No, it’s not a Tuesday in which we troll people: it’s just the natural second day of preparation for Carnival, after a generic Marionette Monday. Today I’ll try and bring you artists who worked on Troll marionettes, hand/finger puppets and masks, for your indoor street theatre.
Belgian Masks and Hand Puppets
At Theater Didymus, the eclectic personality behind the shop can get you lots of Troll-related stuff for your shows. Here’s my top three.
The Happy Hand Puppet
This troll couldn’t be happier and by the love of me I can’t figure out why, but I’m sure happy for him.
The Sad Mask
If you’re looking to be the Troll yourself but you aren’t feeling quite so jolly, know that I can’t blame you. You might like this papier-mâché mask of a rather gloomy troll.
The Happy Mask
And if you want to be the Troll yourself but you somehow managed to get your spirits up, or you want to hide behind someone who did, here‘s the mask for you: a rather happy (and possibly drunk) troll.
Italian Leather Masks
Let us continue down the road of masks and let’s take a look at something local (at least for me): Giulio Gazzotti runs the wonderful Etsy shop at Maschere d’Este and they are based in Emilia Romagna, pretty much where the “boot” of Italy connects with the mainland where I live. Their work is incredible and it was very hard to select just the trolls: you simply have to take a look at one of the Plague Doctors (though this year it would probably be considered in poor taste, it’s one of my favourite costumes), the fox and the venetian traditional mask for the character of Balanzone. I own a leaf mask, though I can’t be sure I bought it from them (I bought it at a fair… you know, those things where you could go outside and buy stuff?). Their troll comes in different colours, like black, brown, red and grey.
The troll, the bridge and the three goats
I’m sure you know the story: three goats are crossing a bridge and, as bridge go, there’s a troll underneath. The first goat is also the youngest and smallest one and, depending on how you want to tell it, the troll wants either to rob or eat the poor thing. But the poor thing isn’t stupid and tells the troll to wait for the next brother, who is going to be bigger. The next goat arrives and does the same thing, telling the troll to wait for the next brother, because he is going to be the biggest goat of them all. Problem is that they are telling the truth: the eldest brother is big enough to ram the troll clear of the bridge. See here if you haven’t: the Norse version is also included in the East of the Sun, West of the Moon collection illustrated by Kay Nielsen.
Sue Pesky, at SueSewSavvyDesigns designs and produces amazingly sweet finger puppets, which come in their own themed felt bag. And she also did the Troll and three goats, with their bridge on the bag. She also did a Wizard of Oz set, and a Coraline set.
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