Puppet Theatre Without Dramaturgy: The Autopsy of an Ongoing Cultural Crime Editorial FLAMUR BUÇPAPAJ

Puppet Theatre Without Dramaturgy: The Autopsy of an Ongoing Cultural Crime
Editorial
FLAMUR BUÇPAPAJ
In Albania, puppet theatre exists only in form, not in substance. Halls open, performances are produced, but dramaturgy—the true soul of theatre—is absent. This is not a random phenomenon. It is a chronic condition, the result of a vacuum that began after the 1990s and has never been seriously addressed. A theatre that does not produce original texts is a theatre that has renounced thought, ideas, and responsibility toward children and the audience. This void is not merely aesthetic; it is ethical and educational, because every performance without an original text damages a child’s perception of art and culture.
A Theatre Kept Alive Without a Soul
Performances exist, but they are often repetitive imitations, recycled schemes, and visual entertainment without ideas. The public has accepted this void as normal. This normalization is a grave danger: when emptiness becomes the norm, any attempt to restore the author appears unnecessary, and cultural crisis transforms itself into the status quo.
A puppet theatre without dramaturgy is not simply empty; it is fundamentally mutilated—without identity, without a dramatic line, and without the capacity to educate a young audience. A puppet that moves without a text is not a character; it is plastic imitating life, without thought, without conflict, and without structured emotion.
This void has clear historical roots. After the collapse of the dramaturgical commissioning mechanisms of the socialist era, no new structure was created to support emerging authors. Theatre lost institutional backing, and the playwright was turned into a superfluous figure. This was a mistaken liberation of theatre: freedom without an author means emptiness without a soul.
The consequences are long-term. Albanian children do not learn to distinguish between simple entertainment and art that thinks; they do not learn to interpret conflict or develop critical capacity to engage with ideas. Puppet theatre no longer educates; it merely consumes children’s time and fills it with visual illusion.
The Collapse of Commissioning and the Abandonment of Responsibility
Before the 1990s, there existed a controlled mechanism of dramaturgical commissioning. This system, though burdened with ideology and political restrictions, had one major advantage: it ensured the author as the center of the creative process. The text was not accidental or mere scenic decoration; it was the foundation upon which every performance was built, and the playwright was the figure who guaranteed coherence of thought, conflict, and message.
With the fall of the socialist system, this mechanism was destroyed and no alternative structure was created. No writing laboratories were built, no individual initiatives supported, no sustainable funds developed for authors. The author was excluded from the process, and dramaturgy was declared unnecessary within an economy of projects and visual performances.
This was not an artistic transition; it was institutional abandonment. The consequences are visible today: theatres produce performances that are visually appealing but intellectually empty. There is no real conflict, no deep message, and no identity. Contemporary productions often recycle old stories, outdated models, or visual schemes disconnected from children’s lives and thinking. This creates a lack of dramatic culture, where beautiful form replaces substance, and young audiences are trained to watch rather than to think.
The Puppet Reduced to a Visual Toy
In contemporary Albanian practice, the puppet has lost its dramatic and philosophical dimension. It has become a decorative object: it moves, lights up, dances, but rarely expresses conflict or dilemma. It does not build character, does not transmit ideas, does not challenge a child’s perception, and does not educate the audience.
The puppet has become plastic with strings—a pretty accessory used for quick entertainment rather than for thinking. Without dramaturgy, it does not speak. It has no character, no dramatic progression, no message. It is merely an imitation of movement, a simulacrum of life.
This reduction of the puppet to a visual toy is not accidental; it is the result of a flawed conception that sees children’s theatre as simple entertainment consumption, not as an educational and aesthetic space. It denies young audiences the experience of art that thinks and challenges, and it often keeps the author offstage, turning puppet theatre into a laboratory of visual emptiness.
This phenomenon has not only aesthetic consequences. It creates an educational and critical deficit: children learn to accept beautiful images without content, to watch play without meaning, and to forget the importance of text and dramatic thought. Puppet theatre thus loses its fundamental function: to educate, to challenge, and to transmit ideas.
