From: mjm <mmoynihan-AT-wi.rr.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 22:29:59 -0500
To: puptcrit-AT-lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Zaloom's Karagoz show


Great review and info.
I am a great admirer of Zaloom's work.
Thanks again.

mjm

On Apr 5, 2006, at 10:55 AM, NANCYSTAUB-AT-aol.com wrote:

> The Mother of All Enemies
> VENUE
> Collective Unconscious
> OPENED
> March 30, 2006
> CLOSES
> April 9, 2006
> PERFORMANCES
> Thu - Sun at 7:30pm; Sat - Sun at 3pm
> RUNNING TIME
> 1 hour, 15 minutes
> TICKETS
> $15
> $12 students/seniors
> 212-352-3101
> MORE INFO
> Visit the show's official website
> WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY
> Paul Zaloom
> DIRECTOR
> Randee Trabitz
> LIGHTING
> Chris Kuhl
> PUPPETS
> Lynn Jeffries
> PRODUCING COMPANY
> apexart
>
> This is a new show by the great puppet theatre artist Paul Zaloom. The 
> show
> is a mutation of the traditional Middle Eastern Karagoz shadow puppet 
> play
> (famous in Turkey, Greece, Egypt, and Syria) about the consequences of 
> being on
> the fringes of society=85 EVERY society. The following is from the press
> materials: "The shadow show tells the twisted story of an Arab, 
> secular humanist /
> Quaker / Buddhist / agnostic / political refugee / immigrant / queer / 
> artist /
> weirdo=92s adventures while being comically pursued by various enemies: 
> Syrian
> Secret Service, Israeli border guards, Al Qaeda, Homeland Security, 
> the Statue of
> Liberty, Christian 'Ex Gay' activists, and U.S. immigration vigilantes 
> the
> Minutemen. The idiot savant Karagoz foils their evil plans, 
> dispatching them one
> by one with subterfuge, obfuscation, and cheap puppet gimmicks. They 
> all
> fail; he triumphs. Zaloom jiggles his puppets, recounts absurd emails 
> with Marine
> recruiters (he=92s sorta old for the Marines: 54. He=92s also gay=85 etc.), 
> creates
> the entire soundscape with his voice, and uses drawings to illuminate 
> the
> perverse workings of our 'civilization' with a frontal comic assault."
> Pictured: The "Al Qaeda Training Camp" sequence from the shadow puppet 
> play
> in The Mother of All Enemies
>
>
>
> nytheatre.com review
> Martin Denton * March 31, 2006
> In his new solo show The Mother of All Enemies, Paul Zaloom takes on 
> Homeland
> Security, "Don't Ask/Don't Tell," Al Qaeda, the "Ex-Gay" movement, 
> intolerant
> Conservatives, the wars of the Middle East, the United States Marine 
> Corps,
> the deterioration of privacy and compassion=97in short, more or less 
> everything
> that characterizes our increasingly distressing and insecure way of 
> life here
> in the USA in 2006: all that, plus the impossibility of trying to 
> survive as an
> artist in a world that seems less and less to value art. (That final 
> point is
> already proven when we walk in the door=97not of a well-funded and 
> well-fed
> mainstream venue, but of scrappy Collective: Unconscious in Tribeca. 
> Zaloom, one
> of the most important figures of alternative theatre of the past three 
> decades
> (and a TV star, in Beakman's World), is touring in tiny venues like 
> this one?
> Something is broken.)
> Zaloom launches his attack on the System from two fronts. Most of The 
> Mother
> of All Enemies takes the form of a shadow puppet play, in which Zaloom 
> works
> all the controls and does all the voices and sound effects. The star 
> of this
> show is Karagoz, a character from traditional Middle Eastern puppet 
> theatre whom
> Zaloom describes as a knavish, clownish hero in the style of Punch or
> Pulcinella. His Karagoz, a chunky bearded felow in a fez, has simple 
> goals: to live a
> peaceful life with his boyfriend Harry, raise some kids, and make a 
> living as
> an artist. But everywhere he goes, his desires are foiled. Police 
> (literally
> pigs in cop cars) harrass Karagoz and Harry when it looks like they're 
> making
> a public display of affection. Eventually, Karagoz gets arrested for 
> being so
> careless, and winds up in prison, where he meets a genie who grants 
> him "seven
> or nine" wishes.
> Karagoz uses these wishes to turn himself into a variety of forms of
> transportation (airplane, boat, etc.) which carry him around the 
> world. He finds
> himself first in Israel, where his swarthy Arab looks make him pretty 
> unpopular;
> and then in Pakistan, in an Al Qaeda training camp (depicted here 
> hilariously as
> a kids' summer camp, with a counselor promising a day trip to New 
> York, where
> the activities will be attending the musical Spamalot, getting knishes 
> at
> Yonah Shimmel's, and blowing up a famous landmark). Karagoz's
> Rocky-and-Bullwinkle-like adventures eventually take him to the U.S., 
> where he encounters a
> disco-queen Statue of Liberty, lands in jail, journeys to an "Ex-Gay" 
> dude ranch,
> and (having turned himself into a woman) almost becomes the paramour 
> of one of
> the most virulent "Ex-Gays." It's coarse, goofy, broad satire, its 
> anger
> diffused by the fanciful, silly ambience. Lots of it scores a bulls 
> eye.
> Around the puppet show, Zaloom delivers comic monologues, all based on 
> true
> experiences and illustrating how cockeyed our society's values have 
> become.
> There's a Tonight Show-style riff on bumper stickers for secular 
> humanists that's
> pretty funny; and there's a bit about Zaloom's email correspondence 
> with a
> USMC recruiter that is, by turns, hilarious and chilling.
> The show's blissful humor is subverted at almost every point by its 
> urgency:
> Zaloom is too genuinely concerned about the subjects he's talking 
> about to
> surrender them completely to pure comedy (and with good reason). So 
> The Mother of
> All Enemies is as likely to make you angry as to make you laugh, which 
> is
> certainly its whole reason for being. Authentically political satire 
> is hard to
> come by these days, and as Zaloom's own career illustrates, it's not 
> something
> our culture is currently rewarding appropriately. See what you've been 
> missing
> and get yourself fired up: The Mother of All Enemies is the real 
> thing, and
> it's so necessary right now.
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"Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire." =96 Confucius

"I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand."
Confucius

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