The second and final week of the 7th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival concluded yesterday, after 12 days of international puppet theater productions at dozens of venues plus free neighborhood puppet productions, and puppetry workshops. The closing party and fundraiser at the Rhapsody Theater on Sunday featured Narcissister Live! in a spectacle exploring gender, racial identity and burlesque with live music.
Here's our roundup of mini-reviews of the shows our Third Coast theater writers saw this week. For more of our reviews, see last week’s dispatch.
J.M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K by Handspring Puppet Company (South Africa)
The word serendipity describes a fortunate situation; seeing Life and Times of Michael K. was a surprising and serendipitous experience. I left the theater feeling fortunate that I saw this interpretation of the horrors of the apartheid government and their oppression of the majority Black population in South Africa. The play is drawn from the 1983 Booker-Prize-winning novel by J.M. Coetzee, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his life’s work in 2003. Coetzee is a South African native who now lives in Australia.
The story is about the indomitable spirit of one man, Michael K. He was born with a cleft lip and spent much of his early life in institutions and then works as a gardener in Cape Town parks. He also tends to his sick mother and their travel to her birthplace begins the long and arduous journey of Michael K.
Lara Foot adapted and directed this play with Handspring Puppet Company and Baxter Theatre Centre. It was performed in the bunraku style, which originated in Japan. This stylized and expressionistic form makes the audience aware that the puppeteers are in sync with the characters so much that they fade into the background. The cast of nine are also actors and become characters in the story as they interact with the puppets and speak dialogue drawn from the book. The Life and Times of Michael K a compelling and profound lesson for those facing a hostile political future in America.
The puppets created by Adrian P. Kohler look eerily human, and the figure of Michael K is shown as skeletal. He journeys through an apocalypse during a fictional civil war in South Africa and manages to survive what should have killed him. I found his metaphor as a gardener to be beautiful in the midst of destruction. Despite having nothing, Michael K leaves each place with an imprint of his nurturing. He keeps moving forward because the alternative is surrender. That is serendipity in today’s political and cultural landscape. Life and Times of Michael K is a lesson in moving forward and not submitting to victim mode. It is beautiful, emotionally devastating, and, in the end, inspiring.
Life and Times of Michael K played January 24-26 at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building. Running time is 115 minutes. (Kathy D. Hey)
Edith and Me by Yael Rasooly with Nordland Visual Theater (Israel and Norway)
Israeli artist Yael Rasooly shows her creative talents in the one-woman puppet story, Edith and Me, framed around the life of French singer Edith Piaf. It’s a story about the aftermath of violence and surviving through art. As grim as that may sound, Rasooly and her lifesize puppets portray the story with elegance and humor.
Edith and Me is about the many struggles that the singer goes through on her way to becoming a legend. We learn about the attack she suffers (which is portrayed dramatically by Rasooly and a lot of puppet hands) and also about her love affair with boxer Marcel Cerdan. Their meeting is dramatized by a mini-puppet show that Rasooly conducts on a handheld stage with tiny boxer puppets. Rasooly creates a sweet bedtime love scene with the two lifesize puppets, Edith and Marcel. Throughout the play, Piaf (and Rasooly) sing her songs, starting off with the classic “Le Vie en Rose.”
The puppets (created by Yngvild Aspeli of Plexus Polaire) are lifesize but the figures have only head, arms and upper body. Rasooly easily manipulates both figures in the Marcel scenes and several puppets in other scenes. Rasooly is also the creator of The House by the Lake, which we reviewed in last week’s dispatch.
Nordland Visual Theater, based north of the Arctic Circle, offers residencies and co-productions in collaboration with theater companies, puppeteers, actors, directors and other theater artists all over the world.
Edith and Me was performed January 23-25 in the Zacek McVay Theater at the Biograph Theater. Running time was 60 minutes. (Nancy S Bishop)
Organismo by the Mara֘na Ensemble (Chile)
Organismo is a delightfully strange exploration of the senses. It is both a crochet art installation and a circus piece, presented by the Mara֘na ensemble. Chilean artistic director Paula Riquelme Orbenes, an experienced circus director and textile artist, created the entire installation. The resulting show is a wholly unique fusion of art and performance that should engage theatergoers of any age.
When the audience walks in, a massive wall of crochet that could either resemble a coral reef or a giant fungus, but stands out as its own “organism,” is on display. As the play begins, parts of it come alive, puppeteered by a talented team of dancers and circus performers. Slowly, the performers themselves emerge from the crochet wall, in such a way that each foot or hand feels like an extension of the entire organism. The soundscape, with live music provided by Andres Aravena, matches and enhances the strangeness of the performance.
This is the first time that Organismo has been performed in the United States and I hope that it will not be the last.
Organismo was performed January 23-25 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago. Running time is approximately an hour. (Devony Hof)
Skeleton Canoe by Ty Defoe and All My Relations Collective (New York City)
It was a busy scene at the Biograph Theater on Thursday. A nearly packed house assembled for Skeleton Canoe, devised and performed by All My Relations Collective’s Ty Defoe. The performance, meant to introduce audiences to Defoe’s Anishinaabe lifeways, was co-commissioned by the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, so one hopes it would be a standout. Skeleton Canoe, however, is boring and cheesy, so much so that it fails as both a source of education and a piece of entertainment.
Defoe presents a hero’s journey similar to Where The Wild Things Are. Young Nawbin accidentally destroys their family’s prized oar. Overcome with guilt and embarrassment they escape to the wilderness and encounter a bird, a fish, and other pedagogical animals relevant to Anishinaabe lifeways.
How the animals are relevant to Defoe’s traditions, or how they’re related to each other, isn’t completely clear. Defoe cycles from one unimpressive puppet to the next—they all have pretty much the same voice—as though checking off a list. His performance is never compelling enough to elicit a close listen. And so for a show that feels awfully didactic, there seems to be a strange lack of information.
