La Manékine

Adapted from a thousand-year-old tale collected by Brothers Grimm, "The Girl Without Hands", La Manékine tells a luminous, whimsical, and bloody story of feminine initiation. Performed by a musician and a puppeteer multiplying their means and instruments, the tale takes on a new dimension, all the better to hypnotize the present.

Vuxen kvinna i hatt och glasögon håller en liten docka i röd mantel på en mörk teaterscen.

Två vuxna personer i masker och kronor står på scen; en spelar trumma och blåsinstrument, den andra håller rekvisita.

Vuxen kvinna i mörk klänning sträcker armarna uppåt och håller vita tygstycken på en teaterscen.

This performance is a part of Marionetteaterns international festival Pop Up Puppets at Kulturhuset Stadsteater in Stockholm the 20-23 of August 2026.

Buy a ticket to at least two performances and receive a 15 % discount. The offer applies only to regular prices. To the offer!

Dates & tickets

Saturday, August 22 at 4:30 PM in Kilen
Sunday, August 23 at 2:00 PM in Kilen

The show is 1 hour long.

About the performance

An old and impoverished miller encounters the Devil. The Devil promises him wealth if, in three years, he hands over whatever stands behind his mill. The miller agrees, believing he is sacrificing only his apple tree, not realizing he will have to give up his daughter. But when the Devil returns, he is unable to approach the young girl because of her purity.

At the heart of this timeless story lies the conquest of the freedom to act and to love—an adventure balanced on the edge of consciousness, strewn with the worst obstacles, unfolding between burlesque upheaval and poetic trembling. How can one recover one’s hands, one’s heart, one’s path? Through music and shadow play, through wooden figures as intermediaries, secrets spelled out in full light, and the magic of art.