Puppets bring epic adventure to life

By Joseph Varghese/Staff ReporterKatara, the Cultural Village, was a sea of humanity yesterday with people from all over the country converging there to celebrate Eid al-Adha. The major attractions at Katara were a giant puppet show and fireworks.The puppet show, first of its kind in the Arab world due to the massive size of the puppets, was a huge hit with the crowd. Taken from the legendary folk tales compilation of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), the puppet show deals with the story of Ali Baba and 40 Thieves. Three giant puppets are part of the show.Speaking to Gulf Times on behalf of Adil al-Ansari, creativity and events expert at Katara, one of the officials said around 80 people were involved in the puppet show. “On the ground there are around 60 artists,” he said. “There are 20 technicians assisting the artists and controlling the whole show. All the artists and other people involved in the show are from Spain.” He added that the show was tailor made for Qatar.The show depicts how Ali Baba saves his wife Sultana from the thieves with the help of his horse and falcon. “The cultural department of Katara designed the story and decided on the characters and the costumes. Such giant puppets are introduced for the first time in the Arab world. It took about six months of preparation from the development of the story to designing of the costumes as well as the presentation of the story for practice.”He also said that it was an effort to promote street theatre culture. “We are promoting street theatre and this is the first time the idea of street theatre is happening in the region. We hope that the mission is successful as huge crowds are present to watch the show.” The official said the show attracted a large number of children who were able to fulfil their dreams of watching the legendary characters in action. The giant puppet show will be shown at the beach side of Katara until October 18 with two shows per day. The first show which is in English starts at 5.30pm and the second show is in Arabic and starts at 8.30pm which is followed by fireworks.