Puppet Theatre and Resistance in “Free Greece” (1943–44)
Puppet Theatre and Resistance in “Free Greece” (1943–44)

The Puppeteer and the Audience of Children

Summary/Abstract: This paper focusses on puppet theatre performances held from September 1943 to October 1944 in “Free Greece”, i.e., the part of central mountainous Greece controlled by resistance groups fighting against the Nazi occupation. The performances were given by a puppet theatre troupe created by the intellectual leadership of the Resistance fighters and led by the puppeteer Nikos Akiloglou. The study relies upon research in progress based on stage objects (puppets and stage sets), plays and archival documents (photos, paintings, films, interviews), as well as on interviews conducted with people associated with members of that puppet theatre group. The paper aims to reveal the role of the puppet theatre in “Free Greece” and investigate its impact on children to whom the performances were mainly addressed. For the time being, due to the lack of children’s testimonies of that time, the impact on them is studied only in this specific period and through the discourse of others (educators, artists and the puppeteer), not the children themselves. The paper also aims to show the impact of the resistance puppet theatre group’s activity on the puppeteer’s longevity and how it affected his personal identity formation as it was the means of his involvement in the Resistance.

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