Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 13:36:36 -0400
Subject: PUPT: Sandglass' Latest at Puppet Showplace


For those in driving distance of Boston,

Just wanted to remind folks that Puppet Showplace Theatre is presenting
Sandglass Theatre's stunning and moving production of One Way Street: an
evocation of Walter Benjamin, October 24-27 (24th 7 PM, 25th 8PM, 26th 4:30
and 8:30 PM, and 27th 3 PM). This is a part of our Puppets at Night series
for adults, and tickets are $20/$17.  Performances will take place at the
New Repertory Thearte in Newton Highlands, MA, a theatre with a larger stage
than in our own intimate theatre. Directions are on their website:
<www.newrep.org>

This play represents not only some of Eric Bass' best work, and David
Regan's best design work, but it is also a very fine example of small cast
ensemble work (3 performers).  I've been describing it as "intellectual,
symbolic, and existential, but also very theatrical, warmly humorous, and
accessible to a broad audience. I'll include a description below, and
reviews further down for those who like to read.

And to make it more enticing for those thinking about travelling here, the
weekend family performances at the theatre are The Headless Horseman of
Sleepy Hollow by the Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers of Bar Harbor Maine. These
are three siblings who do very funny and clever shows with moving mouth
puppets... inspired bt the late great Jim Henson's work, but not derivative
at all! I really believe this company is one to be watched- they're at the
beginning of a very creative career. Shows are at 1 & 3 PM.  Tickets $10/$8
(a bit higher than our usual price for the Halloween shows because there are
refreshments and a costume parade- wear yours if you like!).

Info and reservations: 617.731.6400.

Karen

Performed by: Eric Bass, Ines Zeller Bass & Merrill Garbus
Puppet Design and building: Dave Regan
Set Design: David Underwood

Eric Bass¹ newest production deals with themes of Time, Memory, Cultural
History, and the sense of Life¹s Mystery. Using texts from Walter Benjamin,
the 1920¹s/30¹s German Jewish literary critic, Bass and members of Sandglass
Theater create a world of images, in which ³a key has been irrevocably lost,
but the desire to search for it remains.² This is a state of Longing, a
search for that which cannot be found. It is the search which matters, not
the object of the search. The world of One Way Street is populated by
figures who are fragments of dreams, of childhood, of poems. These
characters emerge from Benjamin¹s texts: the Angel of History, the Little
Hunchback of nursery songs, and someone who suggests Benjamin himself but
who might be any searcher, any collector of the timeless objects of history
and culture. These characters inhabit the remains of cities, the buildings
of which are themselves only fragments. Somewhere within these fragments is
a key, but one can only wander and hope to encounter it.  Collaborating on
the project is Salvadoran theater director Roberto Salomon, who works and
resides in Geneva, composer Paul Dedell, and Sandglass co-founder, Ines
Zeller Bass.


Sandglass Theater
Sandglass Theater is an internationally known theater company specializing
in the use of the puppet and visual imagery. Since 1982, the company¹s
productions have toured 24 countries, performing in theaters, festivals and
cultural institutions, and winning international prizes. Sandglass Theater
was founded in Munich, Germany. Since moving to Vermont in 1986, Sandglass
works have been presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music¹s Next Wave
Festival, the First New York International Festival of the Arts, and the Jim
Henson Festival at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York. Sandglass
Theater produces works for both adult audiences and young audiences‹ two
repertoires that can tour separately or together. Sandglass also performs
and teaches in its own 60-seat renovated barn theater in Putney, Vermont.
Sandglass Theater is also available for workshops and residencies. Sandglass
Theater is associated with the Sandglass Center for Puppetry and Theater
Research, a not-for-profit organization.

³The world is disintegrating. In the macrocosm of the universe, punctures
are appearing, seams are tearing. Life-matter is coming apart. In the
microcosm of theater, the puppet is a means of integrating, of pulling back
together pieces torn apart from each other. The puppet is the embodiment of
a world no longer ours, an abstraction of a memory, a dream which is
recalled. It is other than us, but it lives through us. We grasp it, and in
grasping it, it takes hold of us. In dancing with the puppet, we are dancing
with our more secret side. We are integrating parts of ourselves.²
   ‹Sandglass Theater


Awards
Special Achievement Award
‹New England Theatre Conference, 2000
Figurentheater Prize
‹City of Erlangen, Germany, 1991
SIX TIME WINNER of the Citation of Excellence
‹Union Internationale de la Marionette, 1982, 1986, 1991, 1994,
1998, 1999
First Prize Critics Award for Best Production
‹International Festival of Puppetry in Adelaide, Australia, 1983
Robert and Adele Blank Jewish Arts Award
‹Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 1994
Diploma of Excellence
‹Pecs, Hungary, 1982


