A puppet show, ‘Paper Boat’, directed by Zahra Moridi, on environmental issues targeting children and youth, is being staged at Honar Hall.
It narrates the story of a boy who is accidentally trapped on an island. The inhabitants are annoyed with people who indiscriminately cut trees, pollute water and destroy the environment. The boy decides to address the problem, by recycling garbage. His solution leads him to find a way out of the island and also satisfy the inhabitants, Honaronline reported.
On the form and performance, Moridi said, “there is a combination of techniques including shadow show (a sub-technique of puppet show) and live-hand puppet theatre.”
Live-hand puppet also called a “two-man puppet” or the human-arm puppet is similar to a hand puppet but requires two puppeteers. One puppeteer places a hand inside the puppet’s head and operates its head and mouth while putting the other arm into a glove and special sleeve attached to the puppet (the right arm if they are left handed and left arm if they are right handed). The second puppeteer puts his/her arm into the glove and special sleeve attached to the puppet in order to operate the other puppet’s arms. This way, the puppet can perform arbitrary hand gestures.
“We could have used animation,” she said, “but I was eager to use my own professionalism in puppet theatre.”
As children are entertained by theatre, “we focused on environment issues through the musical show.”
Pointing to the importance of environment protection and recycling, she said theatre can be more effective in environment preservation than other platforms such as advertisements.
The play written by playwright Sajad Bahremand will run through June 20 at Honar Hall, Varzandeh Steet in Tehran.
