Figurentheater im Roman – Romane im Figurentheater

Puppet theatre and novels are close allies. Puppet theatre traditionally likes to work with novels; conversely, there are many novels and stories, for example by Theodor Storm, Harry Mulisch and Philip Roth, in which puppet theatre plays a leading role and even stands for the aesthetics of the text itself. This connection will be explored in a one-day workshop organised by the Professorship of Modern English Literature at the University of Erfurt in cooperation with the Waidspeicher Theatre. The workshop will take place on 9 June 2024 as part of the Waidspeicher theatre's Synergura Festival (5–9 June 2024). The event is also part of the research project "Puppetry as a Model of Literature and Language in the 20th and 21st Century".

Synergura is one of the most important and innovative puppet theatre festivals in the German-speaking world, supported by Waidspeicher theatre, one of the largest puppet theatre stages in Germany. In addition to a series of specialised lectures, the planned workshop will also include a lecture or response designed by the Waidspeicher ensemble and a novel workshop with puppets.

Puppetry is a theatrical practice in which any material can become the symbol of a human or non-human being. This figuration remains constantly visible, especially in so-called open theatre. In this way, puppet theatre is at least as similar to the printed text as it is to the principle of embodiment in human theatre. In addition, the person playing the figures in open theatre conveys the story to the audience and is therefore comparable to the narrative instance in a novel.
Due to the free movement of the figures, the spaces and times of the narrative can be traversed much more freely in puppet theatre than in human theatre. Does puppet theatre perhaps have no interest in the three units of drama theory and therefore prefers to adapt novels rather than dramas? It is obvious, but has not yet been examined in detail, that the novel in puppet theatre can reflect on itself, i.e. its poetics as well as its politics, just as puppet theatre can reflect on itself, its form, in and through the novel.