built into the gable of the attic by a clockmaker who could not stop making things move. the proscenium is no wider than a coffin lid; the strings descend from a wooden cross the operator holds above. when the bulb is lit the audience sees only the dolls, never the hands.
nine wicker chairs in two rows. the children take the front; the grown-ups sit behind with their cold tea on their knees. above them, the rafters creak in time with the floor of the stage, which is the same floor.
the most memorable show was the wooden hours, performed once, in 1931, on the night of the first hard frost. one puppet — the watchman — was found, afterwards, hanging from its strings in the cupboard. nobody had put it there. müller refused to operate it again and burned the cross-piece, though not the doll.