The Scatterbrains

WINDLINGS A breezy journey into the fleeting world of waifs, wanderers, gusts and scatterbrains. A playful exploration of the wind and weather in a small settlement. Careful – the wind is rising! If you are very small, grab a blade of grass, tie a knot in it and fill your pockets with stones. “It would be quite a nice place, if only it weren’t so windy here,” the giant mutters under his breath. The dandelion’s head feels lighter straight away in the draught, and the gardener’s bees have flown away. The wind turbine operator controls the airflow, adjusts the blades and measures the rotational speed. We wouldn’t have light at home without him. But enough is enough, and the roof disappears into the clouds. Now take a deep breath, lick your finger, hoist the sails, spread your wings and… But what if the wind drops? Catch the kite – it’s falling from the sky. Breathe in, breathe out. Anyone who dares to suck in the wind won’t fit in their den, and anyone who’s too full of hot air will burst one day. A journey into the fleeting world of waifs, wanderers, gusts and scatterbrains. In residence at the Naive Theatre, the creative team of the TMEL Collective (Berta Doubková, Viktor Prokop, Jan Froněk and Jakub Müller) has created an original non-verbal production for the youngest audiences about friendship and the struggle against the wind.

At the Skupa’s Pilsen 2026 festival, the production won awards for puppetry (Diana Čičmanová), set design (Berta Doubková), music (Jan Froněk) and direction (Viktor Prokop).

The filmmakers invite the audience into a strange world inhabited by quirky creatures that possess both human and animal traits, yet are never entirely specific. Something that most of all resembles a fish is flitting through the air, whilst a family of creatures that look like a cross between a barn owl and a hare is causing quite a stir; as for the biological origins of the two central characters, one can only speculate. In any case, Berta Doubková’s original puppets have distinctly theatrical qualities. Whilst they would certainly sell well in any toy shop, they are not merely adorable, as one might think at first glance – they also allow experienced puppeteers to explore considerably more mischievous, darker tones. The same applies to the production as a whole – it does not content itself with its own undeniable silliness and playfulness, it delves deeper. The world of the Windlings is not merely a world of boundless fantasy: it is a realm whose rules are revealed gradually, and, above all, there is a certain, vaguely sensed danger lurking there. Viktor Prokop and his team have deliberately chosen not to tell a straightforward fairy tale. From the interactions of individual beings with one another and with their surroundings, the themes of otherness, rejection and the longing for acceptance gradually emerge. Not everyone will necessarily pick up on the undercurrents in the Windlings – nor must one look for them. The production has something to offer both to children aged four and over, who are the target audience, and open-minded adults. It doesn’t really matter, then, whether one is more drawn to the testimony of an outsider duffer or the enchanting visuals. It is not an end in itself: every idea, every spell and every image convey something more than meets the eye; the visual elements are firmly rooted in the narrative, and vice versa.
MICHAL ZAHÁLKA, Seznam Zprávy

VIKTOR PROKOP is a young Czech director and dramaturge associated with the TMEL theatre collective, which was founded in 2021 at the DAMU Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre as a group of six fellow students. Tmel’s creative work is highly collaborative and team-based. It focuses primarily on original puppet and object theatre, combining an imaginative visual language with music and the use of unconventional materials. TMEL productions are characterised by their powerful atmosphere, emphasis on visual poetry and ability to appeal to children and adults alike with no language barrier. Their debut project, O as Little Otik, was very well received. Just like Little Otik, the next production, The Den, was invited to a number of Czech and international festivals.

As part of the TMEL collective, Viktor Prokop works alongside the visual artist Berta Doubková and the dramaturge and musician Jan Froňek, as well as other artists from the new generation of Czech alternative theatre. The actor Jakub Müller is also a member of the Naive Theatre in Liberec.

NAIVE THEATRE LIBEREC was founded in 1949 as one of the first professional puppet theatres in the former Czechoslovakia. Its history is connected with the names of director and actor Jan Schmid (who founded the Ypsilon Studio there in 1963, which then moved to Prague in the 1970s), director Markéta Schartová and playwright Iva Peřinová. From the early 1990s its managing director was Stanislav Doubrava, since 2021 Kateřina Pavlů and Michaela Homolová act as its managing director and artistic head, respectively. The theatre’s most critically acclaimed plays include The Handsome Fire Chief or Fire in the National Theatre (2005), directed by Tomáš Dvořák. Its author, Iva Peřinová, was nominated among other things for an that year's Alfréd Radok Award. The play was filmed by Czech Television, and the company also performed it repeatedly on the stage of the National Theatre’s historic building. Five years later the same creative team produced a puppet interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet – Little Swan Lake (2009). Another area of long-term success has been the theatre’s work for small children, created by director Michaela Homolová and author and dramaturge Vít Peřina. Their production of Budulínek (2012) won an award for the best Czech puppet theatre production of the year. A further production by the team, The Ram That Fell from the Sky (2014), met with similar acclaim. The company’s other successes include the “magical” productions Bohemia is by the Sea (2016), There are Places the Dark Likes, Where Never and Nothing Hide on Islands Remote (2017) and Shhh. Shhh. Hooo. Woof! (2019). All these productions – especially The Ram, universally understandable in language terms – were successful not just at the Divadlo festival, but were invited to a number of prestigious Czech and foreign theatre festivals. The Naive Theatre is a regular guest at these festivals, undertaking numerous journeys not only to most European countries, but also to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the US, Canada, Mexico, India, Israel, Korea and Pakistan. Last June, the 28th year of the Mateřinka International Festival of Professional Puppet Theatres took place. It is held in Liberec every two years and is organized by the Naive Theatre.