From Russia With Puppets

This past Tuesday we made a return to the Dushanbe puppet theater, together with all of our friends from sadik.


There was a troupe from Russia in town, and that was all I knew setting out. It turned out to be the actors from the Kemerovo Provincial Puppet Theater named for Arkadii Gaidar, who had come on a springtime tour to Dushanbe.

The last time we went, I complained about the lack of puppets, but this time the puppets and the staging were great -- very clever and interesting. The production was "Bear Cub Rim-Tim-Ti," the story of a boy/bearcub home alone with his dad while his mom is away on a trip. The kid is lonely and his dad is loving but a bit aloof and doesn't quite get what his little boy needs or is capable of. When Rim-Tim-Ti convinces his dad he's a big enough boy to go to the market and get the last egg to complete his dad's recipe for a "five-egg omelet," he meets a puppy. He wants to bring the puppy home, but dad will have none of it. Whatever Rim-Tim-Ti finds lovable in his "pyosik" (pup), the dad can't see -- all he thinks is this is a dirty "sobaka" (dog), and he refuses to let him in the house.


When Pyosik thwarts a fox/robber (who was surprisingly charming -- I thoroughly enjoyed the interlude where he is introduced and sings about how he's a "khooligan" to a crazy combination of a Russian bard's outcast song set to the tune and rhythm of a tango), and returns Dad's stolen pants, the father relents and lets Rim-Tim-Ti keep his friend.

Whether she is just a bit older, or the story was more engaging, or because we were seated right in the front row (or a combination of all three), Anya actually sat in pretty much rapt attention the entire hour-long performance.

The actors were all visible behind and above their puppets -- it was the kind of production where they make no effort to hide (you can kind of see what I mean in the large picture above, with the woman in the yellow hat manipulating Rim-Tim-Ti). The funny thing was, the actress bringing Pyosik to life looked really familiar to me, and I couldn't stop trying to figure out where I'd seen her before. All I could think is this was some famous actress (puppeteer?) from Russia, when finally in the last few minutes of the play I realized where I'd seen her: she had played Mashenka to Baba-Yaga in the New Year's production! (B.Y. made an appearance in "Rim-Tim-Ti," too, playing the brash & busty chicken/market-egg-saleswoman who sells Rim the 5th egg.) Once I realized that, I was starting to wonder whether this was truly the visiting troupe we'd been promised, but our sadik teachers reassured me that it was indeed the visiting company with a few local actors added into the mix.

Mid-Holiday Breather

We had a relaxed, if partly sick, long holiday weekend -- everyone was sick with something, but luckily not all at the same time. Now of course it is a brief work week before we do it all over again for New Year's (although without W.'s present of Friday off, I expect).

Anya got to see Santa Claus/Ded Moroz a bunch more times, perhaps most excitingly at a children's performance at Dushanbe's Russian theater, the Mayakovsky. (Just down the street is the much grander Tajik theater, the Lohuti, and in my understanding of language and cultural policy in the USSR, it's pretty typical both that the two would exist and that they would have been fairly important institutions in the capital of Tajikistan, placed prominently in the heart of downtown -- despite the Russian theater's decidedly less glamorous visual representation. I'm interested to know more about them, though -- both about their lives in Soviet times as well as the life each of these institutions has led during Tajikistan's independence. The Lohuti also happens to be one of my favorite examples of architecture downtown -- gorgeous robin's egg blue walls and pure white columns, with beautiful Orientalist detailing at the capitals and archways of what is otherwise of course a familiar Soviet neo-classical temple.)

A fellow mother from sadik invited us to see a New Year's play -- I thought it was just going to be the usual public "yolka" presentation in the theater lobby, with Father Frost and his granddaughter Snegurochka, but it turned out that was just the beginning. (That yolka link shows you some interesting photos of Soviet yolkas in decades past -- the contemporary version has to be remarkably similar to what came before.)

We had a great time at the first part. Anya was particularly fascinated by the ugly fake nose worn by the Baba Yaga character, and also liked the "boogie voogie" song we danced to (which really was a fairly literal and direct translation of "the hokey-pokey," complete with right feet in and left feet out and all the rest).

Luckily we had been tipped off that this would be followed by a full-fledged play on the actual stage. Unfortunately, since we were sitting about halfway toward the back of the orchestra, and due in part to the moaning baby in the seat next to us (who, together with his grandmother, to my surprise, actually started attracting glares and comments from adults nearby), we didn't really hear or understand very much of it. And even after the grandmother finally took the hint and stepped outside, we'd already lost too much headway to really get into the story. But it had its moments. For Anya, those included the snowstorm (represented by swirling lights on the scrim, apparently generated by an offstage disco ball), and the red Russian peasant dress the main characters chose to dress their female scarecrow in.

From what I can tell, this was actually a recent play by a living playwright, entitled "Snegurochka Dasha." I could tell we were watching something in which two regular characters were stand-ins for Father Frost, his young sidekick, and the humorous bad guy figure of Baba Yaga, complete with a dream sequence in the middle that gave them to us in their full fairy-tale likenesses (think "The Wizard of Oz" in Russian with more red-nosed old guys and fewer animal characters. And a lot less music, unfortunately for those under 3 and for those hearing- and/or linguistically-challenged!). Luckily I had enough bear crackers and baby cookies to tide us over the hour or so it lasted and all the way home.

Hopefully our next public performance, a possible trip to the Dushanbe Circus next week, will be easier to follow and more small-kid-friendly than "Dasha."