Puppet theater of Petrushka. Device, analysis of the comedy about Petrushka

Municipal state-financed organization Culture City Palace of Culture of the Belye Berega village

People's Puppet Theater Petrushka ".

(Methodical material)

Compiled by:

Chorus master Borisova A.N.

2. Plays for the national puppet theater "Petrushka";

People's Puppet Theater of Petrushka.

PARSLEY,“The nickname of a booth doll, a Russian jester, a funny man, a wit in a red caftan and a red cap; the name of Petrushka is also the whole buffoonery, a puppet nativity scene ”(V. Dal). Parsley has been known since the 17th century. Russian puppeteers used marionettes (string puppet theater) and parsley (glove puppets). Until the 19th century. preference was given to Petrushka, by the end of the century - to puppets, because parsley producers have united with organ grinders. The parsley screen consisted of three frames, fastened with staples and tightened with chintz. It was placed directly on the ground and hid the puppeteer. The barrel organ gathered the audience, and behind the screen the actor began to communicate with the audience through a peep (whistle). Later, with laughter and a reprise, he ran out himself, in a red cap and with a long nose. The organ-grinder sometimes became Petrushka's partner: because of the squeak, the speech was not always intelligible, and he repeated Petrushka's phrases, conducted a dialogue. The comedy with Petrushka was played out at fairs and booths. From some memoirs and diaries of the 1840s, it follows that Petrushka had a full name - he was called Peter Ivanovich Uksusov or Vanka Ratatui. There were main plots: Petrushka's treatment, training in soldier's service, a scene with a bride, buying a horse and testing it. The plots were passed from actor to actor, word of mouth. Not a single character in the Russian theater has had a popularity equal to Petrushka.

Usually the performance began with the following story: Petrushka decided to buy a horse, the musician called a gypsy dealer. Petrushka examined the horse for a long time and bargained for a long time with the gypsy. Then Petrushka got tired of bargaining, and instead of money, he beat the gypsy on the back for a long time, after which he ran away. Petrushka tried to mount a horse, which threw him off to the laughter of the audience. This could continue as long as the people did not laugh. Finally the horse ran away, leaving Petrushka lying dead. The doctor came and asked Petrushka about his illnesses. It turned out that he was in pain. There was a fight between the Doctor and Petrushka, at the end of which Petrushka beat the enemy hard on the head with a truncheon. “What kind of doctor are you,” shouted Petrushka, “if you ask where it hurts? Why did you study? You yourself should know where it hurts! " The quarter appeared. - "Why did you kill the doctor?" He replied: "Because he knows his science poorly." After the interrogation, Petrushka hits the district policeman on the head with a club and kills him. A snarling dog came running. Petrushka unsuccessfully asked for help from the audience and the musician, after which he flirted with the dog, promising to feed it with cat meat. The dog grabbed him by the nose and dragged him away, and Petrushka shouted: "Oh, my little head with a cap and a brush is gone!" The music stopped, which meant the end of the show. If the audience liked it, they would not let the actors go, applauded, threw money, demanding to continue. Then they played a little scene Petrushkina's wedding... They brought the bride to Petrushka, he examined her as one examines a horse's articles. He liked the bride, he did not want to wait for the wedding and began to beg her to "sacrifice herself." From the stage where the bride “sacrifices herself,” the women left and took their children with them. According to some reports, another scene in which a clergyman was present was very successful. It did not appear in any of the recorded texts; most likely, it was removed by censorship. There were scenes in which Petrushka did not participate. It was dancing and juggling with balls and sticks.

Break down Comedy about Parsley begins at the beginning of the 20th century. Parsley began to appear at children's parties and Christmas trees, the text of the scenes changed, losing its sharpness. Parsley stopped killing. He brandished his club and scattered his enemies. He spoke politely, and the "wedding" changed, turning into a dance with the bride. Gone is the coarse, common language, and with it the individuality of the hooligan-joker, to whom both old and young ran up.

Until now, the puppet theater uses glove puppets, and behind the theater screen, Petrushka gave way to other heroes. “An organ-grinder is in our courtyard today in the spring, / He brought the troupe's actors on his back: / He opened the screen in the middle of the courtyard; / Janitors, footmen, laundresses, coachmen / They crowded around the screens to stare / How Petrushka will represent a comedy. "

It seems that the search for the "first plot" of the first parsley "is futile. And not only because they repeat the methodological costs of the “theory of borrowing” (and broader than the comparative method in theater studies and folklore studies), but also because in all folk cultures, on all continents, they will give paradoxically positive results. Archaeological excavations, textual studies, myths, testimonies of ethnographers already today allow us to simultaneously consider the source of this comedy both the culture of Ancient Rome and the culture of the countries of the East. A similar doll was found by archaeologists even on Easter Island.

The search for the "first parsley" probably makes no sense to conduct, because this phenomenon belongs to the common human culture. But folk puppet comedy remains at the same time a purely national achievement. It is more reasonable to explain the identity of such comedies in many countries of the world by the similarity of folk cultures, dialectically developing in the mainstream of a single historical process, which are based on identical folk calendar games and socio-historical conditions.

According to the testimony of travelers, the puppet comedian was always with the leader of the bear, demonstrating “bear fun”. The content of the comedy was obscene. Here it is necessary to pay attention to the statements of witnesses that the puppeteer, as a rule, played the role of a goat, clown, and jester. It is quite natural that these roles were projected onto puppet character... A puppet comedy in the complex of a buffoonery performance, seen, was performed with the last, "shock" number, which testifies to its success among viewers who were not embarrassed by the speedy content of the comedy. In the XVII century. the comedy was accompanied by a guslar or a drone. He was also a kind of connecting link between the doll and the audience: he called out, collected a fee, conducted a dialogue with the hero, and acted as a raishnik. The accompaniment of the puppet comedy has changed over time. In the first half of the 18th century. “Petrushka” performed his songs and dances to the sound of a whistle and a violin. Later, when in the second half of the 18th century a barrel organ appeared in Russia, this mechanical wind instrument, which did not require musical ability, supplanted folk instruments. The emergence of a hurdy-gurdy in the system of folk puppet show evidently testified to the beginning of the extinction of this type of theater, its transition to the system of commercial farce performance.

During the study period, the technique of showing performances of a puppet comedy also underwent partial changes. At the beginning of the 17th century, an ingenious design served as a screen, which looked like this: "... in front of a man in a woman's skirt with a hoop at the hem, he lifted it up and, thus closing, he can calmly move his arms, lift the dolls up and present whole comedies ..." ( eighteen). This extremely movable screen allowed the puppeteer to instantly start the performance and also finish it with lightning speed, if circumstances required. Such a screen design was convenient for the actor and allowed, if necessary, to quickly disappear into the market crowd when the law enforcement officers appeared.

