File puptcrit/puptcrit.0910, message 196


Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:39:08 -0400
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
From: Elizabeth Luce <ealuce-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: [Puptcrit] Gogol Project


If you live near Los Angeles, try to see this show be for it closes!
For ticket and date/time info: 
<http://www.rogueartists.org>www.rogueartists.org

Los Angeles Times
<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/10/theater-review-gogol-project-at-bootleg-theatre.html>Theater 
review: 'Gogol Project' at Bootleg Theater
October 1, 2009in or=A0

Russia has seen its share of puppet regimes, but nothing quite like 
<http://www.rogueartists.org/>Rogue Artists Ensemble's "Gogol 
Project" at the Bootleg Theater. Combining masked performers, digital 
animation, immersive sound and music, and, of course, diverse styles 
of puppetry, this spectacular new piece deftly balances flights of 
whimsy and depths of darkness in three classic short stories by 19th 
century Russian writer Nikolai Gogol.

Visual invention dazzles the eye as director Sean T. Cawelti marshals 
a gifted design team to drive the storytelling. Puppet creators Brian 
White, Wes Crain and their cohorts (Elizabeth Luce, Lena Garcia) earn 
co-equal billing with the performers. A towering bearded tailor who 
talks with a giant moving scissor mustache prepares the title 
life-changing garment for "The Overcoat's" office drone, (Kristopher 
Lee Bicknell); smaller-scale shadow puppets and hand puppets are also 
put to ingenious use.

For "The Nose," Pat Rubio's masks and Kerry Hennessy's costumes 
wittily animate the detached proboscis of a pompous bureaucrat (Tom 
Ashworth) as it assumes a respectable place in society, while his dog 
(expertly manned by puppeteer April Warren) trades hilarious love 
letters with another pooch. Above Katie Polebaum's village set, a 
giant projected clock face mutates with increasingly sinister 
animations to reflect the mental unraveling of the "Diary of a 
Madman" scribe (Ben Messmer).

Highly physicalized commedia-inspired performances complement the 
design flourishes, particularly from Estela Garcia's pushy hat shop 
matron parading a cloth silhouette of her eligible daughter. Though 
the plots are easy to follow, some familiarity with the Gogol stories 
is helpful, if only to better appreciate the skill with which 
playwright Kitty Felde, using minimal dialogue, has woven them 
together (Ashworth's nose-deprived official becomes the callous VIP 
to whom "The Overcoat's" wronged hero appeals in vain, while the 
official's daughter (Audrey Moore) becomes the object of the 
"Madman's" romantic obsession).

Textual compromises are inevitable in this stylized presentation -- 
the surreal absurdity of some segments blunts the hard-hitting social 
realism in others, and more literary nuances do not lend themselves 
to broad caricature. But the trade-off is well worth the show's 
immersion in sheer staging opulence and ingenuity.

-- Philip Brandes
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