I dream of a ‘theatre without actors’
Sure I like Muppets and other happy puppets, but I love dark, weird, twisted and radical puppetry. I thought the best parts of Being John Malkovich involved the puppets (check the DVD features) and I can’t wait to go see The Old Trout Puppet Workshop perform Pinocchio next month:
“The set is a baroque stage-machine, thundering and creaking and whirring, a vast apparatus for turning puppets into real boys… The Old Trouts tackle the classic tale of a puppet, his maker, and the cruel world. Donning their leather aprons and clutching their chisels, the Trouts tremulously bring to life the mysterious miscreant Pinocchio, and from their sawdusty workshop he emerges to wreak havoc and magic upon the world.”
If I could make it to Puppet Fest 2005, I’d be sure to catch Nosferatu and Frankenstein, and the Trouts’ performance of The Unlikely Birth of Istvan:
“The play begins with a nightmare and ends with a miracle, careening through the profane, the divine, the magical, the surreal, and the sensual. On one level, it is the simple story of a conflict between a painter and a cook over a pig. On another, it’s about the war waged between Mind and Matter, the soul and the rumbling belly. It tackles, with childlike wonderment, the grand mystery of the formation of a human being.”
See also:
Puppet master: Center for Puppetry Arts spawns a new generation of experimental puppeteers