It is known that in the 19th century the screen arrangement was already different. "A sheet made of dye was hung on two sticks, and because of this sheet the puppeteer was showing his performance." There were also more complex structures, when the puppeteer showed the performance from behind a screen that formed a tetrahedral pillar. A box with dolls was placed inside the screen (19). To install such screens, of course, more time is needed, and therefore a more tolerant attitude of the authorities towards the fact of showing the performance. However, given that in the XVII century. the puppet comedy existed in the position of a persecuted folk theater, it is realistic to assume that once a screen-skirt was more practical for performers than the design of screens of the late 18th - 19th centuries. She, perhaps, saved the puppeteer from paying taxes - the inevitable “every fifth money” in favor of the treasury.

During the performance, dolls that did not participate in this scene were most likely hung on the artist's chest. When the puppeteer lowered the skirt raised above his head and turned into a clown, a buffoon, the dolls hanging on his clothes served as additional buffoonery ornaments and attributes.

In the texts of the Masquerade “Triumphant Minerva” by F. Volkov, until now the following place was not entirely clear: “Momus or a mockingbird. There are dolls and bells on it. ” Considering that this part of the masquerade was a "theater with puppeteers", it is natural to analogy with the folk puppeteer, who lowered the screen-skirt and appeared before the audience as the god of tomfoolery, hung with puppets.

It is possible that the new design of the screen appeared among the Russian puppeteers along with the appearance of the organ.

The play "Petrushka" was given by two actors - a puppeteer and a musician-raesh. This principle, apparently, remained unchanged throughout the life of the comedy. Before early XIX century, the tradition of performing this comedy with the help of “glove” puppets has remained unchanged.

Performances using these dolls require a minimum of skill from the performers. The scenography of such a theater is much simpler, more conventional than scenography. professional theater puppets. This is easy to see when comparing Olearius's drawing with engravings depicting puppet performances in Western Europe at that time.

Theater Petrushka did not know the scenery. Nor did he know the numerous props inherent in the performances of professional puppeteers. The only sham detail of the comedy was the club, which put points in the finals of comic scenes, dropping down and the heads of parsley enemies. During the course of the action, the main character played the same club like a violin, and like a broom, and like a gun.

Time has changed not only the design of the screen accompanying musical instruments, but also the plot of the performances, character, appearance, even the name of the protagonist.

This hypothesis is the most probable, but not the only one. The comedy hero (by consonance) could take his name from one of his predecessors - the ancient Hindu jester Vidushak, who had a hump, “ funny head”, Which caused the fun of the audience by his behavior (21). Both Vidushaka and Petrushka are both debaters, both are stupid with some special, feigned carnival stupidity. The language of both heroes is the language of the crowd, the weapons of their reprisal are the club and laughter.

Other versions are equally possible. In the travel puppeteers of the early 18th century. we meet the name of Petrushka Ivanov, and in the first half of the same century, the puppeteer Pyotr Yakubovskaya gave performances in Moscow. It is likely that the puppet hero could borrow his name from one of the puppeteers, whose performances were most popular.

The following assumption, although it may seem unlikely, also, apparently, has a right to exist. Jesters and folk comic heroes often received nicknames from the names of various foods and spices. Ganstwurst - Ivan Sausage (in Russia this name was translated as "hare fat"), Jean Farina - Ivan Muchnik, French variety of Punchinel, Pickelgering - Pickled herring, Jack Snack - a light snack. Why doesn't Petrushka get her name in a similar way? It appeared with him later (probably in the first third of XVIII century) the surname Samovarov in memory of a technical novelty that took root in Russia, introduced by Peter I.

In addition, there is every reason to assume that this hero - a loud-throated bully in a red cap, with a rooster profile, often depicted riding a rooster, himself a spitting-out rooster, could borrow from him, along with his character, a name. Moreover, in Russia every rooster is “Petya”.

One way or another, but one should not forget that Petrushka acquired his name in the "Peter's Age", when the transformer of Russia, who did not know sentimentality, according to the apt expression of VN Vsevolodsky-Gerngross "signed his rescripts not with a pen, but with a club" (22) , and during the hours of rest under the name of Petrushka Mikhailov he drank and played the fool at "all-joking cathedrals."

UNDER THE NAME "PETRUSHKA"

(Folk theater/ Comp., Entry. Art., prepared. texts and comments. A. F. Nekrylova, N. I. Savushkina. - M .: Sov. Russia, 1991. - (Bk of Russian folklore; T. 10), pp. 251-254, comments pp. 506-507).

Output Parsley.

We wish you good health, gentlemen. Be healthy with the day and holiday that is today. (Refers to Musician .) Musician! You know, brother, what?
Musician. And what?
Parsley. I, brother, want to get married.
Musician. Not a bad thing, but on whom?
Parsley. Oooh! On Praskovya Stepanovna, on a merchant's daughter.
Musician. And do you take a lot of dowry, Vanya?
Parsley. Forty-four thousand and half a quart of vodka, two herrings, caviar and a bottle of three pounds.
Musician. The dowry is not bad, and the bride is good?
Parsley. Hey, very good!
Musician. Well, show me.
Parsley. I’ll call you now. (Calling.) Paraskovia Stepanovna! Sweetheart, my little angel, flower, come here! (Parascovia walks. At this time, Vanya meets and presses and kisses and asks tightly to his heart.) How is your health, Paraskovia Stepanovna? (Turns to the Musician.) Musician! Is my bride good?
Musician. Good, good, but a little blind.
Parsley. Not true! What eye, what eyebrows, mouth, nose, and what boobs (and kisses at the same time). Musician! Play us Kamarinsky!

Vanya and the Bride dance and sing:

Well, move,
When the money started up!
Walk, hut, walk, oven,
The owner has nowhere to lie down.

Then Vanya hugs her and escorts her home.

Parsley. Musician! Thank God I got married.
Musician. Now the young wife needs to buy a horse.
Parsley. That's it, brother, from whom to buy?
Musician. The gypsy Gavryl.
Parsley. Where does he live?
Musician... On the right side in a large pub.
Parsley (calling Gypsy). Hey, Gavrylo, smeared snout, come here!
Gypsy (goes and sings).
Yes, the fog is ferocious,
And frost in the valley,
Yes, between the mists
The gypsies were standing.
And buv, sir, is healthy. What do you need?
Parsley. I heard that you have a selling horse. Do you want dear? And is she good?
Gypsy. Good, good. Not sniffling, not hunchbacked, alive, not undermined, but running - the earth trembles, but will fall - it lies for three days, and burst in the mud, even though you carry it yourself.
Parsley. How many do you want?
Gypsy. Two hundred and fifty rubles.
Parsley. It is expensive.
Gypsy. How much will the pan give?
Parsley. One hundred rubles.
Gypsy. Little, sir, give it.
Parsley. One hundred and twenty.
Gypsy. Come on, sir, a deposit.
Parsley. Bring the horse.
Gypsy. I won't give the horse back without a deposit. Goodbye, sir. (Parsley at this time catches the Gypsy by the forelock and hits the wall.) Buying without buying, but you do not need to fight. Come on, sir, a deposit. (At this time, Vanya leaves.) Our business is to steal, sell, exchange, get money, eat, drink. (At this time, Vanya is carrying a stick.)
Parsley. Well, gypsy, get your deposit! (And hits the head with a stick.) Here's a ruble for you!
Gypsy (shouts). A-y-yay!
Parsley. Here's two, three, four, five.

