Fantastic Motifs Portrayed by Puppets in the Zadar Puppet Theatre
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Abstract
This paper analyses the puppet shows held in the Zadar Puppet Theatre, featuring fan- tastic motifs from Czech and Croatian written and oral literature: the ballad Kytice, adapted from Karel Jaromír Erben’s text and directed by Miroslav Melena; Nečisti i dje- vojka [The Evil One and the Girl], directed by Rene Medvešek, based on the oral tradi- tion motifs; and Tahir Mujičić’s Towning, a play rendered in the new fairy-tale manner that presents an homage to the Croatian painter of fantastic elements, Hrvoje Šercar. In the ballad and the traditional story, the authors start with the motif of everyday life and reach the motifs of fear and death. The fairy-tale leaves out fantastic motifs of horror and death; yet, the fantastic element is accentuated with fantastic puppets and scenography. In puppeteering, it is desirable to use puppets for supernatural scenes since the puppet is an inanimate object, but at the same time, it represents life and is alive. It is precisely due to this double nature that a puppet can express everything that a man should not and cannot.