Remember the doll you played with as a child… The feelings that will stir such memories will plunge you into the past, into some terribly important problems for us, then still for young us. Even if it wasn’t your toy, you smiled, right? The secret is in the magical power of dolls, which can sometimes be possessed by adults. For example, Nikita Pertsev is a puppeteer and director. Nikita and I didn’t talk about toys at all, but if you look at the adult world through the eyes of a puppeteer, your soul definitely becomes brighter…

«I was born in Zhytomyr, I have lived here almost all my life. I graduated from Kharkiv University of Arts named after Ivan Kotlyarevsky, I have a degree in «puppet theater director». Puppet theater is my hobby, work, life. More precisely, the meaning of life and my existence in this»

«As a child, I played with dolls. At the age of two or three, I went to sea with my parents and saw a puppeteer doing street shows. I was very impressed and fascinated by it. Since then, my parents started taking me to our Zhytomyr puppet theater. And then I started making my own dolls. In 2013, I met Serhiy Solovyov, and in fact began a professional career in the puppet theater. At first I learned how to make a theatrical puppet, and then I got to the stage and to directing. I wanted to be a director, because a director can be an actor, an artist or a performer. When I finished 11th grade, I already knew who and where I would go to study and who I would work for»

«At school I was treated a little skeptical: like an adult, and you play with dolls. It was humiliating. But I’m called a pearl of what I do. And when my classmates came to my performance at the Chernyakhiv House of Culture in 2016, they were surprised. I played in a play – I had three or four roles, and it was cool. Then the attitude towards me changed»

«I staged my first puppet show «Piglet Chok» in the Chernyakhiv district house of culture, then there was «The Enchanted Glove», and in 2016 – «Ivasyk Telesyk». They were cane dolls, the actors were Methodists, technical staff, singers and the director of the House of Culture. That’s how the step to the dream began»

«I don’t think much about paying for my work, although I understand that I need more money to live on in the future. But now I am interested in the profession, my ideas to promote «adult» performances in puppet theater. I want to bring the puppet theater out of that Soviet fossil, from standard naturalistic performances»

«Dolls can do more than actors. The doll, unfortunately or fortunately, is very philosophical and meticulous. It’s not just a toy, as people think. Puppet theater enlivens any object, and this is what becomes interesting. Even an ordinary mannequin standing in a store can be revived so much that it will be much better in some plastic than an ordinary actor»

«My parents have always supported me, although they are not representatives of creative professions. Of the creative personalities in the family, only my grandfather is a musician, a trumpeter… But my mother has a creative streak, and maybe my creative potential is from my mother. Most of my ideas are inside me. I can’t explain how it happens – a child’s fantasy, a dream that fortunately does not leave me»

«We put on a play called Hamlet. Why such a name? Because in English, a hero’s name is written in «H» instead of «G». And I decided to leave «Hamlet» because I have my own vision, and it’s a classic in a different way. I started working on this a long time ago, when I was still in my third year. Then I stopped for a while, and when I needed to put my thesis in the theater, I chose this option. I was convinced that the audience would go to the classics, even if it is in a different interpretation. I will not reveal all the cards, but we have a completely different version of the conversation. Come and see for yourself»

«The relevance of the play is that probably no one now thinks of Shakespeare’s texts, as it was in the XV-XVI centuries. Now simple communication, there is no «Your Highness»… It seems to me that when the school is allowed to read «Hamlet», most children do not understand the work – it is too serious literature. If young people watch the play, they will catch the plot. And they will also catch the thoughts that Shakespeare laid down. I think the relevance is that the play becomes easier for people to understand and perceive»

«Hamlet – from the word rudeness. Yes, our hero becomes like that. He was like this before, but in the form of such an intelligent boor. Remember what it was like in the 1990s and after, when bandits tried to look smart. Or Chekhov’s Lopakhin – a man who tries to be an intellectual: he read, read a book and fell asleep, did not understand anything. That’s all. And we have quite a lot of them. But these people can change for the better! In order for them to understand where they came from, to understand their growth – the way from whom they were and whom they became, that they have a certain goal, and not a simple task to sit and wipe their pants»

«Puppet theater is fascinating. My goal is to change people’s opinion that «puppet theater», as it is called, is only for children. This has remained since Soviet times: if the theater is dramatic, it is for adult spectators, and for children – a puppet theater. I’m sure we need to promote the puppet theater so that the actors play not only squirrels and bunnies, but also serious roles. This morning we play squirrels and bunnies, and in the evening we need to reach for an adult show. This is the development of the actor himself. I’m talking about global things, so it’s a long way to go»

«Together with the dolls, the author begins to share his secret with the audience – he invents a story and begins to revive it. It’s such an interactive… I was happy to share dolls with friends who wanted to try puppetry. It seems to me that it’s like picking up a kettle and then a cup and thinking that they can be alive. And it’s impressive»

«My doll has always been alive, and at the same time remained an instrument. However, good musicians treat their instruments as living beings. I even heard a saying that a guitarist is married to his own guitar. You can, of course, just put the dolls in a box, but if you do not work with the tool, nothing magical will happen. You need to learn this perception, you need to love your own. I can’t explain it in words»

«Theater is a social art. If someone brings a play or a book to a director and says, «Interesting, read it». That’s when social art begins: the book interested the director, the director interested the artist, that’s all – it started»

«The fact that the whole world has become virtual is very sad. During the quarantine, I watched a large number of performances: dramatic, puppet, Ukrainian and foreign. But while watching the show on the computer, I noticed that I was «sitting on the phone» and playing. I have no interest and I’m just listening to the text. When you sit in the theater, there is something that makes you watch a play, a live action, an interactive, you understand the hero. And now it seems that even «Cherry Orchard» was recreated in the form of a computer game «GTA»… I like to go to the theater, I like to study, I like to contemplate, even if the show fails. The spectator comes to the theater for the subtext and emotions, and that’s what you need to go for»

«Theater is cleansing. Even if you didn’t plan, come and clean up. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a comedy, a tragedy or a drama. Indifferently! You still come and cleanse yourself – you understand some defects or problems that are mentioned… «God’s creatures» in our drama theater I watched three or four times and cried. I do not understand what it is missing every time. I also go to the Kharkiv Puppet Theater for «Cherry Orchard». I go all the time. I myself played that Firs, who at the end of the work says: «Let’s go… They forgot about me… Oh, you idiot! ..» And when I played on stage, I remembered watching everything from the auditorium. I want to cry on stage and in the auditorium»

«I’m a normal person, I communicate normally (laughs). But at home I like to sit and sew dolls – to give the image that is in my head. Sometimes I don’t know why I do it. I did Chichikov, but I don’t think I will put Dead Souls. Made Wendy from Peter Pan, but I don’t know if I’ll put on this show. I just did what I had inside»

«I was very touched by Oksana Zabuzhko’s book «Field Research on Ukrainian Sex». In principle, there are no punctuation marks in the work, and as you read, whatever opinion you choose, so be it. And I really like it. Because you analyze one or two pages of text all day, thinking about how to understand the meaning. This is quite interesting literature»

«It’s much easier for me to justify a person, to explain why he did it, than to be angry… It may be easy to offend me, but I don’t take offense for long. If I find an excuse why a person acted like that, ok, I’m not angry anymore»

«I can find places of power in Zhytomyr everywhere. In fact, they are where there are a lot of people: central streets, parks… You just walk and get inspired by life around you»

«We are all from childhood. Even in adulthood we remain children. Well, why do we like to play phone games? Why do we gather in companies and communicate? We all came from childhood. And though not to return there, but still…»