Show report

[yendi]

So we went to glenn5s puppet show last night.



Kelly met us at our house, and we headed to the train and then walked the last few blocks to the Center for Puppetry Arts. We were early, so we hit the museum, which was really nifty. We then paced around until deza and arkhamrefugee showed up. Deza happens to be one of those people who is a hell of a lot prettier in person than her online pics suggest -- we almost didn't recognize her, other than the fact that she was with arkhamrefugee.

We looked around for thorax86, but alas, could find any sign of him before the show began. And tix were sold out (we all phoned in ticket orders in advance), so we decided to head into the show. Before I talk about the show, remember that I'm responding to it as entertainment, not as puppetry.

The show itself was an anthology. Glenn5's was the fourth show. The first piece, was, frankly, one of the most horribly pretentious things I thought I'd ever see. It's was an attempt to do Ibsen or Kafka with puppets, which sounds cool on paper (or screen), but sucks ass in real life. It was a very well done piece of puppetry, to be fair, but the entire piece consisted of showing a wheelchair-bound puppet dealing with a few surreal-for-the-sake-of-surreal events, with no coherence whatsoever. It was not a great way to start off.

The next two pieces improved things. The second one was intriguing, even if it wasn't perfect, as it was a lot more self-aware of the perils of getting pretentious when attempting something "artsy," and didn't take itself as seriously. The third piece was a damned nifty piece involving mostly shadow puppets that, while not an attempt to tell much of a story, was extremely fun and quick-paced.

Then we got to Glenn's piece, and it was fucking hilarious. I don't want to spoil it just yet, because I want to encourage any Atlantans reading this to see the show tonight, but it was an hysterical comedy about what really happens to socks when they vanish from the dryer. It had a ton of puns, which, in spite of what shadesong thinks, is always a good thing. In spite of how bad the first piece above (and the next piece I'll talk about) were, this made the $9 totally worthwhile.

That closes the first act. The second act started with an sketch that was so bad, it made be nostalgic for the first act's opening. First, it wasn't even puppetry -- it was shitty performance art that happened to include one puppet briefly, and some shadow puppets used in an utterly predictable way. The piece itself attempted to be a pretentious commentary on the state of our society post-September 11, but instead turned out to be nothing more than the director's desperate cry for attention, shouting, "look at me, I'm a pretentious wanker who needs someone to coddle me and tell me I'm smart and talented." I can't begin to describe how bad this was -- every bad performance art cliche -- down to the gratuitous use of gags and an attempt to use sex to replace any actual writing -- appeared in this piece. I want the fifteen minutes I wasted on this shit back.

The next three pieces were a mixed bag -- a brilliant "punk rock" band called Clobber, with all three members controlled at once by the puppetteer, and a long dance-style piece with a man and his wooden Jar-Jar Binks. No, I can't describe it any better than that. It might have been okay if it was cut ten minutes shorter. The show finished off with a funny sketch about European Death Otters, which was damned entertaining, although something of a Tim Conway rip for its main joke.

Overally, a damned enjoyable show -- the two suck-ass acts didn't outweigh the entertainment provided by the others.

Afterwards, we stayed for the "talk to the directors" part of the show, but the pretnentious git in need of attention who did the opening sketch of act 2 wasn't there, alas. Which was a shame, as I had a beer bottle I could have gladly broken over his head (and blamed it on Clobber's music, of course).

I also ran into my friend Christina, which was nifty, as I haven't seen her in years. Turns out that she'd just been laid off, which sucks, but she's looking great, and this marriage (her second -- I was at the first, but this one was in Jamaica) seems to be treating her well. And she finally got to meet 'song and see pics of Elayna.

We also found thorax86, who had missed the first act, but had phone-ordered his ticket, so he caught at least half the show. At this point, Deza decided that it was time to wear the corset, so we got to watch 'song and ArkhamRefugee tie her in a corner. :-) Afterwards, we briefly hit the party out back to chat with glenn5 and tell him how good the show was, then headed back to our place.

We hung out for about four hours, and had a great time. shadesong has asked that we be allowed to keep deza, and I've graciously agreed. :-) We basically spent the time drinking, reading LJ (of course), and just talking and goofing around. Stuff that's great to experience, but doesn't lend itself to being written about. And yes, I do have some pictures. :-)

We crashed at something like 4, and just picked Elayna up from her Karate sleepover a few minutes ago. Needless to say, we're fucking exhausted. I'll let everyone else fill in any details I missed (and there were plenty).

Comments

[deza.livejournal.com]

Being oreo filling is fun. :)

It was great to finally meet you guys!

[yendi]

Great. Now I'm going to spend all day wanting to make bad puns involving "double stuff" and "creamy filling." :-)

It was so awesome finally meeting you, too!