Primorska Summer Festival: Svetlana Makarovič – Big-Eyes the Little Owl

Big-Eyes the Little Owl is the first work that Svetlana Makarovič wrote for children and also her first work staged at the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre. It was directed by Matjaž Loboda and premiered in 1972, bringing a pleasant and welcome refreshment to the repertoire, which at the time consisted mostly of foreign works. It was only thereafter that the most important Slovenian writers also started writing puppet plays. Makarovič created a sweet, nice and poetic story about a little whimsical owl called Big-Eyes, who decides she no longer wants to be an ordinary, nocturnal bird, but a day owl. The Moon tries to dissuade her, but to no avail. In the morning when the owl family crawls into bed, Big-Eyes puts on her sunglasses and boisterously flies into the bright day. On her journey, she meets a number of animals and has numerous adventures – also dangerous ones!

The picturesque visual design of Big-Eyes the Little Owl was created by Jaka Judnič, a director, scriptwriter and painter most known for his famous TV commercials from the 1970s and 80s. In a colourful chain of events and a comic-book intrusion in the visual design, Big-Eyes the Little Owl has become one of the most endearing Slovenian marionette performances.

In 2018, at the beginning of the festive season marking the theatre’s 70^th anniversary, Big-Eyes the Little Owl, which, with its simple dramaturgy and scintillating dialogues, enters the world of children’s play, imagination, whimsicalness and conceitedness, returned to the puppet stage, newly directed by Brane Vižintin and visually designed by illustrator Suzi Bricelj.

Brane Vižintin, a puppet artist, actor and animator of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, who received the Župančič Award in 2013, is certainly one of the greatest masters of puppet animation in Slovenia. He specialises in various puppet techniques, knows their workings and the various possibilities of their creative use and animation. Last year, upon the 30^th anniversary of the first staging of the legendary Sapramouse, he directed a refreshed version of it.