Europe

[Visited: September 2020]

You can see them all over the city: the marionettes for which Palermo is famous. They are staring at you from shops and souvenir stalls. Instead of going to a performance, I decide to visit the International Museum of Marionettes. A pleasant walk through La Kalsa, the Moorish neighbourhood of Palermo, takes me to the museum, located in the Hotel de France, and I enter with a strange kind of sensation, not really knowing what to expect, and wondering if this is not more for kids. I buy a ticket at the ground floor, which also holds the gift shop. It is when I take the stairs up that the real museum starts. I see examples of various marionettes from Indonesia, wajang kulit, klitik and golek, some of which are three dimensional, and colourful, and used as puppets, while others are used for shadow plays, where their shadow is projected on a cloth screen using lights.
There are only two floors in the museum, and the first floor seemed small, so I wonder what the rest will be like. But I am in for a surprise (as a good puppet theatre show always should have a good surprise). I have only seen a fraction of what this museum holds. I come to a big room, with puppets from Sicily, some quite large. A next room holds easily more than a hundred Sicilian marionettes, all hand made, painted, and dressed up. There is a stage where puppet shows can be performed. On one wall, there are two rows of puppets which can be seen close-up. These are Sicilian marionettes, and I can see the rich cultural background I see in the streets reflected in the puppets. Seen up close, you realise just how well these puppets are made. They all represent soldiers, with shields. Some have turbans, others moustaches, some are dark, others light, some are tall, others small.
There is more, much more, though. I walk through smaller rooms, where the collection of international marionettes continues. One room holds many hundreds of puppets hanging from the ceiling. I see marionettes from various countries around Europe, but also much more of Asia and Africa. Vietnam, Congo, Japan, Cameroon, and much more. Some are masks more than marionettes. I see Laurel and Hardy, the famous slapstick couple. All the marionettes are well explained in bilingual signs, there are videos showing the puppets at work. Every next room I see, I am increasingly convinced that this is, indeed, an incredible collection, and I understand why the owners of this museum, started in 1975, has applied for Unesco World Heritage status. When I finally leave the museum, I notice that I have spent much more time than I had anticipated. I walk the streets of the real world - but then again: aren't the marionettes a representation of that real world, albeit an exaggerated one?

Around the World in 80 Clicks

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Marionette Museum > Italy > Europe

[Visited: September 2020]

Around the World in 80 Clicks

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