The gypsy receives a deposit and runs away.

Parsley (rides on a horse). And what, musician, is my horse good for a young wife?
Musician. Good, only chrome.
Parsley. You're lying, she's good! Play me a gallop.

While riding, the horse throws off and hits Vanya and then runs away. At this time, Vanya screams.

Parsley. Oh my god! It hurts near the heart! Who will get my Paraskovya Stepanovna?
Musician. What?
Parsley. Call me a doctor!
Musician. And here comes the doctor.
Doctor. I am a medical doctor, a German pharmacist. They bring me to me on my feet, and send me on crutches. Where does it hurt?
Parsley. Higher!
Doctor. Where is "here?
Parsley. Lower it!
Doctor. Where is "here?
Parsley. Higher!
Doctor. The devil will understand you: now higher, now lower, now higher, now lower! Get up, be healthy!
Vania (stands up). And how much, doctor, do you pay for your work?
Doctor. Five rubles. (Vanya went.) Give me money soon! Our business is to prescribe the medicine, to tear the money, to tear up the skin and send it to the next world.

At this time, Vanya enters and instead of five rubles brings a stick and gives the doctor the stick blows.

Parsley. Here's a ruble for you, here's two for you! Here are three!

The doctor does not receive the rest of the money, but runs away.

Parsley (To the musician). Did the doctor get the money well?
Musician. Good.
Parsley. Oh, now I'll sit down, sit and sing a song.
Chizhik-fawn, where have you been?
I drank vodka at the market.
Drank a glass, drank two -
Spun in my head!
Police officer (hits Vanya). What are you here, bastard, making noise, shouting, not letting anyone sleep? I will send Barbosa to you, he will bite off your long nose!

At this time runs in Watchdog , Vanya stops and starts teasing him.

Parsley. Qiu-chiu!
Watchdog. Woof woof! (Grabs Vanya.)
Parsley(teases again). Qiu-chiu!
Watchdog. Woof woof! (Grabs him.)
Parsley (he says goodbye to the audience and shouts). Watchdog, Watchdog, my long nose is gone!

The end of the speaker Vanya.

FOLK THEATER- Theater, created directly by the people themselves, existing among the broad masses in forms organically associated with oral folk art. In the process of historical. development of the arts. the culture of the people is the fundamental principle, which gives rise to the entire subsequent history of prof. theatre. Isk-va, is a plank bed. theatre. creation.

Folklore theater is the traditional dramatic art of the people. The types of folk entertainment and play culture are diverse: rituals, round dances, dressing up, clowning, etc. In the history of folklore theater, it is customary to consider the pre-theatrical and stately stages of folk dramatic creativity. Theatrical forms include theatrical elements in calendar and family rituals... In calendar rituals - symbolic figures of Maslenitsa, Mermaid, Kupala, Yarila, Kostroma, etc., playing scenes with them, dressing up. Agrarian magic, magical actions and songs designed to promote the well-being of the family played a prominent role. For example, for the winter Christmastide they pulled a plow through the village, "sowed" grain in the hut, etc. With the loss of magical meaning the rite turned into fun. Wedding ceremony also represented; a theatrical play: the order of "roles", the sequence of "scenes", the reincarnation of the performers of songs and lamentations into the protagonist of the ceremony (the bride, her mother). A difficult psychological game was a change in the inner state of the bride, who in the house of her parents had to cry and lament, and in the house of her husband meant happiness and contentment. However, the wedding ceremony was not perceived by the people as a theatrical performance. In calendar and family rituals, participants in many scenes were mummers. They dressed up as an old man, an old woman, a man dressed in women's clothing, and a woman - in a man's, dressed up in animals, especially often in a bear and a goat. The costumes of the mummers, their masks, make-up, as well as the scenes performed by them were passed on from generation to generation. On Christmastide, Shrovetide, Easter, mummers performed humorous and satirical scenes. Some of them later joined folk dramas.

Booth- a temporary wooden building for theatrical and circus performances, which has become widespread at fairs and festivities. Often also a temporary light building for trade at fairs, to accommodate workers in summer time... In a figurative sense - actions, phenomena similar to a farcical representation (buffoonery, rude). Balagans have been known since the 18th century.

Nativity scene- folk puppet theater, which is a two-story wooden box, reminiscent of a stage. In Russia, the nativity scene entered late XVII - early XVIII centuries from Poland through Ukraine and Belarus. The name is associated with the original depictions of scenes of the life of Jesus Christ in a cave, where he was sheltered from King Herod.

For Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians, the performance was divided into two parts: religious and everyday. Over time, the religious part was reduced and acquired a local flavor, and the repertoire expanded and the nativity scene turned into a folk theater.

Unlike the “Petrushka Theater”, the puppets are controlled from below.

The vertep theater was a large box, inside of which there was a stage, usually two-tier. On the upper stage, worship of the newborn baby Jesus was shown, on the lower stage, episodes with Herod, after whose death the everyday part of the performance followed. Wooden dolls were attached from below to a wire, with the help of which the clerk moved them along the slots in the floor. The main decoration on the stage is a nursery with a baby. At the back wall were the figures of the righteous Joseph with a long beard and the holy Virgin Mary. Scenes with the birth of Christ were traditionally played out in the upper tier. The owner of the den himself usually pronounced the text in different voices and led the puppets. The choir boys sang Christmas carols. And if a musician was present, he accompanied the singing and dancing with music. The puppeteers and accompanying musicians and the choir walked from house to house, or staged performances in public gathering places - in shopping areas.

In fact, it was a 1x1.5m two-tier box, dolls were moving on the tiers.

Theater of Petrushka- The screen of parsley consisted of three frames, fastened with staples and tightened with chintz. It was placed directly on the ground and hid the puppeteer. The barrel organ gathered the audience, and behind the screen the actor began to communicate with the audience through a squeak (whistle). Later, with laughter and a reprise, he ran out himself, in a red cap and with a long nose. The organ-grinder sometimes became Petrushka's partner: because of the squeak, the speech was not always intelligible, and he repeated Petrushka's phrases, conducted a dialogue. The comedy with Petrushka was played out at fairs and booths.

In Russia, only men took Petrushka. To make the voice louder and squeakier (this was necessary both for audibility at fair performances and for the special character of the character), a special squeak was used, inserted into the larynx. Petrushka's speech was supposed to be "shrill" and very fast.

Unlike Vertep, the screen is not a box, but a window with "curtains". And the person who controlled the puppet in the Petrushka theater could show himself to the public and talk to his own puppet.

Rajok- a folk theater, consisting of a small box with two magnifying glasses in front. Inside it, pictures are rearranged or a paper strip with home-grown images of different cities, great people and events is rewound from one skating rink to another. Raeshnik moves pictures and tells sayings and jokes for each new plot.