Quotes
Šthese astonishing creaturesŠ which are in reality our doubles, our secret
brothers, sprung from a shadow within us.Š one learns moreŠ than from the
many laborious works on the human condition that are proposed to us by
philosophers, psychoanalysts and psychologists.
  ‹Dernieres Nouvelles D¹Alsace, Strasbourg, France

Šascends the absolute heights of theaterŠ in moving, poetic sequences
presented with extraordinary depth of vision and feeling.
 ‹Sunshine Coast Daily, Australia

Eric Bass is known all over the world today for having brought puppets out
of their traditional toy closets. His shows are each time more stunning.Š
Like all great art, it is a constellation of humorous touches and
tenderness. The magic is born of gesture, from the movement of these dolls,
as if they were animated, with the real breath of life.
‹Le Courrier, Geneva, Switzerland

Šthe artistry of Ines Zeller Bass does not rely on crude devices to make us
laugh or to draw us into a mood; everything is magnificently suggested, and
rapport with the children is sustained.Š
 ‹La Nouvelle Republique de Pyrénées, Tarbes, France

That Bass can conjure so much history and soul out of a two-foot puppet is
its own mystery.Š Rivka¹s wispy gray hair and Gershon¹s frail chest actually
seem to stir with the puppet¹s every breath.
‹The Village Voice, New York City, USA


Sandglass Theatre

Journal:  Hebdoscope     April 16, 2002
Marie-Francoise Grislin
Translated from the French

One Way Street, created by Sandglass Theatre (USA), is an homage to the
German-Jewish philosopher and writer Walter Benjamin.  Performed in English,
the play is thoroughly understood by people with no knowledge of English, as
it tenderly recalls the life and times of this famous yet unknown
philosopher.  One of the founders of modern thought, Benjamin committed
suicide in 1940 at the Spanish border while fleeing Nazi persecution.

The staging as Benjamin wanders from one European city to the next is
original and wistful.  Walter Benjamin, a small puppet in a dark suit,
sporting mustache and spectacles, is the puppeteers twin. Two characters
haunt Benjamin: the ³hunchback², representing part of our being that leads
us to make the wrong choices, and the ³angel of History², a strange
character whose eyes are riveted on the ruins of the past, as the
wind of history propels him, backwards, toward the future.  Both are highly
evocative puppets.

Three actors, Eric Bass, who also created the piece, Ines Zeller Bass, who
designed the costumes, and Merrill Garbus, handle all of the puppets and
transform the space, so that cities rise out of the books that are piled
about the cleverly designed and inspired sets by Dave Regan.  The actors¹
determination, industriousness and conviction make one think , and give much
meaning to the play.

The clever, picturesque and inspired staging ideas of director Roberto
Salomon stimulate our interest and are even funny at times, as we follow
Benjamin through Berlin, Paris, Naples, Moscow, Ibiza in his one way
journey.  Recurrent, symbolic objects line the intellectual¹s path² keys (of
knowledge), lighthouses (symbolizing ideas), base and vile beasts which
become larger and larger at each entrance (representing the rise of
Fascism).  A poetical and wistful piecing together of history that helps us
make sense of Benjamin¹s life.  A significant, theatrical work, an homage of
great respect and meaning.


Brattleboro Reformer   April 25, 2002
William Menezes
In 1940, in the pyrenees border town of Port-Bou, the Jewish/German
philosopher Walter Benjamin, desperate to evade his Nazi pursuers,
supposedly committed suicide.  Though his means of death are clouded in
mystery, his life and work have gained prominence with the wider publication
of his writings since the 1950s.  At the forefront of the post modernist
movement, Benjamin may yet be recognized as one of the most influential
philosophers and critics of the 20th century.

Taking the life and writings of Benja,in as his inspiration, Sandglass
Theatre¹s Eric Bass has created ³One Way Street: An Evocation of Walter
Benjamin,²  It is a marvelously crafted hour and five minutes of theatre
that at one moment brings a tear to your eye and the next, a smile to your
lips. Its images and words (all from Benjamin¹s writings and translations of
Beaudelaire) are haunting, and its movements are lyrical.
The musical score by local composer Paul Dedell enhances not only the
theatrical elements of set and lights but also the choreographed movements
of the actors and puppets.  The music ranges from pensive tone poems to
whimsical klezmer style riffs and often evokes the memory, appropriately, of
the famed German composer Kurt Weill.

As played out by three actors (Bass,  Merrill Garbus and Ines Zeller-Bass)
and puppets, ³One Way Street², though set at a time before his death, is not
so much the story of Benjamin¹s life but a distillation of his thoughts and
of one man¹s struggle against intolerance and search for truth. Though made
up of a series of short vignettes, both humorous and poignant, ³One Way
Street² has the effect of a journey that ends in pursuit.

