Restauratorių pažintis su Stasio Ušinsko (1905-1974) marionetėmis

ENDuring painting and scenography studies in France in 1929-1931 Stasys Ušinskas (1905- 1974) became interested in puppet theatre and puppet manufacturing technology. He spend lots of time in Paris libraries studying history of puppet theater. After that he became fascinated by the ancient Chinese and Japanese dolls. Theatrical traditions of various nations led him to write a puppet and mask design textbook. After return back to Lithuania, artist created scenographies for musical and drama plays, so for a while he postponed idea about his own puppet theater. Czech Josef Skup (1892-1957) puppet theater toured Lithuania in 1934, performances newly evoked S. Ušinskas dream to establish an innovative puppet theater. His artistic constructivism concept fit very well with technical structure of puppet that allowed to adapt marionettes mobile structure by which it could be flexible and credibly move around the stage. S. Ušinskas began experimentalize and create puppets-marionettes in 1934. He was assisted by fellow-artist Petras Svidras (1893-1957). Antanas Gustaitis (1907-1990) wrote a fairy-tale for newly created puppets about good-natured doctor Silvestras Dūdelė, who descends on a journey in search of happiness and meets a lot of animals.The first performance was shown in Kaunas Art School. Puppet theater was a huge success. Lithuanian theater, music and film museum possess ten S. Ušinskas puppet-marionettes, five of them went under scrupulous scientific research and were restored in 2006-2015 at Pranas Gudynas restoration center. Restoration of unique marionettes - a collective work of specialists from separate fields of restoration expertise. Exploring polychromy layer by layer we found out that authentic primer and paint composition corresponds to that described by S. Ušinskas book „Puppet and mask theater“. However, we detected that puppets were repeatedly restored, painted over or glued up over crumbled paint, reinforcing marionettes torsos. In days to come, puppets that not yet restored in Lithuanian theater, music and film museum and private collections, from now on should not pose any problems, because for today restoration methods are fairly clear. For now it’s essential to find a method to protect the marionettes that they remain longer in its authenticity as synthesis of art and technology creations.

• Silvestro Dūdelės "dvikova" su Spjeblu ir Hurvineku. Kultūros barai 2010, 11, 68-76.
• Stasys Ušinskas - lėlių teatro kūrėjas. Žiemgala 2001, 2, 33-34, 38-39.