Shadow Puppets to Aid Healing in an Argentine Oncology Hospital

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A year and a half ago, Ramona Quevedo (57 years old) was diagnosed with skin cancer, although for the past four years she has been visiting medical offices to understand the meaning of spots on her feet. At the José Miguel de Urrutia Oncology Hospital in Córdoba, Argentina, she underwent ten chemotherapy sessions, which she thought would end her ordeal. But two months later, her extremities were completely affected. “I’m back in the hospital, fighting,” she says.

During this time, Quevedo joined the Well-Being Space workshops, which offer theater, reiki, music, art therapy, and even shadow puppetry. “This place felt so comfortable that it awakened in me things I had never done,” she points out. There, social psychologist and puppeteer Carlos Szulkin, along with Diego Acosta, leads the project The Story Factory, an initiative from the extension office of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities at the National University of Córdoba.

Szulkin has over 30 years of experience and coordinates puppetry workshops with different audiences, always engaged in the social use of theater. He is the creator and director of the theater El Escondite and Luditempo Puppets, and has participated in interventions through schools, prisons, and psychiatric hospitals. Puppets, he emphasizes, are a democratic tool that helps address “difficult” topics, including death, and to play with personal reality.

“In this case, the patients are participating in their own healing process, some more aware than others, but moving away from that passive role of patient, which connotes that they have to wait for an external intervention,” she explains. Around 20 women of all ages and at different stages of their illness attend this free weekly space. “The workshops bring me all the joy in the world; I’ve been coming for 15 years,” says Teresa Gutiérrez, who fought the disease for five years. “When I was discharged, I told the doctor: ‘Don’t give me a total discharge because I will keep coming to all the workshops,” she recalls.

Another Waiting Room

The shadow puppetry workshop is the newest. It started in February, and they already plan to form a troupe of patients to take the performances to other health centers in Córdoba, like the Children’s Hospital. “We are not looking for artistic virtuosity or a flashy staging. People need to feel that they are playing, not doing a task; that they can express themselves,” Szulkin details.

Therefore, they do not memorize scripts but perform a sequence of actions, like a game in the backstage. The proposal is to create three-minute works from scratch based on funny stories from their lives. The patients are responsible for the narrative, the creation of the two-dimensional silhouettes with cardboard and sticks that will be projected on a screen, and the dramatic phase.

Weeks ago, they presented the works in the crowded waiting room of the hospital. “People laughed and celebrated. It was very moving,” says Milena Vigil, head of Mental Health. “On the day of the presentation, we felt unique, surrounded by people who applauded,” adds Quevedo. “We, giving our best so they can have a good time and for a moment forget about the illness.”

The doctors came out of their offices and became spectators, along with the staff at the front desk and the guards. “Usually in the waiting room, you only hear ‘42, 43,’ the number being called. There are long faces, some lying on their partner’s lap or their mom’s. The scenes are very sad,” Vigil recounts.

The public institution is unique in its type in the province: it serves people over 16 years old without social security, residents who migrated to Córdoba, and many with informal jobs. On average, 3,200 consultations are conducted monthly, 1,120 chemotherapy treatments, and around 120 radiotherapy treatments, which can last between six months and a year.

Support Space

Elvira Giménez was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2018. “When I was given the diagnosis, the cancer was at stage four,” she remembers. The chemotherapy and radiation were very tough. She underwent several surgeries, having part of her intestine removed, and later, when it metastasized, a quarter of a lung. She fell into depression. “The doctor talked to me about the workshop that many women attended, said it would help me, but I didn’t pay attention.” Until one day in 2019, she decided to go, and everything changed for her. “I found many women like me who were fighting against the disease,” she recounts. Since then, she looks forward to attending every Monday.

Szulkin affirms that puppets are therapeutic: they help express and process discomfort. The puppet, as an intermediary, allows one to create distance because “it is an object, not a human being.” Music, art, magic, play—and the puppets that incorporate all these elements—provide healing experiences. “It heals my soul and mind; I am more positive, I feel more confident and liberated,” confesses Quevedo.

The psychologist explains that with them, one reaches the dimension of human fragility. “We can revisit pains, injustices, and conflicting situations that remain unresolved in the past,” he details.

The puppet theater also provides shelter. Vigil explains that women feel protected by the curtain while being protagonists. This is the case for Giménez, who thought she wouldn’t dare to perform until she understood that she would be acting in the shadows, and now she looks forward to performing in other hospitals.

For the head of Mental Health, the initiative fosters greater empathy among the patients. “Waiting in an oncology hospital is not easy. Often we are overwhelmed by fears and uncertainties, worried about how we are doing, how we will continue, and it stresses us out,” says María Carreras, 46 years old. She has been attending the workshops for two years since starting radiation therapy.

“These spaces provide a counterbalance, something related to life, being well, moving forward, hope, and magic,” Vigil continues. It’s about continuing to live as best as possible, not just waiting for the next chemotherapy date. The use of humor in the stories created by the patients is not coincidental. Szulkin indicates that it is a defense mechanism that allows painful content to surface rather than being repressed. Puppet theater, he defines, “is a fantastic bridge that is neither on the side of fantasy nor reality; it is in between, and that allows you to play all the time,” he concludes.