As part of the festivities, the street performers/puppet players of Royal de Luxe (a French group led by Jean Luc Courcoult) are here with two of their puppets, fascinating tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of people with their heart warming story and show.
The story is quite simple: a small girl and her uncle have been living together in a town surrounded by swamps, untill that town has been ripped in two halfs by sea dwelling monsters; one part of said town was surrrounded by a wall, separating the two.
The uncle was so angry and upset that he dived down into the deep sea for years, looking for a geysire to wake up and help destroy the wall, all the while little girl went around town in her magic boat or on her scooter looking for her uncle.
Then finally the geysire is found, the wall has been destroyed and uncle comes up from the depth, looking for his niece.
She, during her exploration finds postal bags of old undelivered letters, opens them and gives them to anybody around her, untill the two of them find each other for a happy end, leaving town together for good.
What makes that simple story special is that it is being performed on the street with two really giant puppets (she, being the small one, stands more than 22 feet high, her uncle is almost 30 feet high), "played" by teams of up to 40 puppet masters (called, quite fitting, Lilliputians).
The puppets facial expression is very carefully animated too; seeing her wake up from sleep has a kind of magic that goes straight to the heart. And watching them walk around town, with their teams of
Lilliputians scurrying around them (they are all dressed in lackey livery)...
It has to be seen to believe!
If ever one of you had only the slightest of chances to see a perfomance of Royal de luxe: go for it, you won't be disappointed.
I'm still a bit overwhelmed, but see for yourself; here are some links, some of which might be down momentarily because of massive traffic, a problem which should sort itself out over time, I think:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_de_Luxe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_de_luxe
http://www.riesen-in-berlin.de/
http://www.riesen-in-berlin.de/die-ries ... erlin.html
There are certainly some films on Youtube about that event (and others by royal de Luxe); But believe me, seeing it in person is something quite different...AWESOME!