Marionette Puppet Show Theatre

Last night I went to the Pavilion Theatre in Dun Laoghaire for a puppet show of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid." Wow, what a production! I had no idea what to expect...I had a combination of images of hand puppets behind a wall and Disney's animated version of the story floating through my head...
Well, this was on a normal stage, with a very elaborate set and costumes on life-sized puppets (well, if a fictitious mermaid can be life-sized...)! It turns out these were marionette puppets-- those that hang on strings from above. (Thing of the Lonely Goatherd scene in "The Sound of Music," except on a much larger scale.) It was truly amazing to see these characters "floating" through the air as if it were in the sea, and the movements of their bodies were so very realistic like swimming, diving, walking. Even the smallest details of head and arm movements were carried out with precision. All of this was done with at least 10 strings or so per character. How do they coordinate this? I don't see how two people can coordinate one figure so well, nor do I see how one person can handle all the strings... (no human was visible, so I'm not sure how it was done). Also, the mermaids were flying all around, swinging rapidly around the set and around each other--how do they never get tangled up? I think I might have been watching for that more than paying attention to the story. (Well, actually, this was a puppet troupe from Poland, so the words were all in Polish--no wonder I was focused on the artistic and mechanical aspects of this production.)
Well, all I can say is this was a truly impressive show, and I'd recommend it to others for sure! Wow, I've still got those images in my mind--a really magical combination of the puppets, elaborate set and classic storyline.
Oh, the Disney version does not follow Andersen's original story. But there is indeed an octopus, and boy was that enormous puppet a scary one, crawling and jumping all over the stage and threatening to jump out on the audience!