Austrian puppet theatre, established in 1969 by Gustav Dubelowski-Gellhorn (1912-1991). The Pupilla was the smallest puppet theatre in the world. For this miniature paper theatre stage, Dubelowski-Gellhorn created his own socket puppets that stood 7 to 10 centimetres (and even smaller).

The theatre’s repertory included very personal interpretations of the classics like Ubu roi (König Ubu) by Alfred Jarry as well as adaptations of the poetic works of Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915) and Georg Trakl (1887-1914). Dubelowski-Gelhorn produced several adaptations of Faust, amongst which Doktor Faust zwischen schwarzer Magie und Bauernkrieg (Doctor Faustus, Between Black Magic and the War of the Peasants), and then Faust im Dreißigjährigen Krieg (Faust in the Thirty Year War), both staged in 1978. But the company’s most important production was, without a doubt, the creation of Faust, faithful to the original play by Georg Geisselbrecht. Although the techniques used to move the puppet were those employed for modern string puppets, the figures themselves were made in the image of the ancient string puppets from the national Puppentheatersammling Dresden (Dresden Puppet Theatre Collection) in Germany. Kasper was, for example, an exact copy of the puppet in Guido Bonneschky’s Saxon Puppet Theatre (1831-1864).

The Pupilla closed its doors in 1991 at the death of Gustav Dubelowski-Gellhorn.

(See Austria.)