Museu da Marioneta

Schedule: Tuesdays to sundays – 10am – 1pm / 2pm – 6pm
Paper theatres, true miniature theatres, had, at the beginning, a entertaining nature in order to allow the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries audiences to enjoy the pleasure of these shows. From the printed papers with the most famous actors of those days, depicted with their most characteristic features, it later evolved to everything that was needed to perform a given show: proscenium, sceneries, different characters and even a short script.
This exhibition shows paper theatres mainly attributed to the major personality of German publications, the famous publisher Johann Ferdinand Schreiber, but also some others examples from the English publisher Pollock, from the Dane Alfred Jacobsen, from the French Imagerie d’Epinal and from the Spanish Paluzie and Seix & Barral, El Teatro de los Niños, and some documents with characters, sceneries and fronts of stage belonging to the A Tarumba-Teatro de Marionetas collection.
Their creators were inspired by the artistic trends and performances of their times and were creative enough to make these small masterpieces that were highly appreciated and performed in family gatherings throughout the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
More than mere toys, these theatres play an important part in the education of the love for the theatre and they were truly inspiring childhood models for some personalities such as Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, Winston Churchill, Edward Gordon Craig, Lewis Carroll, Charlie Chaplin or Orson Welles. In artistic terms, they also influenced some creators, as Diaghilev, who used a paper theatre as the basis for one of his productions. Laurence Olivier made a special version of his famous film production, Hamlet, in a paper theatre; and who can forget the film Fanny and Alexander, by Ingmar Bergman, and the marvellous role paper theatre played in it?
Paper theatres have proved to be a multidisciplinary artistic object with great potential, able to combine artistic and pedagogical practices with a true love for theatre and for performing arts.
Once they are assembled, with backstage, stage, light batten, orchestra pit, sceneries, lights and actors, they become true theatres…