32 heads for Captain Corelli's Mandolin

It’s astonishing to see how much work goes into making a puppet. Nino Namicheishvili is responsible for designing and making the puppets for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, a process that will take over six months. Working from her tiny workshop in the Marjanishvili Theatre she is helped by a small group of trusted friends but she’s the only one who’s there in the morning and still there at midnight.  

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin opens at the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi as part of the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre on 5 October. It opens at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester on 27 October and runs there until 12 November. Booking for the Colchester performances is open now – www.mercurytheatre.co.uk or telephone +44 (0)1206 573948

At the end of this post you’ll find a link to a video where Nino introduces the main characters but before you go there, spare some time to look at the process.


All the puppets for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin will be rod puppets. They are made up of six main sections – the head, the body, two hands and two feet – each controlled by a rod. Since puppeteers only have two hands, each puppet is operated by three, and sometimes four, manipulators.

An added attraction with the puppets for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is that many of them are based on the real actors who will be playing the characters. Sometimes the audience will be watching the actors, sometimes the puppets take over. The first challenge for Nino was therefore to make puppets that would represent the real actors and that’s more difficult than it appears. It’s not simply a matter of making an accurate copy.

This is not Madam Tussaud’s; the puppets have to display a character of their own and that must be achieved without any change in facial expression.

This series of photographs of Tony Casement, who plays Captain Corelli, gives an idea of the attention to detail. There will be two Corelli puppets – one for during the main setting of the play and one showing him many years later (forget the film – read the book!) but both need to be identifiably him. The same is true of Natuka Kakhidze who plays Pelagia.

For this production the puppets heads are moulded using a special substance that’s a bit like glue when it’s soft and stone when it hardens. Once out of the mould the head is finished by hand and given its distinctive character.

It feels almost painful to see it but each head is then drilled with two holes to enable the controlling mechanism to be inserted and the operation is done with all the care of a brain surgeon.

The heads are painted in a neutral colour to finish them off rather than having a face painted on; it’s lighting that brings them to life. Hair is added at the end.

At the last count there were 32 puppets in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin but there’s always the chance that director, Levan Tsuladze, will demand more so Nino has made a couple of spares. And that’s before you count a goat, a pine marten and 2 dolphins. Making heads for characters that are not also represented by live actors gives more scope for creativity but, of course, they still have to fit within the overall style of the show.

32 puppets means 64 hands and 64 feet! Each single hand takes about half a day to make and is in itself quite a complex process. More of that in the next blog.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin opens at the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi as part of the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre on 5 October. It opens at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester on 27 October and runs there until 12 November. Booking for the Colchester performances is open now – www.mercurytheatre.co.uk or telephone +44 (0)1206 573948

Here's the link to YouTube with Nino introducing the cast