The highest manifestation of folk theater is folk drama. The first folk dramas were created in the 16th – 17th centuries. Their formation came from simple forms to more complex ones. The most famous and widespread folk dramas were The Boat and Tsar Maximilian. Folk household satirical dramas("Master", "Imaginary master", "Mavrukh", "Pakhomushka", etc.), adjacent to the Christmastide and carnival games... They are based on dramatic sketches that were performed by mummers.

Some of folk dramas were of a historical nature. One of them - "How the Frenchman took Moscow."

I. Stravinsky ballet "Petrushka"

The ballet "Petrushka", the music for which was written by the young composer I. Stravinsky, became in 1911 the highlight of the "Russian Seasons" in Paris. At that time, no one could have thought that Petrushka, with his inherent clumsy plasticity and a sad face, would become a symbol of the Russian ballet avant-garde. But the brilliant creative triumvirate of composer I. Stravinsky, choreographer M. Fokine and artist A. Benois created a masterpiece that became one of the symbols of Russian culture. A riot of colors, expressiveness, national flavor, manifested both in music and in costumes, decorations, choreography, led the audience into complete admiration and established a fashion for everything Russian in Europe.

Characters	Description
	funny puppet show theater
Ballerina	the doll that Petrushka is in love with
Arap	doll, the subject of interest of the Ballerina
Magician	the owner of the dolls
Organ grinder	Street musician

• In the ballet, a street dancer dances to the old song "Wooden Leg". Her unpretentious motive Stravinsky heard on one of the streets of Nice from an organ-grinder. Subsequently, the song's author, a certain Spencer, appeared, and the court ordered the composer to pay him the amount of the fee.
• At the first rehearsal of the orchestra in Paris, the musicians began to laugh out loud, the music of "Petrushka" seemed so funny to them. Conductor P. Monto needed all his gift of persuasion in order to explain to his colleagues that Stravinsky's music should not be taken as a joke.
• The role of Petrushka has become a key one in the life and work of such dancers as V. Nijinsky, V. Vasiliev, M. Tsivin, S. Vikharev, R. Nureyev and others.
• It is believed that exactly Diaghilev opened the world to the talent of Stravinsky. When he first heard the young composer, he did not even have a higher musical education.
• Mikhail Fokin believed best performer ballerina dolls Tamara Karsavina. She, in turn, was very fond of this role and danced it until the end of her ballet career.
• In 1993, a platinum coin dedicated to Stravinsky was issued. It bears a relief image of the composer against the background of a scene from the ballet "Petrushka".
• Contemporaries unmistakably guessed in the characters of “Petrushka” the real participants in the “Russian Seasons”. The image of the Magician was directly associated with Sergeev Diaghilev, who controlled his artists as a puppeteer controls puppets. Nijinsky was compared to Petrushka, seeing in him an artist who rose above the crowd by the power of his art.
• In 1947 Stravinsky created a second version of Petrushka for a smaller number of musicians. Instead of a "quadruple" composition of the orchestra, the score was reworked for a "triple" composition, and the music for "Petrushka" began to exist in two versions - as a ballet and as an orchestral one.
• Based on the ballet "Petrushka" in 1993 created russian cartoon"Christmas Fantasy".
• Stravinsky skillfully weaved the motives of famous Russians into the music of the ballet folk songs“Towards a rainy autumn evening”, “Wonderful month”, “Along the St.
• Music from the ballet "Petrushka" sounds in the films "The Charming Naughty Girl", "Kiss of the Vampire", "Our Lady of Turkey".

The Russians knew three types of puppet theater: the puppet theater (in it the puppets were controlled with the help of threads), the Petrushka theater with glove puppets (the puppets were put on the puppeteer's fingers) and the nativity scene (in it, the puppets were motionlessly fixed on rods and moved along the slots in the boxes) ... The theater of puppets is not widespread. The Petrushka Theater was popular. The nativity scene was widespread mainly in Siberia and in the south of Russia.

The Petrushka Theater is a Russian folk puppet comedy. Its main character was Petrushka, after whom the theater is named. This hero was also called Petr Ivanovich Uksusov, Petr Petrovich Samovarov, in the south - Vanya, Vanka, Vanka Retatui, Ratatuy, Rutyuyu (a tradition of the northern regions of Ukraine). The Petrushka Theater arose under the influence of the Italian Puppet Theater Pulcinell o, with whom Italians often performed in St. Petersburg and other cities.

An early sketch of the Petrushka theater dates back to the 1930s. XVII century This illustration was placed by the German traveler Adam Olearius in the description of his trip to Muscovy. Regarding the drawing, D. A. Rovinsky wrote: "... A man, having tied a woman's skirt with a hoop in the hem to his belt, lifted it up, - this skirt covers him above his head, he can freely move his hands in it, put dolls on top and present entire comedies.<...>In the picture, on a portable skirt stage, it is easy to discern the classic comedy that has survived to our time about how a gypsy sold a horse to Petrushka. ”Rovinsky cited Olearius's remark that the puppet comedian was always with the bear leader; The scenes, according to Olearius, were always of the most modest content.

Later, the raised up women's skirt with a hoop in the hem was replaced by a screen - at least in the descriptions of the 19th century Petrushka theater. the skirt is no longer mentioned.

In the XIX century. the Petrushka theater was the most popular and widespread type of puppet theater in Russia. It consisted of a light folding screen, a box with several dolls (according to the number of characters - usually from 7 to 20), a barrel organ and small props (sticks or ratchet clubs, rolling pins, etc.). The theater of Petrushka did not know the scenery.

The puppeteer, accompanied by a musician, usually an organ grinder, walked from yard to yard and gave traditional performances about Petrushka. He could always be seen during festivities, at fairs.

About the structure of the Petrushka theater, D. A. Rovinsky wrote: “The doll has no body, but only a simple skirt has been forged, to which an empty cardboard head is sewn on top, and the hands are also empty on the sides. hands - the first and third fingers; he usually puts a doll on each hand and acts in this way with two dolls at once. "

The characteristic features of Parsley's appearance are a large hooked nose, a laughing mouth, a protruding chin, a hump or two humps (on the back and chest). The clothes consisted of a red shirt, a cap with a tassel, and smart boots; or from a buffoonish two-tone clown outfit, a collar and a cap with bells. The puppeteer spoke for Petrushka with the help of a squeak - a device thanks to which the voice became harsh, shrill, rattling. (The peephole was made of two bone or silver curved plates, inside which a narrow strip of linen ribbon was fixed). For the rest of the characters in the comedy, the puppeteer spoke in his natural voice, pushing the squeak behind his cheek.

The performance of the Petrushka Theater consisted of a set of satirical scenes. M. Gorky spoke of Petrushka as an invincible hero of a puppet comedy who conquers everyone and everything: the police, priests, even the devil and death, while he himself remains immortal.

