Problems of psychological development of a child in the mirror of puppet theater games: Petrushka Theater

Abstract

Relevance. The problems of puppet theater in kindergarten are analyzed in the article at the intersection of two areas of psychological knowledge: the psychology of play and the psychology of art. Asking to what extent playing puppet theater with preschoolers is an art and a game and has a developing effect allows us to discover new features of the organization of the theatrical process in kindergarten. The aim of the study is to research of the possibilities of one of the types of puppet theater (Petrushka theater) for the psychological development of preschool children. The methods are historical analysis; phenomenological analysis; case analysis (the article analyzes the experience of staging “Petrushka” performances in the kindergarten “White Rabbit” “School No. 547” in Moscow; the building of an extra-theatrical space (both subject and activity), the design of the linguistic environment of the performance). Progress of the study. The article presents a brief history of the Petrushka theater in Russia with its characteristic properties: areal character, improvisation and violation of norms accepted in certain strata of society; this places petrushka performances in the space of the “carnival culture” of M.M. Bakhtin and the Russian laughing culture of D.S. Likhachev. It is proposed to consider the Petrushka theater as a form of working with the normative space, loosening it both in order to develop a creative attitude to the norm, and to reveal deeper relationships in the surrounding world. Research results. The transformation of the Petrushka theater into an agitation or children’s performance with an unambiguous morality deprives it of its specificity and inherent possibilities. The article examines the behavior of a preschooler during a performance, which can be expressed in a direct reaction to what is happening or in a detached spectator; both positions take children’s activities beyond play and art. The Petrushka theater, in which the norm is a natural and active perception of what is happening, becomes a mediating form in which a new norm of contact with a work of art is being established. Conclusions. The Petrushka theater is a cultural form of violation of the norm: the norm is violated in a normative, specially constructed space of theatrical action, when the normative space of the child expands and opens up a space of opportunities for his own creativity.

Keywords

• development
• puppet theater
• laughter
• normative space
• direct and indirect perception
• creation of a new norm