The Academy as a Factory of Silence
Albanian universities and educational institutions have not produced specialized playwrights for puppet theatre. There are no dedicated programs, no writing laboratories for children, no mentorship for young authors, and no structures to guide dramatic creativity. Dramaturgy is treated mainly as a theoretical subject—an academic discussion detached from direct practice and stage reality.
Without an academy, there is no generation. Without a generation, there is no continuity. This means an entire generation of potential authors has been lost, and creative talent remains isolated or abandoned. The Albanian academy has chosen silence and indifference as its model: it produces teachers and cultural administrators, but not creators. This institutional silence has created a deep void in dramatic art, where an entire genre once based on text and ideas now depends on the individuality of a single author struggling to keep dramatic heritage alive.
The consequences are evident: no new authors emerge, no dramatic experiments develop, and young creators do not learn how to build conflict, structure, and character. Puppet theatre is no longer a laboratory of thought, but a visual exhibition that imitates life while losing its capacity to educate and challenge young audiences.
Cultural Policies as Empty Administration
Albanian cultural policies do not view theatre as a creative environment, but as activity management. Funds often go to events, festivals, and visually appealing performances, but not to original dramaturgy, text commissions, archiving productions, or developing authors. This is empty administration, where culture is treated as a product for quick consumption rather than as a heritage to be passed on to future generations.
A state that does not invest in text does not invest in thought and culture; it invests in oblivion and emptiness. The consequences are clear: theatres produce performances without identity, without ideas, without dramatic flow. Young audiences are trained to consume images and movement, not thought and reflection. This ideological vacuum paralyzes the development of dramatic art for children and transforms puppet theatre from an educational and philosophical space into a visually empty chest.
Without a clear cultural policy that invests in authors, texts, and creative laboratories, puppet theatre will remain dependent on individual initiatives and the strength of a single author, denying the country the possibility of building a sustainable tradition and educating generations with critical and aesthetic thinking.
The Child Betrayed by Culture
The child is the primary victim of the dramaturgical void that has invaded puppet theatre since the 1990s. Children are treated as simple consumers, not as a serious audience capable of perceiving conflict, character motivation, or structured messages. Performances without dramaturgy do not challenge thinking, do not build identity, and do not educate critical perception.
A culture that underestimates children creates aesthetic illiteracy. Children learn to accept beautiful images without meaning, to consume play without logic, and to interpret entertainment without substance. This is a double betrayal: of young audiences, who are denied the opportunity to develop critical and artistic sensibility; and of the future of theatre, which remains without dramatic heritage, without new authors, and without a consolidated identity.
The consequences do not stop at the stage. Today’s child grows up with a diminished understanding of art, low expectations from culture, and a distorted perception of the importance of text and dramatic ideas. This creates a lost generation, where future audiences will not recognize dramatic thinking as part of their education.
A Single Author as a Symptom of Crisis
Within this deep void, Flamur Buçpapaj remains the only author after the 1990s who has built original dramaturgy for puppet theatre. This fact should not be seen as an individual triumph, but as evidence of systemic failure: a system that has not created structures, programs, policies, or institutions to train and support new authors.
An entire genre dependent on a single author reveals a lack of planning, vision, and investment in the future. There is no mentorship network, no writing laboratories, no text commissions, no institutional support. This is not only a tragedy for art; it is a threat to a country’s cultural identity.
Buçpapaj’s work keeps alive a memory and heritage that should have been institutional, proving that a single individual can sustain a history that an entire state has allowed to fade. This is an alarm for cultural institutions: if they do not create conditions for new authors, puppet theatre faces cultural extinction and an irreversible educational void for future generations.
Collective Silence as Complicity in Crime
The absence of dramaturgy is not accidental. It has been produced and sustained by collective silence—a phenomenon in which institutions, academia, directors, and the public itself have accepted emptiness as normal. This silence is more than indifference; it is cultural complicity.
Academia remains silent by not producing new authors or offering mentorship structures. Institutions remain silent by not commissioning new texts, not archiving productions, and not discussing dramatic creation. Directors remain silent by accepting emptiness as a visual standard and eliminating the author from the process. The public remains silent—or rather, is trained to be silent—accepting every performance without questioning its essence, message, or identity.