The image of Parsley is the personification of festive freedom, emancipation, a joyful feeling of life. Petrushka's actions and words were contrasted with accepted norms of behavior and morality. The improvisations of parsley were topical: they contained sharp attacks against local merchants, landowners, and bosses. The performance was accompanied by musical inserts, sometimes parody: for example, the image of the funeral for "Kamarinskaya" (see in the Anthology "Petrushka, aka Vanka Ratatouille").

Zueva T.V., Kirdan B.P. Russian folklore - M., 2002

Literary and artistic research project:

folklore - folk theater of Petrushka

Moscow 2008

FOREWORD
The Petrushka National Theater of Miniatures is a peculiar phenomenon Slavic folklore... The forms of existence of the theater of miniature are diverse: some are very ancient, others are new and modern. The subject of this research is the need for an urgent close study of Russian folklore - the folk theater of Petrushka in miniature, given the colossal damage caused to Russian folklore in general and the miniature theater of Petrushka in particular during the era of the Bolshevik dictatorship. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the collection and study of ethnographic materials, which the people's memory still managed to preserve. In addition, after the collapse of the USSR and the formation of the CIS countries, the priority of the international communist attitude was sharply changed, to national folk traditions... The process of spiritual revival of Russia and of Russian national culture throughout the Russian Diaspora began. It is known that Russia is not all of Russia yet, that all over the world Russian communities zealously preserve the ancient traditions of common Russian culture and folklore, including the Petrushka theater. In this regard, it is necessary to expand the area of ​​collecting the pearls of the miniature theater - throughout the depth and breadth of the Russian Diaspora.
Theater of Parsley on tipping point Russian history in the present period, at the turn of the millennium, is especially important in moral education of the younger generation, in a protracted crisis. Only moral guidelines crystallized by millennial traditions of the oral folk art, are able to become a reliable foundation of the National Russian culture, on which countless generations of Russian people were brought up.
The rudiments of miniature puppet theater are found in almost all genres of folk art, and this is manifested in the oral existence of works and in their performance. In the folk environment, one could often meet talented singers, storytellers, storytellers. They spoke with great skill, sang, accompanying their performance with expressive gestures and facial expressions, bright intonations, conveying the features of scenes and episodes on behalf of their heroes. Storytellers often, as if reincarnated in the images of their characters, acting out certain scenes. And in this their oral performance folk works, already contained elements of the folk theater. The most significant development of the elements of the folk theater was given to folk calendar and family rituals; This is especially evident in the depiction of the cycles of the seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter).
A significant role in the Petrushka theater was played by the musical style of Russian songs and instrumental tunes. Feelings and experiences in music are transmitted through the interaction of various means musical expressiveness: truly folk choruses, tongue twisters and recitatives - all this played an essential role in the transmission of one or another sensory-emotional experience: joy, sadness, suffering, contemplation, etc. The systematization of musical and ethnographic examples was one of the most important components of this study of the Petrushka folk theater of miniature. Were attracted a variety of printed sources in the musical folklore centers of Russia. Great importance was attached to folklore and ethnographic expeditions to various regions, the southern, central, northern and western parts of the regions of Russia, where, due to special historical conditions, the original Slavic roots of the Russian population turned out to be the most preserved.
Theatrical rituals in Russia have long been an act accompanied by singing or a prose text according to the established tradition, using masks and special costumes. On the basis of ceremonies, dressing up and games, the theater itself arose, which was distinguished by the fact that traditional texts were performed with significant improvisation. The actors, adhering to the main action and the verbal text, adapted them to the circumstances, to the time and place of performance, as well as to the demands of the audience. I would especially like to note about children's folklore, which is very conservative, and thanks to this, it preserves significant layers of the miniature theater of the distant past period of Russia.
Among the Slavs, folk theater had such forms as a puppet theater (especially the theater of miniatures of Petrushka), a booth, a paradise, play scenes and a theater with actors proper. In the puppet theater, plays were performed by puppets, led by the puppeteers. The dolls could be put on the fingers of the "puppeteer" or they were set in motion along the slots made on the floor of an artificially created stage made in the form of a tall box.
Slavic puppet theaters are associated with religious rites(nativity scene, shopka, betleyka) or were purely entertainment in nature, not associated with rituals. The Russian Theater of Petrushka denotes not only the hero of the play, but also the theater itself, which is called the Theater of Petrushka, after the hero's name. If the nativity scene arose under the influence of the church, absorbing the centuries-old folklore traditions of ancient pagan Russia, then the miniature theater of Petrushka is purely folk art, both in form and in content and ideological orientation. In the Vertepe main task was to present the birth of Christ or the play "Herod". However, the nativity scene often had something in common with an open-air fairground puppet theater. This combination of secular and spiritual in a puppet show was especially clearly shown in the Polish theater "Kopljanik" or in the Czech theater "Kasparek", in which the gentry, gypsies, Jews acted, and a Cossack or soldier entered into an argument and fight with them. Peasants appeared who, in their songs and dances, ridiculed the stupid gentlemen, and, at the same time, lazy and drunken slaves. At the end, a wandering folk singer appeared, sang songs and asked the audience to reward the participants in the performance as much as they could.
In the Petrushka puppet theater, the main theme was action in squares, courtyards and fairs. During the holidays, the performance of Petrushka was a favorite folk show, often accompanied by a barrel organ, and Petrushka himself was their most beloved hero, brave and witty, who conquered everyone: the police, and priests, Satan himself, and even death. And among the people there was a firm belief that it was Petrushka, in his rude, naive image working people, is able to overcome and conquer everything and everyone, and he himself will remain immortal. Parsley is rough but vivid image working people, with a hump on their backs from backbreaking work. Petrushka's clothes are simple, but bright: his shirt is usually red, on his head is a cap with a tassel. The puppeteer puts the Petrushka doll on one hand, and puts on the other hand in turn the dolls of other different characters: the master, priest, gypsy, policeman, Satan, bride, death and other dolls. The puppeteer conducts a verbal text on behalf of Petrushka. Other heroes of the performance are usually voiced by another performer of the performance, who plays the barrel organ. Petrushka's voice is unusual, he is very harsh and loud so that everyone can hear him, even those who do not want to listen to him. For this purpose, the puppeteer uses a special squeak, which he constantly keeps in his mouth.
Scenes with bright comic are played out in the theater of miniatures. “Often Petrushka bought a spoiled horse from a gypsy, on which he was going to go to woo a rich bride. But the unlucky horse fell on the way, while Petrushka hurt himself painfully and called the doctor-pharmacist, but the doctor turned out to be a swindler, took the money, and the medicine did not help him. An officer appeared at a wrong time and decided to take Petrushka into the army ... In the end, Petrushka gets tired of it, and he beats the gypsy, the doctor-pharmacist and the officer with his stick ... ”.
During the holidays, at the merry fairs, small wooden buildings with a light roof, called booths, were built. These were peculiar theaters that had a primitive stage and auditorium... From the balcony of the booth (booth barkers, grandfathers-raeshniki), with shouts and jokes-jokes, invited the audience to their unsurpassed booth. Often, the actors in the performances improvised the text, which were also witty-satirical in nature: parodies of church service and ceremonies. For example, in the play "Pakhomushka", the wedding action takes place around a tree stump, which has a deck through the tree stump. Often, the heroes of the play were the insurgent peasants (in the play "The Boat"), in which the heroes were robbers floating "Down the Mother on the Volga" and on the way dealt with the hated landowners, burning their estates.
Dramatic scenes were often full of folk anecdotes and fairy tales, absorbing a variety of folk songs and literary poems. The Petrushka National Miniature Theater had a large public importance as a spokesman for the people's hopes. At the same time, it was and remains a wonderful folk show that has a huge emotional impact on wide circle the public.
Nowadays, the role of the miniature Petrushka theater is growing rapidly, especially with the advent of the unlimited possibilities of the Internet. The science of folklore has passed a significant path of development and rushed in our days to unprecedented heights... Detailed descriptions and systematization of a significant variety of plots and types of heroes in folklore works, especially fairy tales, have already been made. Particular interest in the miniature theater of Petrushka was shown at the very recent times... New works are created for the performances of Petrushka, which reflects the modern life of the multipolar world.
Despite the fact that in the course of the historical development of peoples, the common cultural heritage has been and is being changed, however, the commonality of motives, types of heroes and individual means of expression in the folklore of the Slavic peoples is still clearly visible. This is due to the fact that societies go through similar stages in their cultural development. It is noteworthy that the development of miniature puppet theaters in different nations have a lot in common. So, for example, Japanese puppet theater has a lot in common with our Slavic wandering puppet miniature theaters.
A puppet theater is a live theater in miniature, sometimes even stronger and more outspoken, as we will see below. The world of antiquity was not only familiar with the theater of miniatures of puppets, but also knew its value. Among the Greeks, the puppets did not lag behind the live theater and played the comedies of Aristophanes. Later, during the Roman rule, the puppet theater, like the living, fell into disrepair. In Rome, preference is given to mute puppets: mimicry and ballet appear on the stage in the imperial era. Thus, in ancient world dolls from the original image of the deity, from an object of worship, passed into the category of fun, sometimes very immodest. We will see the same in Christian Europe.
Originally, the puppets, as their very name indicates: "les marions", "les mariottes", "les marionnettes", were depictions of the Virgin in the famous Christmas drama; people did not dare to act as characters in the mysteries themselves, leaving statues to act, at first motionless, later artificially set in motion. When the mystery received further development, the puppets still have a performance of the Christmas drama that still exists in the nativity scene. Gradually, the satirical element entered the serious atmosphere of the medieval mysteries, and soon, along with sacred stories and their heroes, buffoonery farces appeared on the stage of puppets. Jugglers and buffoons put their funny, sometimes cynical, jokes into the mouths of wooden actors and spread the puppet theater throughout Europe. The image of a puppet table, preserved in a German manuscript of the 12th century, shows two crudely made dolls, set in motion by threads stretched crosswise towards two people; they portrayed either fighting warriors or disputants, and sprinkled them with witticisms and puns.
He talks about the puppet theater, as about the usual fun of the people, already at the beginning. this century Prince I. M. Dolgoruky. Here is how he describes in his diary the impressions of the puppet show he saw at the Nizhny Novgorod fair: “The rabble is in a hurry to enter their spectacles: several puppet comedies, tied bears, camels, monkeys and buffoons are brought for them. Of all these fun, I happened to go to one puppet comedy. There is nothing to describe: everyone has seen what it is; for me there is nothing funnier and the one who represents, and those who are watching. The piper beeps on the violin; the owner, releasing the dolls, conducts a conversation for them, filled with all sorts of nonsense. The dolls, meanwhile, snap their foreheads, and the audience laughs and is very happy. It always seemed strange to me that at such games they present a monk and make a laughing stock of him. There is no puppet comedy without a cassock. "
“The idea of ​​the raik was based on the“ paradise action ”about Adam and Eve, where the devil plays a comic role and partly the progenitors of the human race themselves. Gradually complicating itself with new comic scenes, like a nativity scene, the "paradise action" itself disappeared, and only pictures of a purely secular content remained from it. " The structure of the ryk is very simple: it is a small box with two magnifying glasses in front; its dimensions change, as does the number of glasses. Inside it is rewound from one shaft to another long streak glued from popular prints with images of different cities, great people and historical events... The paintings are placed in a special tower above the box and are gradually lowered on laces, replacing one view with another. The spectators look into the glass, and the raeshnik moves the pictures and tells the sayings to each new number:
- Here is the city of Vienna, where the beautiful Elena lives;
- Here is Warsaw, where the grandmother is rough;
- And here, gentlemen, the city of Berlin, the gentleman lives here, he has three hairs on his head, he sings in thirty-three voices!
- And here is the city of Paris, as you drive in, you will burn out; here our Russian nobility goes to wind money: goes with a sack of gold, and returns on foot with a stick!
- And here, gentlemen, the city of Rome, the Pope lives here, a ragged paw!
In conclusion, the clown, or even two, dance, ringing bells to amuse the audience. As you can see from the above examples, the text of regional performances, they are taken from popular prints: the same style, the same witticisms and naive antics. It is possible that these texts are the remnants of buffoonery games and performances and are a product of the interaction of the theater of puppets and popular prints, which have preserved the remnants of buffoonery farces. “Now the paradise does not at all remind of its religious background and is a widespread and favorite type of folk comedy, merging in the nature of the pictures presented with the famous "Petrushka".
The well-known "Petrushka" that has come down to us, having lived for two centuries, almost unchanged; he took on the features of a Russian buffoon and in this form was distributed throughout Russia.

