Text after carol motives: Robert Waltl
Directing and dramaturgy: Edi Majaron
Art idea: Agata Freyer Majaron
Puppets manufacturnig by Vincent from Castva: Anja Dolenc and Jože Lašič
Music selection: Edi Majaron
Set manufacturing: Darije Herceg
Actors: Robert Waltl
Singers: Edo Strah and Emir Jušič Piber
Puppet performance for adults and children from 5 years up.
Duration: 45 minutes
Opening performance: December 1996
Production: Freyer teater, Ljubljana; Co-production: Mini teater, Ljubljana
Festivals: France, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Belgium, Belarus, Slovenia.
The theatre Freyer teater is a non-institutional theatre lead by Edi and Agata Majaron. Every single project at this theatre is created by puppetry professionals. Their first performance was the marionette ballet The Sleeping Beauty created upon music written by Tchaikovsky and Jaksa. The following year they put on stage Cankar's Indecency in the Valley of St. Florien, which was the first puppet staging ever created upon this Cankar's drama. Their next performance was the popular children story About the Doggie Tobias written by Zdenek Florian. The performance The Donkey of Nazareth was staged in 1996 and it is now in care of the theatre Mini teater.
The performance The Donkey of Nazareth represents a dramaturgic collage of Christmas carol motives and specifically animated Christmas crib. It is performed by one actor and two assisting singers, who together act like three carol singers presenting the story about the birth of Jesus. They however retain a certain distance since the truth about this birth and the human hypocrisy of that time as well as of the present days is presented through the eyes of a donkey.
The visual concept created by Agata Freyer is based upon medieval frescoes by Vincent of Kastav. The performance makes use of marionethes - hand puppets on sticks deriving from the court-fool’s sceptre. This is the first professional puppet interpretation of biblical motives after World War II, which for centuries has served as base to European puppetry tradition.
The director and regular professor for puppetry at the Pedagogic Academy in Ljubljana, Edi Majaron says: “With this performance we want to join the tradition with the present problems caused by lack of feeling for our human companions. We are aware that through theatre the world cannot be changed, nevertheless we want to knock at the conscience door of every individual person.”
