough for the puppeteers – they need an instrument. Although today one can use the word “puppet” speaking about pretty much any object, which the author animates in front of the audience – from anthropomorphic characters at a certain scale to abstract geometric forms. Not surprisingly we can hear the term “theatre of animation” more and more often. It is interesting to reflect on contemporary actors-puppeteers – not so much on personalities, as on the tendencies in the profession.

Today it is almost awkward to mention the selfless work of the representatives of this profession, hidden from the audience’s eyes. Still, quite a few people have the perception that puppeteers are in the shadow of their drama counterparts. One may hear talks about the incorrect balance of actors’ nominations at the Golden Mask National Theatre Award – 4 drama nominations as opposed to 1 nomination in puppet theatre. Without joining the discussion about justice, let us study the list of the nominees in this single category: what kind of portrait of a contemporary puppet theatre actor it represents.

For starters, let us turn to the statistics, which has been thoroughly collected in the annual brochure, as well as at the website of the festival, in the section “1995–2016”. During 21 years of the puppeteers’ presence in the competition, they were summoned to the stage 13 times. In certain productions the ensemble is so complex and tuned in such a way that it is impossible to single someone out in an individual nomination, in certain cases the puppet is aptly moved from hand to hand, somewhere the actor is expressive only when he or she openly operates the puppet – these are just some of the reasons why the board of experts or the jury members have a hard time selecting the leaders. So here is the list of nominees in the category “Best Actor in Puppet Theatre”:

1997 – Viktor Platonov, The Song of the Volga, Satire Theatre on Vasilyevsky Island, St. Petersburg.

1998 – Yevgeny Bondarenko, The King and His Three Daughters, Tinderbox Theatre, Mytishchi.

2000 – Elina Ageyeva, Cinderella, A Doll’s House Theatre, St. Petersburg.

2003 – Svetlana Mikhailova (Khertrude), Khamlet, Danish Prince, Arkhangelsk Puppet Theatre.

2004 – Elina Ageyeva (Eurydice, Galatea, Dryad, etc.), Faun’s Dream, A Doll’s House Theatre, St. Petersburg.

2006 – Zhargal Lodoev (Meel-bator, old man, three times hero), The Singing Arrow,  Buryat Puppet Theatre Ulger, Ulan-Ude.

2007 – Lyubov Biryukova (She), Guilded Forheads, Puppet Theatre of the Republic of Karelia, Petrozavodsk.

2009 – Pyotr Vasiliev (Kholstomer), Kholstomer. The Story of a Horse,  Bolshoi Puppet Theatre, St. Petersburg.

2013 – Andrei Nechaev, The Snowman, Obraztsov Puppet Theatre, Moscow.

2014 – Andrei NECHAEV, Dmitriy CHERNOV, Alexei SOKOLOV, Khalisya BOGDANOVA (Old señora), The Old Signor and …, Obraztsov Puppet Theatre, Moscow.

2015 – Taras Bibitch (Vladek), When I Am Little, Bolshoi Drama Theatre, St. Petersburg and KultProekt Artistic Group, Moscow.

2016 – Mikhail Shelomentsev, Vanya, Karlsson Haus Theatre, St. Petersburg.

2017 – Anna Somkina, Alexander Balsanov, Kolya’s Composition, Producer Center KontArt, St. Petersburg.

The first winner was remarkable designer and technologist Viktor Platonov. In Rezo Gabriadze’s production, the first scene performed by Platonov was unforgettable – a soldier was digging himself out of sand. The Master had such a precise sense of his creation that the helpless character in his hands realized all of his puppet skills and with inherent modesty demonstrated them full-scale.   It is interesting that the second winner, Yevgeny Bondarenko, also acts as the designer of productions.

Quite often the characters, performed by the winners of the award, do not have their own names.  Actors on stage are narrators, puppeteers, animators in the best sense of this word. Elina Ageyeva with great precision operates all of the marionette characters in Cinderella as well as the fragile female images in Faun’s Dream. Andrei Nechaev seems to be creating all the stage design in front of us in The Snowman, appearing as the master puppet maker. Mikhail Shelomentsev tells his story on behalf of the Dragon, not the Russian knight, but these are just the guesses of the audience. Lyubov Biryukova performs the role of persecuted Kapitolina, who is incapable of finishing telling her story which we find out only at the end of Alexei Smirnov’s production.

Among the systems of puppets, together with the jigging puppet its most complex “colleague” – marionette – is leading (2000, 2004, 2007, 2009). Not favored by Obraztsov and therefore unpopular in the theatres of the Soviet period, based on the model of Obraztsov Theatre in Moscow,  at the turn of the 21st century it became popular in the city where Yevgeny Demmeni founded his theatre more than one hundred years ago. The marionette is a distinguished Petersburgian lady, capricious, tolerating only professionals in her proximity. Close to her one can hardly “hustle about with one’s face”; neither can one act in partnership with her, except for two or three accents and evaluations. The more precious are success and victory.

