Lazy Saturday in Praha

Lazy, that is, if you count it as relaxing to climb the highest hill overlooking the city and then, finding a tower at the top, climbing that too. Saw some more of the city as a result and realised it is (of course) much larger than the compact old town centre suggests. We'd found ourselves up this hill having followed a self-guided tour suggested by the Lonely Planet. Good to stretch.

One of the joys of travelling is experiencing the local cuisine, of course. We felt we'd had our share of Goulash over the last two nights however, first with potato and then with bread dumplings, so tonight we reverted without shame to our default Italian. We both had the pesto, which was just to eat for. We rushed on to...

The Marionette Theatre is apparently a Czech tradition. I'd thought to make ten predictions before the show, then give you a report card on each. I never got around to it. Instead, therefore, let me tell you some myths about marionette that were dispelled for me this night:

• They will operate in a regular-sized theatre.
• (Having then seen the actual size of the stage, about 5-6 metres across...) The small stage will give it the feel of a small-scale production.
• The production will take the plot of Don Giovanni seriously, but just happen to be using puppets. (Rather, it was like a kind of physical “Reduced Shakespeare Company", if you know what I mean.)
• The puppeteers would do everything they could to hide their hands.
• They would have surtitles to explain the storyline, like the only real opera I (Duncan) have been to. (Die Meistersinger.)
• The puppeteers would make even slight effort to hide their hands.
• You wouldn't be able to see the strings, or at least, not all the time.
• The death of the puppet would not result in the (apparent?) death of the puppeteer also, who would not fall slumped over the screen at the back of the stage.

This show will certainly win our lifetime award for “Most extended use of puppetry", clocking in at nearly two hours. At about the half-way point both Bronwyn and I were looking at my watch, but I actually enjoyed the second half a lot more. We're still a little shaky on the plot, having never seen Don Giovanni before, but basically he's an incorrigible skirt chaser who gets himself in such a fix that nearly everyone ends up dead except him apparently, and he does some sort of deal with a creepy underworld character (the devil?) who apparently brings everyone else back to life in exchange for Don's own. Finally, it appeared to us that Don had to pay this invoice a little sooner than he was expecting... Well, we've dealt with the power company before ― we know what those sorts can be like.