Ministry of Economy, Culture and Innovation

“If you love this job, do it, you can’t resist it.” This is what she says as she introduces you one to one with the dolls displayed on the walls of the building, which was originally built as a political “stage”. He knows them by name, years and all their authors. Kacamisri introduces us to the first one. “Each country has its own character and we have Kacamisri”, she says, introducing you to a world of imagination, where animals and things talk.

Bear, Chufoja, Tipi, Pinocchio, wolf, fox, stork… The characters of the fairy tales, the few that are left, are there as witnesses that we too were once children.

When he first came to the Puppet Theater, he had a hard time finding himself. He started dealing with the archive, organizing the puppets, dealing with scenography, building the ceiling of the stage, bringing a little order to that institution with a lot of wealth, but neglected, until he started creating characters for the little ones himself. Merita Spahija has worked at the Puppet Theater for 18 years, she has done all sorts of jobs in that institution, dedicating endless hours and learning to love these characters. “Look how good he is, like a piggy bank,” he says, as he shows us a pink, feather-light piggy.

“I came by accident, to stay for a while. I was not fond of puppets, even though I grew up with the theater. “Migjeni” theater is in the yard of my house”, she says. And the fact that he came from the world of art, helped him bring the institution closer to the technology of the time. “It seemed very outdated to me. They were still typewriters. The director of that time, Elvira Diamanti, helped me a lot, to open the ceiling, to give arias and to make it like the stages of all theaters. It wasn’t easy and maybe we didn’t do it 100%, but we managed to improve the stage and get closer to the technology of the time”, says Merita, walking around the theater.

The walls of the lobby are filled with puppets, with character faces and photographs of the founders and main actors throughout the history of the Puppet Theatre.

One of the many jobs she has been involved with in the theater is the systematization of the archive and now she knows its history at the tip of her fingers. The most diverse schools have passed there, from the East and the West, since Kel Kodheli, who is considered the father of the puppet theater and who brought the Italian culture, the one with parsley, which are put in the hand, but the heads are stationary, for continued with master Toni Shiroka, who spent a long time in the theater. “Tonin Shiroka brought the Russian school, he took the tradition one step further. He was the one who introduced the characters to the theater, created the shows with pits and puppets,” she continues. Then came Lavdije Toro, Romeo Çani, who made very modern puppets for the time, to continue with the younger artists, such as Ilir Dragovoja, Klaudia Hila, and Matlinda Mehmetaj, who for Spahi, is the best inheritor of the game tradition with dolls.

Making a doll, especially a character, is certainly not easy. Merita says that it does not cost too much, but it requires many hours of work and patience. “A puppet show takes at least 3 months, because everything is manual, because each process takes its own time. Outside, there are facilities, you can buy parts, but here, everything is done in a primitive way, and this has the greatest difficulty. When making a puppet you have to know the text, while you have to create a very good relationship with the director, to understand his idea. “He doesn’t necessarily need a whole rabbit, but just the rabbit’s ears,” she says. Over time, the techniques of making dolls have changed. Dolls have acquired more character, or have become even more abstract.

“Even though today the boundaries between scenographer, costume designer, puppet maker have melted, it continues to be a craft. I didn’t have the craft, but I only learned it out of love, since we grew up with the theater. I studied graphic design, I made scenography, but I also made puppets, including the “Seven Kids and the Wolf”, which I wanted to bring differently, stick them on the front, but keeping the structure of the wire puppet . I didn’t want to make props, but a mockup with cards”, she adds as she directs you to the room where the dolls are prepared and stored.

It is not about any laboratory, but a room, where work is done with almost circumstantial means. There we also find Kujtimin, who for 26 years has been assembling dolls, creating props, scenes… “I used to work at City Decor, then I came here. It is a job that requires a lot of patience, but also fantasy. You can’t say we have a lot of material to work with, so we use everything we can. We buy them in the markets, we bring them from home, springs, tires, ping-pong balls, hinges…”, says Kujtim Goxhaj, laughing and exchanging jokes with Merita, because of the scraps he got hold of to use for the dolls.

They do everything out of love for the craft, for the children, so that they can have fun, but also learn. Retirement takes another year, while Merita is currently teaching at the University of the Arts. They hope for better conditions for the Puppet Theater and to inherit the craft of puppet making and playing with puppets, as part of an eternal dream of humanity.