Nestled comfortably in the very heart of Moscow is the cube-like building of the State Puppet Show bearing the name of its founding father and longtime artistic director Sergei Obraztsov. Immediately visible out front is a very special looking and sounding mechanical puppet clock people unusually gather at mid-days to hear an iron cockerel singing 12 times as 12 little doors open on the clock’s black face letting out popular folk tale characters singing equally popular songs. As I already said the theater is named after the great Russian puppet master Sergei Obraztsov. 

The man who established puppetry as an art form and who is considered to be one of the greatest puppeteers of the 20th century, Obraztsov was born in Moscow in 1901. The son of a schoolteacher and a railroad engineer he lived a long and happy life filled with fascination for art and performance. Even though his parents had nothing to do with the arts, Sergei’s first encounter with a puppet came when he was six years old. Once taken for a walk by his parents Sergei asked them to buy him a bibaboshka, a puppet worn on the hand. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution when Russia lay in ruin Sergei Obraztsov subsisted on making Negro puppets, which just refused to sell. The upside of the whole thing was Sergei’s eventual infatuation with the art of puppet shows, which were such a big success during family and student shows.  

In 1931 Sergei Obraztsov was invited by the management of the Central Children’s Art Studio to set up a puppet theater all their own. That was the beginning of a puppet theater Sergei Obraztsov devoted his entire life to. “A puppet theater is the most allegorical art form there is,” Sergei Obraztsov said. “A puppet show is a miracle of making inanimate things come alive. And if animated puppets manage to effectively pin down human vices or instill good things then it means that the puppet show has managed to do exactly what it was supposed to…” And manage he definitely did, his masterful hands turning even a couple of wooden balls into a man and a woman madly in love with each other. Everyone who knew Obraztsov invariably agreed that he was an outstanding actor and director.

“Working with Sergei Vladimirovich was a blessing, it really was,” says puppet maker Yelena Shigayeva who has spent almost a half-century working at the Obraztsov Theater. “His shows were all about kindness, about the good heart, making fun of all things banal, false and mediocre. We have several generations of Muscovites steeped in his shows. His famous “An Unusual Concert” has won kudos in 50 countries, made it to the Guinness Book of World Records and is still going strong today.” 

Yelena Shigayeva made puppets for nearly each and every show Obraztsov staged and she is still working now. She says that making puppets is very hard and toilsome work that involves an entire team of craftsmen one designing the puppet itself, another creating its shape while another is tailoring the costume. And even though actors always come first, if the costume the puppet is wearing and its actual character just do not add up, the whole show may miss the point.

“Take for example, the puppet of the emcee from the Unusual Concert we already mentioned before,” Yelena says. “We spent a lot of time figuring the outfit it was going to wear. A cloak just did not fit the character of a loose-tongued master of ceremonies we were making. At long last we agreed on black tux with a white bowtie. And because the man was supposed to flourish arms and have a very special facial expression, we had to come up with a fancy mechanism to make it all happening…”

These days the Obraztsov Puppet Show, especially their plays for the kids, is as popular as it has always been and the mechanical puppet clock is still there, just like young and old people coming here every day all meaning that genuine art never dies…