It is with a heavy heart that I announce my decision to resign my post as Artistic Director of the First Annual Burning Door Puppet Festival. Before I mount an articulate and stunning defense of my widely disparaged critique of the festival's recent direction, let me say what a pleasure it has been to work with such creative puppeteers from around the world: The Boy who Loved Felt from Romania, Pop-Goes-the-Puppet from Niger, and Are We Not Eggs? from Fiji. Your passionate works and creative genius in the face of global snickering at your chosen profession should serve as an inspiration to us all. Alas, the crass commercialization of the festival before the first curtain has even opened leave me no other choice but to abandon ship. I don't know how ANYBODY can sit there with a straight face and say that "An Evening with Ben Vereen" belongs in a puppet festival. Really.
But let's not start by spitting invective at my detractors...that can wait until next week when the festival is in high gear. I do not want my resignation to take focus away from the artists and their preparations right now. In this spirit, let me mention a few of the acts you will not see next week (along with the descriptions from their application) because the board deemed them all "fringe puppetry":
1. Glovely. Myra Comstock brings her special brand of erotic puppetry back to the stage in this one woman, three puppet sexstravaganza. Based on Stella Johnson's short story about an all-woman Japanese whaling crew, Glovely explores the sometimes violent, sometimes sensual, but always uniquely feminine relationships between women at sea.
2. Appen-dick-to-me! Wearing Charlie Brown sock puppets instead of standard surgical gloves, members of the Prague Sexual Identity Clinic will satirize the public stigma surrounding sex-change operations by performing a complete and very real stage-two female to male invasive procedure live onstage. The entire cast of Peanuts will be represented on the hands of the surgeons and nurses around the operating table, and several offstage actors will voice "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" in synch with the delicate surgery performed onstage. Special thanks to Polly "Pete" Oleksia for his/er courage in making this festival of sights and sounds possible. One performance only. Good luck, Pete!
3. Braveheart. Scottish independence has never been funnier! Although this script matches the film's word for word, the irony of watching william wallace and and co. in wooden miniature (all voiced by the Edinburgh Cathedral Boys Choir) will have them rolling in the aisles. The mood of the final scene alone is altered from abject horror to hilarious hijinks when Wallace is quartered, and lo!...He's filled with toys and prizes!
Sadly, my friends, neither you nor I will have the chance to witness these courageous performances this year. They have been forsaken in favor of a finger-puppet contest featuring Miss Bailey's 3rd grade class from Brookwood Elementary, A Punch and Judy retrospective (can you say "Snoozefest"?), and a film collage of Muppet outtakes from the early 70's when the guy playing Cookie Monster was always high.
Whatever. I quit.
Posted by Dick at February 15, 2004 10:25 AM | TrackBack