Defoe’s puppets and puppeteering are amateurish. Nawbin, our protagonist, for instance, is presented onstage as a neutral-faced traditional mask that Defoe carries around and sometimes wears. It’s a no-frill approach, but puppetry fans know what a skilled artist can do even with something plain, how a well-timed tilt or shake could communicate mountains of information. Defoe doesn’t apply that kind of showmanship, though. The mask is lifeless, more carried than performed, and I feel cheated out of a proper puppet show.
Defoe’s storytelling is also a disappointment. Often he spoke to the audience with the faux-amazed inflection of Steve Irwin or Dora the Explorer. Information online says the show is for all ages, and the audience was primarily adults, but about midway through I was certain it was for kids. Walking out of the theater I felt the nauseating sting of being spoken to like a child for a very long hour.
Skeleton Canoe was staged in the Richard Christiansen Theater at the Biograph Theater January 23-26. Running time is 50 minutes. The play is for all ages. (Adam Kaz)
Arctic Tall Tales by La Ruée Vers L’Or (Canada)
The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival gave me a virtual international passport to Greenland to see a comic look at life in the 79° N parallel. Arctic Tall Tales is created by Canadian art collective La Ruée Vers L’Or, founded by Anne Lalancette and Alexandre Harvey.
Arctic Tall Tales is inspired by real-life expeditions in mid-20th-century Greenland, documented by Jørn Riel, and graphic novels by Hervé Tanquerelle. It is a naturalistic tale of survival told from the viewpoint of crusty-faced puppets based on Tanquerelle’s drawings. The puppets look wild-eyed, suggesting they have lived in the tundra for some time.
The dialogue is hilariously gruff and socially awkward. These are men who have not been around other people. It is believable that they live in months of sun or darkness and do some hardcore drinking. It is a surreal Arctic frat party with laughs, and while there are poignant moments, these characters know that life is short and cold.
The puppeteers also voice the characters, and it is like listening to superstar voice artists like June Foray (Natasha from Bullwinkle) or Mel Blanc from a pantheon of Looney Toons characters. Animation has fantastic sound effects, and the virtuosic Alexandre Harvey is the foley artist. I watched him as much as I was looking at the puppets' antics. The collection of noisemakers is very cool—a pan with water and a sponge, some tulle with something crunchy under it, and a wooden box with hidden delights of sound. Harvey also plays the guitar and a mouth bow or pochette.
Arctic Tall Tales is a delightful show that made me laugh about men who smell like cheese and bathe outside in the subzero weather.
Arctic Tall Tales played on January 21-22 at the Biograph Theater. Running time is 85 minutes. (Kathy D. Hey)
Birdheart by Julian Crouch and Saskia Lane (New York City)
Puppeteers Julian Crouch and Saskia Lane create a brief puppet story by working with brown paper and a box of sand to create an abstract figure that they manipulate with sticks. The series of animated images is built as we watch; Birdheart builds something beautiful from the humblest of materials. The theme is transformation and loneliness, against a backdrop of live music performed by musician Phillip Roebuck.
Before the story of Birdheart began, the three artists played a brief concert of bird-themed music, led by Roebuck on vocals, guitar and resonator guitar (or dobro). Crouch played washboard and guitar and Lane played upright bass. Their playlist included “Fare Thee Well,” “Listen to the Mockingbird,” and “I’ll Fly Away.” Singing along was encouraged. The music was definitely the highlight of the performance.
From “Fare Thee Well”: “ If I had wings like Noah's dove / I'd fly the river to the one I love /
Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well.”
Birdheart was performed January 24-26 at Instituto Cervantes. Running time was one hour. (Nancy S Bishop)
Scarecrow by Anthony Michael Stokes (Chicago)
Frank L. Baum’s tales of the Wizard of Oz are the inspiration for the puppet theater festival production of Scarecrow, written and performed by Michael Anthony Stokes. It’s the tale of the Scarecrow after Dorothy leaves and the Humbug Wizard returns to a carny life.
Stokes is a talented puppeteer who was a fellow at the Eugene O’Neill Residency, sponsored by the Jim Henson Foundation.
Stokes turns the Scarecrow’s origin story into a metaphor for Jim Crow and the vicious crime of lynching. Crows are featured prominently in the production as harbingers of death and danger. The Winkies (the people under the rule of the Wicked Witch of the West until she is liquified) call upon the Scarecrow to help rid the community of the crows that are destroying crops and terrorizing the citizenry.
A Golden Crow turns into Ida B. Wells, an outspoken crusader against lynching. She helps the Scarecrow discover his power and empowers others to fight their own battles rather than depend on the hegemony of Oz. There is a good balance of comedy and mysticism, as in the Baum books.
Stokes manages to put a lot into one hour. The themes include racism, white privilege, empowerment of women, and the resurgence of a new kind of Jim Crow with the mass migrations.
Stokes could trim the chaotic scenes with everyone on stage. It was overwhelming with the crows, the noise, and another liquified villain. I would have loved to have seen more of the dynamic between the Scarecrow and his chief adviser, Professor H.M. Wogglebug. (a hilarious Zachery Garner), and Seesaw the Sawhorse (a perfectly droll Tau Bennett). It is a delightful production and, depending on the audience's age, could lean more toward the inhumanity of lynching or remain closer to the fantasy world.
Scarecrow played January 24-25 at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center. Running time is 50 minutes. Recommended for age 14 and up. (Kathy D. Hey)
Support arts and culture journalism today. This work doesn't happen without your support. Contribute today and ensure we can continue to share the latest reviews, essays, and previews of the most anticipated arts and culture events across the city.