8.8.04

Puppets

My level of Russian Boot Camp requires a ten-minute presentation on a topic of one's choosing. Initially I had thought about discussing the Russian émigré community in Prague, specifically the links between that community and the Czech Avant-Garde. According to my world view, any opportunity to shill for Jakobson and Bogatyrev should be exploited. Then I realized that this would require more of me than I was prepared to give. I dumbed down the venture a bit, but then it just bored me. So I changed topics. Good-bye Roma and Petia! Hello Petrushka! It seemed like a good opportunity to make up for a serious lack of knowledge on my part and dazzle the class with handouts. I've scanned numerous pages from a real gem of a book I found in the library here: Derevenskii krasnyi Petrushka (Wooden, Red Petrushka), in which V. Stepanov discusses how to transform everyone's favorite rogue Petrushka into a communism-loving revolutionary. Below is part of a table depicting how to build a portable "stage" for a Petrushka play out of a skirt. -Zh.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home