There are no winners, nominated for the roles with rod puppets, but this only reflects reality, where it is almost impossible to find a rod-puppet production which is not old-fashioned and not tired. In the list of the best actors there is a glove puppet – long-nosed fool Khertrude, performed, in a masterful and funny way, by Svetlana Mikhailova, the individual winner of the Golden Mask, whom the audience did not see during the performance, because she performed the entire role on the screen. This experienced actress remembers the fairground booth origins and nature of Petrushka, the more so as Khamlet (sic) turns into Punch during a bout of insanity. It is not an easy task to play his mother, she is Khertrude, not Gertrude, and this determines the most complex genre – tragifarce. The best scene is when she feels lost and does not understand whether she is the mother of her son or his aunt, as the words in support of every one of her titles sound convincing every time. Spinning with her whole elongated body, Khertrude brings herself to vertigo.

Speaking about the geography of the winners, the leading positions are taken by the independent theatres of St. Petersburg. The explanation is simple – it is in the Northern Capital that puppeteers get their degrees.  “The puppet Moscow” is, first of all, the theatre company Shadow, the most commanding winner in the category “Innovation” – “Experiment”. Obraztsov Puppet Theatre in Moscow, forever famous for its actors, recently took leading positions thanks to inviting the best forces to join the company – director Boris Konstantinov and designer Viktor Nikonenko, without whom the actors would not be able to show their skills. It is worth special notice that giving the award in 2014 (Viktor Nikonenko’s production The Old Signor and…) to four actors for one role of the Old Signora was an important step in recognizing puppet theatre as ensemble art.

Occupying the central place in the production, the novella based on Marquez’s motifs is a separate one-old-woman-show. The puppet holds the audience’s attention without getting out of the table for almost 20 minutes; she smokes and moves small wooden figures across the table, illustrating a sad story about a handsome drowned man. Her raspy voice is overlapped by the translator’s nasal voice, but even this works as a tiny detail of the character.

In 2017 the award was given to the duo of Alexander Balsanov and Anna Somkina, who performed in Yana Tumina’s production based on Sergei Golyshev’s book My Son Has Down Syndrome and, as a matter of fact, on the poems of its character – Kolya. In the chamber production of a small theatre company, this text is combined with puppets, throat singing, and animation, giving the example of how social theatre can be artistic without any reservations.

However, more often a performer manages to deal with all the characters on his or her own. Quite a few actors receive their awards for one-man shows or the productions, “pretending” to be such (1998, 2000, 2013, 2015, 2016). A puppeteer, with the help of his or her “inanimate” partners, finds this easier to do than a drama actor with imaginary partners. In this case we are following the universal trend. However, the career of a solo performer is totally different, for instance, in Europe and Russia.  In Russia he or she is the performer, in Europe – the author of the production who has invented everything: from the text and puppets to the pattern of the role. Thus, Neville Tranter from the Netherlands covers political subjects in puppet theatre without transforming outwardly and in a usual, everyday gesture adjusting his glasses, and at the same time controls various characters and talks to them; each character has his own voice, manners, and temperament.

In Europe puppet theatre is often close to contemporary dance in its movement patterns of the deflection of live and inanimate details. Hence the fame of Duda Paiva, who approached the puppet with his ballet training. In Russia only Nikolai Tsiskaridze once graced with his presence the theatre company Shadow, where from time to time he performs in The Death of Polyphemus (the Lilikan Theatre).

Speaking of professional training. A special subject – actors with drama training on the puppet theatre stage. Some of them join puppet theatre because they have to and, if they want (in the best situation), they learn from their colleagues.  Someone shyly calls at the puppet theatre out of professional curiosity. And they are lucky, because they treat a puppet with the same reverence as the genuine puppeteers. Ruslanbek Dzhurabekov from Penza (2014 nominee in the production To Kill Karol) for the first time found the right approach to his Oculist during the rehearsals; Taras Bibich, the winner in 2015, did not learn to work with a puppet either. They came to puppet theatre open-minded, uninhibited, loyal to their masters-directors, Vladimir Biryukov and Yevgeny Ibragimov accordingly.  Dzhurabekov mastered the marionette which has several doubles of different sizes – during the action, his character reduces in size. Bibich does not try to work with characters on pivots at the chamber stage of BDT as a puppeteer, he feels the intonation of every character, his prospects, and fate with great precision.

Among the winners there are many young actors, especially in the recent years, and this is a general tendency not only in puppet theatre. In 2016 the festival brought the victory to the yesterday’s students, who were lucky to have found their director.  In puppet theatre it is Mikhail Shelomentsev, whose ebullient talent was noticed by Alexei Lelyavsky, in drama – Sergey Volkov who stood out among his classmates and was noticed by Yuri Butusov and Maria Smolnikova who became the principal actress in Dmitry Krymov’s theatre. In our time, success in every field will be achieved – sooner or later, – provided that a person has good education and works hard.

In conclusion, let us try to map out a collective portrait of the puppeteer – the character of our time. That is how it looks today: the actor is young, independent, he or she has been trained in St. Petersburg, is used to working in chamber format and has mastered different systems. He or she has every chance to become a maverick, values ensemble work in a good company, and is not afraid of experimenting.