The device of the modern wandering puppet theater is extremely uncomplicated. A dye sheet is hung on two sticks, and because of this sheet the puppeteer shows his dolls and makes his performances, in which the old guslar, drone or piper is replaced by a husky organ playing mainly Russian songs, to which the dolls dance. For the most part, now the dolls are shown from behind screens, which, when placed, form a tetrahedron, inside which there is a box, where, according to the figurative description of Ornest Tsekhnovitser, “The dolls '' indicator” itself is located. The dolls protrude from behind the screen, not on wires, as in the nativity scene, but are made in a completely different way: the dolls do not have a body, but only one head made of wood or cardboard, to which a dress is sewn; instead of arms - empty sleeves with a tiny hand at the end, also made of wood. The puppeteer sticks his index finger into the doll’s empty head, and his thumb and middle fingers; usually he puts on a doll on each hand and, thus, acts simultaneously with two dolls. A crowd of spectators gathers near the screens. The barrel organ plays a song, from behind the screens you can hear Petrushka squealing and his hoarse voice singing along with the barrel organ. He bursts and whistles loudly with the help of a "peep" in the mouth of the puppeteer. Suddenly Petrushka jumps out from behind the screens and greets the audience: “Hello, gentlemen! I came here from Gostiny Dvor to be hired as a cook - fry hazel grouses, fumble in pockets! .. "

