ABSTRACT
There are some experiences which deepen with the passing of time. Exposure to and familiarity with the international art of puppet theatre is no exception. This introduction was conceived somewhere beside the Black Sea in a moment of reflection some one and a half years after the Soviet-British International Union of Marionettes Artists (UNIMA) conference in Glasgow. I have just spent the past five weeks working as visiting artistic director and designer at the Rostov State Puppet Theatre on a puppet play adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Together with the playwright Michael Gonzalez and the puppet therapist Mickey Aronoff we have been resident in Rostov-on-Don as part of a cultural exchange between the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre and the Rostov State Puppet Theatre. With the benefit of experience and the gift of hindsight it is now possible to make some informed reflections on the workings of puppet theatres within both cultures. These reflections are offered to those working with puppets who seek to break new boundaries and to establish new beginnings with their counterparts in the USSR.
