Puppet maker Mirek Trejtnar clip-clopped a red-nosed marionette across a makeshift plywood stage in his studio in Prague. This, he told me, was Kasparek, perhaps the most iconic character in Czech puppetry: a source of comic relief beloved by children countrywide. Kasparek was a mesmerizing, expressive chap, particularly for being made of wood and having no movable parts of his face. He danced a jig; he tripped and dragged himself, moaning, across the stage; he banged his head on the ground.
I had come to the Puppets in Prague studio that Trejtnar shares with his wife, Leah Gaffen, through a recommendation from a friend in the arts scene in Cincinnati. Before meeting them, though, I had felt a lot like Kasparek: banging my head against a wall of tourists. Of which, of course, I was one, along with my friend Julia, who had come to visit.
For decades, Prague has been on the backpacker circuit, and for good reason: It is magnificent. Every building in the UNESCO-inscribed medieval city center will set your mouth agape. But as Julia and I navigated through our first few days, I kept wondering when we were going to scrape past the crowds (there were a record 7.65 million visitors in 2017) to reach the scrappy, resilient spirit of the city that had so charmed me a decade ago.
It’s All About the Puppets
Puppetry is not a novelty or fringe art in Prague. It is deeply entwined with Czech national identity, which is currently in the spotlight and a reason Prague had earned a spot on The New York Times’ 52 Places travel list: This year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of an independent Czechoslovakian state in 1918, at the end of World War I and after centuries as part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. (UNESCO recognized Slovakia and Czech puppetry as an “intangible cultural heritage” two years ago.)