Silence is not merely the absence of reaction; it is an instrument of failure. When no one challenges emptiness, demands accountability, or opens debate, failure becomes culture. Failure becomes the norm, and normality turns into dogma. In this way, cultural crime becomes collective: every actor who remains silent becomes a participant, and the structural void of puppet theatre is consolidated for generations.
Long-Term Consequences: Theatre Without Memory
A theatre without dramaturgy is not simply empty; it is barren—without heritage, without identity, and without long-term vision. Each performance disappears immediately after its premiere, taking with it every educational opportunity, every dramatic lesson, and every experience that could help young audiences develop critical and aesthetic sensibility.
Future generations will have no models, references, or dramatic experiences on which to build art. They will not know dramatic progression, conflict construction, or character development. Theatre will no longer transmit ideas, challenge perception, or educate imagination.
Without text, theatre dies twice: once on stage, where performances lack thought or conflict, and once in cultural memory, where no dramatic heritage is recorded, discussed, or supported. This is a silent crime, a continuous violation of cultural and pedagogical obligation toward the audience and the history of art.
Collective silence, institutional indifference, and the absence of new authors have created a frightening vacuum, where puppet theatre is kept alive by isolated individuals rather than by a structured, visionary, and responsible system. This is the greatest cultural crime of the post-1990 period, and its consequences will be felt for generations.
Conclusion: The Return of the Author as a Condition for Survival
This editorial does not seek reconciliation. It does not speak of compromise or easy solutions. It forces us to accept the truth: Albanian puppet theatre urgently needs original dramaturgy infused with thought, ideas, and conflict.
The reasons why the Albanian author does not appear on stage are multidimensional. There are no supporting structures: academia does not train playwrights, institutions do not commission texts, cultural policy does not invest in ideas, and writing laboratories are absent. The author faces a lack of infrastructure, institutional indifference, and a system that views creativity as optional rather than as the foundation of theatre. In this void, only isolated individuals, such as Flamur Buçpapaj, manage to produce original dramaturgy—but this cannot replace a non-functioning system.
Thus, we have only two options:
Restore the author to the center of the process, invest in texts, laboratories, and mentorship, and educate children as a serious and critical audience, building a dramatic heritage that will endure generation after generation.
Accept emptiness, imitation, and oblivion—an empty theatre where the puppet moves without text, where visuals replace ideas, and where young audiences are trained to consume meaningless images.
Without a playwright, there is no theatre. Without theatre, there is no culture. Without culture, there is no collective memory. Silence is no longer an option. Action is imperative.
This is not merely a critical editorial; it is a call for cultural survival. If we do not create conditions for Albanian authors and do not restore the playwright to the center of the stage, puppet theatre will become a lifeless visual museum—an emptiness that neither educates nor transmits anything. The loss will not stop at the stage; it will strike the very cultural identity of the country.
The Tyranny of the Director and the Disappearance of the Author
After the 1990s, the director rose to become the absolute figure of the creative process, rendering the dramaturgical text replaceable. The playwright, once central to scenic thought, was treated as a luxury, an obstacle, or an unnecessary element. Puppet theatre became a stage where every artistic decision belongs solely to the director, while dramaturgical structure, dramatic line, and conflict architecture were gradually eliminated.
This is aesthetic authoritarianism in its purest form: every decision—from stage rhythm to puppet characterization—depends on the subjective will of a single individual, not on the logic of dramatic structure. Performances may be visually beautiful, but they do not educate, do not challenge critical perception, do not build dialogue with the audience, and above all, do not leave a legacy.
Improvisation has become the norm, and the repetition of recycled ideas has turned into standard practice. Beyond hindering the development of new authors, this situation creates intellectual poverty, transforming theatre from a space of thought and reflection into soulless entertainment, where visual aesthetics replace dramaturgy and creative ideas.
This phenomenon is not merely a matter of style; it has structural and long-term consequences for theatre. Without a strong author and original texts, the puppet stage becomes a laboratory of repeated aesthetics, denying both children and adults the opportunity to experience art that thinks, challenges, and educates.