(Non)animal plays in puppet theatre for children

Abstract

Agata Drwięga in her paper investigates how animals are present in contemporary drama for children and in Polish puppet theatre. Pieces in which animals are treated as if they were humans (in both negative and positive sense) are discussed. Investigated dramas include A. Wiktorowska-Chmielewska’s Malwinka in the Bird’s Kingdom and M. Guśniowska’s Marvin. Here, animals are generally treated as objects, and their real nature is not relevant for the content of drama. Texts concentrate on certain aspects of animal nature but also include animals which still undergo anthropomorphism (for example in: M. Guśniowska’s The Snake, M. Prześluga’s Beak in Beak and M. Baltscheit’s One Day Only). The last performance discussed in the paper is Baltic. A Dog on an Ice Floe directed by R. Wicza-Pokojski which tells the story of an animal but retains its subjectivity and places it at the same level as human experience. In general, the artist’s approach to animals is manifested by not only the puppet’s looks, but also by their role in the show. Puppets of less popular animals (e.g. pigeons, snakes or mayflies) often do not resemble original organisms, in contrast to puppets of mammals (e.g. cats, dogs). In the same time, non-human characters are almost always anthropomorphised or infantilized.