Petrushka starts a conversation with the organ grinder, who is his constant interlocutor, and asks him to play a dance and dances alone, and sometimes with his wife, who bears the name of Malanya, Marfushi, or Pelageya, or even Akulina Ivanovna. She calls him to drink some coffee, but he pulls her upstairs and, akimbo, dances the Russian with her, and then chases her away. A gypsy appears and sells him a horse. Parsley examines her, tugs at her ears and tail. The horse kicks him in the nose and belly. These "kicking" of the reference horse Gypsy Mora often make up a rather ridiculous part of the play for the audience. " Parsley bargains with the gypsy for a long time and, in the end, buys a horse from him, and the gypsy leaves. Petrushka sits down on his purchase and boldly prances on it, singing: "As in St. Petersburg, along Tverskaya Yamskaya" ... The horse starts kicking, hits Petrushka in front and back, finally throws him off and runs away. Parsley falls, loudly hitting the ground with its wooden face; he groans, groans, laments plaintively about the untimely death of the good fellow, and calls for a doctor. A "doctor comes, from under the Stone Bridge a pharmacist", it is recommended to the public that he was in Italy, he was even more, and begins to ask Petrushka: "Where, what and how does it hurt?"
- What a doctor you are! - Petrushka is indignant, - you yourself should know: where, what and how it hurts! ..
The doctor begins to feel Petrushka, poking his finger and asking: "Does it hurt here?" ... Petrushka replies: "Higher! .. Lower! .. even a little lower!" ... and, in the end, backhand hits the doctor. The doctor gives him back. But Petrushka has an advantage: he always has a stick in his hands, and he drives away the unlucky doctor with it.
The matchmaker brings Petrushka the bride Marfushka or Pigasya, sometimes she herself comes to him, and he begins to examine her, as he examined a horse at a gypsy's auction. Petrushka looks everywhere, adding strong sentences and causing the audience to laugh incessantly. He liked Marfushka very much, and he was unable to wait longer than the wedding, which is why he began to beg her: "Sacrifice yourself, Marfushka!" But she "plays around" and "fordybachit", but finally agrees ... ".
In his description of the performance of the miniature theater of Petrushka, Rovinsky D.A. reports that in the interval between the acts of the play, dances of two arapoks are usually presented, and sometimes a whole interlude about a lady who has been bitten by a snake (meaning Eve); the game of two jesters with balls and a stick is immediately shown. Unfortunately, the details of these and other adventures of Petrushka were lost and are waiting for their explorers, as it is clear that many pearls of folk art have been lost. There are, for example, the plays of the Petrushka Theater, for which even the name of vaudeville is too honorable, but, meanwhile, it contains all the signs of opera, ballet and drama. As in an opera, in it the folk organ acts as an orchestra, and the operatic tenor, soloist Petrushka, plays the role of an opera singer for the general public, not without success; as in ballet, it features the dances of Petrushka and Marfushka (or Pegasia). Aged in a miniature theater and the classic trinity: the unity of time (1 hour), the unity of the place (the screen - the scenery has not changed for centuries) and the unity of action (flea market).
Petrushka was formed from the fusion of elements of Russian folk buffoonery with the features of the German Hanswurst. Its prototype was the same Punchinelle - the Italian Pulcinella, which is the ancestor of all European buffoonery people. However, despite the obviousness of the Italian origin of the Russian "Petrushka", even recently a very original opinion was expressed in the literature about its oriental origin... Chinese "Petrushkas" are almost the same as our Russian Petrushkas. The local wandering artists of the miniature theater stopped in front of the balconies of the houses and demonstrated their puppet shows. Often the performers of this miniature puppet show are twice the Chinese - an elderly man and a boy of about 15 years old, the assistant to the first. They carry two boxes on their backs. At stops, they lower the boxes from their backs to the ground, arrange four-sided screens covered with chintz, and a minute later, at the top edge of these screens, our old acquaintance the jester Petrushka, only dressed in Chinese, appeared. The adventures of the Chinese Petrushka are completely identical with our Russian brother, Petrushka. The same tragicomic, endlessly varied stories are taking place with the military drill of Petrushka, with his answer before the police judge. At this point, a dis-dressed, red-cheeked Bride appears on the stage, and all the scenes between her and Petrushka, again, are all the same as ours; even Petrushka's manners of speaking and emitting comic screams with the help of a special “pikhak” lip device that the comedian puts into his mouth remain completely identical with Petrushka’s manners.
The origins of the Petrushka miniature theater.

During excavations in Egypt, in the vicinity of Antinous, in 1904, a puppet theater was found, the oldest puppet theater known to us, dating back to the 16th century BC.

