Paljetak’s Puppetry Dramaturgy

Abstract

In the period from 1968 to 1978, Luko Paljetak worked in the Puppet Theatre of Zadar as an actor, playwright and director and directed the Zadar / Croatian puppetry towards modern expression. In the history of puppetry, he is primarily known as a director, but in this paper, the author deals with his less known drama texts. In the archive of the Puppet Theatre of Zadar, a book was found entitled On the Other Side of the Mirror, Omnibus of six stories for a fluorescent theatre, which has not been put on the scene. However, in this text, the author reads the early signs of postmodernism: the departure from the didactic content, the rejection of the screen, the criticism of the system, the delay of meaning, new ideas. An anti-fairy tale The Fairy Tale of the King’s Cherries and the humorous fantasy Ghosts from the Planet Strahurn, were not well received by critics, while the text Nikola Tesla: Childhood Stories was a literary template for an exciting play that was performed only in Zadar. Paljetak uses anthropomorphisation to say something humorous about humans, both in the well-known collection of poems Mice and Cats Upside Down, as well as in his dramatic texts which he intended for puppetry as well as no- puppetry staging.