String marionette

des Essarts Emmanuel

Oil painting of Alphonse Martainville (1777-1830) by Riesener

Martainville Alphonse

Aicher Hermann

Schnitzler Arthur

A TV presenter invites the audience to time travel to the year 2084; he ages rapidly and dies. A foetus floats in space and hums the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Numbers 3 and 5 harass number 11 who wants to be left alone, driving him to suicide several times. The voice from the speaker congratulates 3 and 5. Two robots talk using only letters and acronyms. Mozart, afraid of being forgotten, doubts his own identity. The creatures Têtedelard and Boutdechou reflect on their potential, and then the former dismembers the latter while Lumgo, a deceitful creature with disorganised syntax, tries to convince Boutdechou to become the king of humanity. Clones have to play family but no longer understand the concepts of man, woman or love. An alien mother listens absent-mindedly to her son tell stories of life on Earth in the past. Behind them, the planet Earth rises.

Dorin Philippe

France

Strasbourg

Un futur plein d'avenir

2084

Trained animal

Hofmann Anton

Since 2019, the Musée des Arts de la Marionnette (MAM) has been collaborating with the Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 and the team of Didier Plassard, professor and head of the PuppetPlays European research programme. 
As part of this project, the MAM - Gadagne documentation centre has made its collection of Guignol repertoires available for digitisation, analysis and distribution on the Puppetplays online platform.
The most popular Guignol plays are comedies such as Le Déménagement, Les Frères Koch and Le Pot de confiture. But other genres have also contributed to the puppet's success, including fairy tales, military plays and parodies. 
The lectures and readings on this day aim to show the huge variety of these shows, the diversity of their audiences and the contexts in which they were performed. The recent discovery of manuscripts performed by puppeteers from Lyon in Paris between 1866 and 1868 will also provide an opportunity to reflect on the language of Guignol and its evolution.
PuppetPlays is a research project funded by the European Union as part of its Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under Grant Agreement 835193.

Ponctuation 5 - La Pépie

Appointment in town

Combat

Criminal gang

Discipline

Emperor

Enema

Energy

Esotericism

Evolution

Fall

Fishing

Infanticide

La Havane

Meat

Money

Neighbour (man)

Princess

Tail

Valse des ministères

Wandering

Biblioteca comunale dell'archiginnasio

Huma-Num

IdRef

Isidore

Jagiellonian Library

Münchner Stadtmuseum

Musée de la Vie Wallonne

Musée des Arts de la Marionnette - Gadagne

Nakala

Pôle International de la Marionnette – Jacques Félix

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Université Haute Alsace

The puppeteer is about to tell a true story, the story of Lumi and Ginco, two young migrants from Albania. Their friend Vassillaq was supposed to play the role of the narrator, but as he did not show up, the puppeteer will do it for him. The young girl Lumi lives in Albania with her brother Bato and their grandmother. Their parents have lived in Venice-Mestre, Italy for eight years. One day the two siblings are finally able to join their parents: a wealthy cousin who lives in Canada has asked for Lumi's hand in marriage, and Bregan, Lumi's father, has accepted. Lumi and Bato embark on the perilous sea journey and finally arrive in Venice-Mestre. Another young Albanian, Ginco, has recently arrived at the site where Bregan works. He has no papers, but he is helped by Bregan and Vassillaq, another Albanian migrant with a passion for illegal car racing. As soon as they meet, Ginco and Lumi fall madly in love, but when Bregan finds out, he is furious: he wants to marry Lumi to her rich cousin. The day of the official engagement arrives, but Lumi is disgusted by her fat and pompous cousin. To punish her, her father sends her to live with her aunt, but Lumi continues to see Ginco and becomes pregnant. It is finally thanks to the intervention of the aunt that Bregan is convinced to allow the two young lovers to marry. The wedding finally takes place, but Vassillaq, who was supposed to be the groom's best man, is not there: he died the day before, while participating in one of his illegal races. That's why the puppeteer had to assume the role of narrator...

Puppet and marionette theatre repertoires

In Western Europe from 1600 till now

The database

The anthology

Discover and learn

Scientific publications

The project

String marionette

Browse the works according to their key-words

Explore by authors

Lumi dall'alto

Our partners