In his book "History of the People's Puppet Theater" (State Publishing House, 1927) Orest Tsekhnovitser notes that the puppet theater disappears in Egypt for many centuries, and it appears already in India. The first mentions of mechanical wooden dolls in India date back to the 11th century BC. At this time, the puppets had already moved from the temple to the theatrical stage, where they were set in motion by the threads (sutras) of the puppeteer. There were no texts for the puppet shows, there was only a short script with verses. Improvisation was dominant. The absence of a text explains the fact that we have almost no original puppet play until the 19th century. AD, and even then these records have survived only thanks to private lovers and connoisseurs of puppet theater miniatures.
In the oldest puppet shows in India, there is a distant "ancestor" of our people's favorite Petrushka, which bears the name Vidushaka. He is depicted as a hunchbacked dwarf brahmana, who excites everyone with gaiety with his behavior, the appearance of a comic figure, dress, speech and boundless love for the weaker sex. This is the image of Vidushak-Petrushka, as his contemporaries painted. All the similarities between Vidushak and Petrushka are preserved; our merry fellow will not lose his belly, crooked nose, hump and love for women during almost three thousand years of its existence.
In India, Vidushaka was portrayed as stupid, but behind this stupidity was a cunning. He is a mocker and rude, he is pugnacious and always hits everyone with his stick. He happens to be a bit himself and even goes to jail, but he never disappears. Vidushaka was portrayed as a brahmana, and in his person the people ridiculed their priests - their hypocrisy, arrogance, passion for women, for wine and delicacies. At the same time, he speaks not in the Sanskrit language (the language of the upper class estate), but in the folk language, in the Prakrit dialect ordinary people... However, in those days, only brahmana priests were allowed to speak Sanskrit, and it was forbidden for commoners, up to the use of the death penalty, since it was believed that for ordinary people to speak the language of the Gods was blasphemy and blasphemy. Vidushaka does not part with his stick, which in the future will be the constant companion of our Petrushka (Russian club) in all his trials.
Our puppet folk hero Petrushka passes the same paths in almost all parts of the world, and endures the same tests of fate, and this similarity in the history of the development of the puppet theater is not accidental. And the current explanation of the origin Indo-European language and the epic from the single ancestral home of the ancient Aryans is not enough to explain the all-encompassing similarity of the hero of the puppet theater of miniatures. Apparently, the decisive role here was played by the result of the economic communication of individual peoples with each other. It should be borne in mind that the puppet theater in some places was created thanks to the same prerequisites - natural connections, and therefore was formed independently in its main features.
When studying the oriental puppet theater, one should bear in mind the ways of trade relations connecting individual countries, but it is also necessary to take into account the elements of the original development of individual states. Unfortunately, the currently existing fragmentary data do not allow us with a sufficient degree of convincingness to establish the truth of the question of interest to us, and we are content only with the fact that we have the opportunity to highlight only the main points that influenced the creation of the puppet theater of individual countries, including Russia. ...
The puppet theater is still very popular in all countries of the East. In India today, the puppet theater of marionettes is the favorite show of both adults and children. This theater has retained its ancient basic techniques. Just like many centuries before our era, the people are summoned to the performance of the puppet theater by the same ancient national instruments... Ancient dolls depicting mythical characters and folk types in real life features. Especially widespread in modern India and in almost all countries of the East is the puppet theater of shadows, which has been popular since ancient times and has reached particular perfection in Turkey and China. But its origins are also lost in the mists of time.
Together with Hindu merchant ships and settlers from the Ganges Valley, the Sinhalese race of southern India settled in Ceylon in 543 BC. With the penetration of Indian culture into Ceylon, the Sinhalese moved the Vidushaka puppet theater there. In the future, a trace of the transfer to other national soil of the folk art of India, through immigrants and sea trade routes, is noticeable (including a miniature theater of puppets and shadows). Dolls for the miniature shadow theater were made of buffalo skin. The content of shadow theater performances consists of ancient Hindu sagas - legends about gods and heroes.
India has long come into contact with Persia through sea and land (across the northwestern borders) trade relations. The Persian puppet hero - Kankal Pahlavan - is also similar to Vidushak. He is an ugly joker, endowed with a squeaky voice and has such an amorousness and passion that for the sake of women, wielding his constant club, he engages in battle with the devil himself.
The origins of Chinese puppet theater also stem from religious ceremonies. Even in ancient times, dolls took the most effective part in the presentation of religious content. Many Chinese legends tell about the origin and history of the puppet theater, which for centuries existed in China along with the theater of shadows. The Chronicles of Le Tzu date them to the time of the 10th century BC. Chinese skillful craftsmen made dolls from straw and wood, which were varnished. According to legend, these dolls could even dance and sing. Miniature puppet theaters in ancient China took part in public life countries and, along with performances at the imperial palaces, served to amuse the people.
Along with puppets and shadow theater, for centuries in China there was also “Petrushka” (the main character named Kvo), who again reminds us of Vidushak by his character. The Chinese doll Quo also makes fun of the unpopular ministers and courtiers, and his club also walks along their fat backs. The structure of the Chinese theater "Petrushka" is the same as in most European countries... Due to the long-standing economic and cultural closeness between China and Japan, Chinese puppetry has influenced Japan's puppetry. Japanese puppet theaters have two main types: "Ningyo-tsukai", in which puppets are introduced by people, and "Ito-tsukai" - a kind of our puppets.
Especially interesting is the Turkish puppet hero Karagöz (Kara - black, göz - Eye; Karagöz - Black-eyed). The image of this doll shows the influence of both the East and the West (Hellenistic principles). Such a reunification of the images of "Petrushka" gives it great brightness and originality. The image of the Karagyoz doll could be influenced by the image of the Hindu doll Vidushaka. Both in Turkey and in almost all other countries of Asia and Europe, gypsies were the distributors of elements of the Hindu puppet theater. In all the countries of Asia and Europe, for a long time, the puppeteers were gypsies who brought their performances there after the exodus from India during the era of unrest and invasions in the 10th century. In addition, the creation of the Turkish puppet theater was influenced by the Byzantine and Greek mime, the origins of which were also the ancient puppet theater of miniatures of Egypt and India. Hence the exceptional similarity of Karagöz to the Italian Pulcinello.
In the East, bordering on Russia, in Turkestan, "Petrushka" is presented in its usual form and with all its inherent attributes. The Eastern Puppet Theater of Turkestan had great value in the political life of the country, because he was the only tribune for the expression of public opinion. The puppet theater fought for political emancipation and was persecuted by the authorities. Subsequently, the same role was played by the folk puppet theater in Europe.
These are basically the milestones and main moments in the history of the national puppet miniature theater "Petrushka" all over the world. Everywhere the puppet theater went through almost the same stages of development: from the church to the street, to the square, to the very midst of the population. The puppet theater was the only genuine folk brainchild and was the expression of the spirit of the struggle of all times and peoples for their liberation from oppressors. And in our difficult time at the turning point of the millennium, the role of the Petrushka Theater is invariably increasing and our task is to help its revival in every possible way.
In the most recent time in Russia there has been a rapid growth of performances of the children's theater of puppets Petrushka, collected in cities and towns of Russia, which still preserved the memory of the people. Along with this, new works of modern authors-storytellers are created for staging performances in the Petrushka miniature theater, (Appendices 1-3), as well as for staging performances of the miniature theater of paradise, (Appendix 4), shadow theater, (Appendices 5- 7), mirror theater (Appendices 8-9), miniature puppet theater, (Appendices 11-14) - division into "Appendices" are conditional.

The doll Petrushka is shown from behind a screen three-quarters of her height. She seems to be walking on an imaginary floor located behind a screen, somewhat below her. top edge... In order to show the gait of the doll, the actor either moves himself behind the screen in small steps, or shakes the hand on which the doll is worn. Achieving a believable gait in dolls is not an easy task, and you need to seriously work on it.

When a doll speaks - it moves, when it is silent - it is motionless. Otherwise, the viewer will not understand which of the dolls is talking. A silent, motionless doll does not mean a dead doll. The actor must find her either a pose that would be sufficiently expressive even when the doll is stationary, or movements and gestures that express an accurate reaction to the partner's words and occur at pauses in the latter's words. The basic laws of acting in puppet theater are the same as in drama theater. The peculiarity of puppet theater lies in the fact that here the actor conveys to the viewer all the ideological and emotional content of his role through inanimate object- dolls, and therefore he must always see his doll, not for a moment weakening his attention to her, feel her physical tasks, control her entire line of behavior. In addition, the puppeteer actor always needs to see where the doll's gaze is directed, make sure that it walks straight and not sideways, so that it does not fall too far behind the screen and does not crawl higher than it should. The parsley doll control technique is simple. For reed and mechanical dolls, it is much more difficult. But no matter what doll the actor works with, he needs to regularly train with it so that during rehearsals he can think about the correctness of his acting tasks, about the expressiveness of the doll's behavior, and not about how to do it technically. Inactive, purely conversational scenes in puppet theater sound especially bad. But if a cane doll, thanks to its characteristic broad gesture, can still maintain a rather long dialogue and even utter a monologue, then the parsley doll must certainly play its role as a continuous chain of physical actions. It is pointless to train with a parsley doll without specific physical tasks.
Currently, projects are being successfully implemented to introduce a miniature Petrushka theater and shadow theater on the Internet. Russian puppet theater of miniatures of Petrushka, paradise, shadow theater and mirror theater take on new life not only in the vastness of Russia, but also abroad.