Puppet show

Quite recently, on Christmas Eve, a puppet show was held in our church. The idea for this show belongs to matushka Olga, who made the puppets and prepared the script for the show long before the premiere.

The script for the drama “Tsar Herod” by V. Tikhomirov was taken as a basis, but was reworked: some scenes were not included in the script, and some were added and adapted specifically for children to memorize the text.

Especially for the performance, stick puppets were made. These puppets resembled the style of the Belarusian Batleyka, but were a bit larger so that they could be seen from a distance. Batleyka is a traditional Belarusian puppet theatre that takes the form of a wooden box with two levels. The upper level was where the action took place with the angels, Joseph and Mary, while the lower level was reserved for the “dark” characters. In our case, it is Herod and his entire entourage.

To make the performance more interesting, it was decided to “revive” Herod and to give him “real” puppeteer hands. He stood out from the traditional Batleyka type of puppets and made the audience laugh a lot. The children themselves played the angels and shepherds. Everyone in the audience really liked this unique mix of styles.

We would like to note that this is the first interpretation of this show in which the text was voiced by children, and for one of the participants, Russian was a foreign language.

Once again, we thank matushka Olga, Deacon Denis, all the participants of the performance, as well as the sisterhood of the Great Martyr Barbara for their help in preparing and holding the performance.