Throughout the show Bass manipulates the ³Benjamin² puppet and speaks
Benjamin¹s lines.  He is so adept at assuming his character it is difficult
to divorce the character from the actor and the puppet.  Bass has the
uncanny ability to become one with the object he maneuvers.  When Bass
speaks, it is as if the puppet is speaking.

This is no less true of Ines Zeller-Bass.  She supports the Benjamin
character in a variety of roles with a variety of puppets- an often funny,
mischievous hunchback who always gets in Benjamin¹s way, a tragic angel of
history predicting dire and the pursuing Doberman pinchers who hound
Benjamin and his defense of truth as epitomized by a lighthouse.  In the
hands of Zepller-Bass, these snarling lighthouse destroying dogs come to
terrible life.

Garbus, clad in the outfit of a street worker, is also very affecting as she
projects a variety of characters without using puppets. She is most
memorable as a waiter in a series of cafes that Benjamin frequents in his
tips around Europe. Without saying a word and without the use of exaggerated
slapstick she develops a series of comic sketches.  She also lends a strong
and sweet singing voice to the evening.

Dave Regan¹s set design, a series of different sized books come alive,
before your eyes.  They are not just clever, but like the puppets, they take
on a life of their own.  Jerry Stockman¹s lighting bathes each scene with a
dramatic effect that does not call attention to itself.   Roberto Salomon,
the production¹s director, who visited Putney several times over the two
years ³One Way Street² was being developed, has succeeded in orchestrating a
production filled with visual impact and emotional honesty.
Babs Case¹s choreography, assuming that it was instrumental in getting the
actors from one scene to the next, was effective, if not particularly
original.  
If I have any quibbles, they are minor.  The ending was a little too
repetitive for my tastes. I think I got the point and I would have been
content to leave with the image of the Benjamin puppet being unmasked.
Another issue is Finn Campman¹s cleverly conceived film montages- they were
not focussed tightly enough to deliver the impact they justly deserved. ³One
Way Street² is a must for anyone who takes Theatre seriously.  Each will
come away with his or her ideas and interpretations, but that is what great
art can do.



Sandglass play has U.S. debut
By William Menezes

BRATTLEBORO

    A cursory glance at the life of German /Jewish philosopher Walter
Benjamin and one might be hard pressed to understand how he could be the
subject of a play by a puppet theater.  But Eric Bass of Putney¹s Sandglass
Theater is not one to take cursory glances at the inspiration of any of his
plays. In an interview last month, as the company prepared the play to
receive its world premier at a theater in Strasbourg, France, and then to a
festival in Bath, England, Bass explained how ³One Way Street² came about.
    ³The title ŒOne Way Street¹ comes from a piece of writing by Benjamin. I
was inspired by the work. A cousin of Hannah Arendt, (German/American
political scientist) he was 50 years ahead of his time and is really one of
our first post-modernist writers. His writings, like his philosophy, were no
conceived or written chronologically. They are more associative and lateral,
which was unheard of in the 1920s. He was a friend of (Bertolt) Brecht and a
translator of (Charles) Baudelaire. His politics were Marxist, but he was
also interested in Jewish Mysticism. Arendt said about him that Œhe kept
alive a little illumination in dark times.¹ That illumination is what
interests Sandglass in our productions.²
    Though Benjamin might not be a household name, his influence on
literature and philosophy are felt today. He ranked 83rd in Michael
Shapiro¹s book ³The Jewish 100², a compilation of the 100 most influential
Jews from biblical, classical, medieval and modern eras. His life was the
subject of Jay Parini¹s historical novel ³Benjamin¹s Crossing.² The novel
follows Benjamin¹s life from his early privileged childhood in Berlin to his
1940 apparent suicide in the Pyrenees while attempting to flee the Nazis.
Shapiro writes ³ Š Benjamin was a literary critic, journalist, activist,
translator and philosopher. He is best described by the French term Œhomme
de lettres¹, a man of letters. Rarely published during his lifetime, his
writings were known only to a small circle of friends/ ³Since the
publications of some of his works in the 1950s, Benjamin¹s influence on
contemporary perceptions of culture, history, metaphysics and literature has
grown exponentially. He is rightly viewed as one of the seminal thinkers of
the 20th century.²
    When asked how Sandglass turned a cerebral writer¹s work into a piece of
theater, Bass responded: ³With difficulty. The text we use is almost all of
Benjamin¹s words. The exceptions are some of his translations of Boudelaire.
But really there is very little language in the play. We convey the meaning
with images and movement.²
    Like much of Bass¹s recent work, ³One Way Street² is not linear.
³Rather², Bass explained, ³The narration is collected during the show,
rather than unfolded to us. What we really are interested in is startling
imagery that conveys the themes that were important to Benjamin. He was a
man that recognized that the past is relevant to the present. The propensity
of progress is to destroy the past. In so doing it is destructive to the
present. Progress is capable of destroying architecture, books and religion.
Every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its
own threatens to disappear. We see it today in New York City.    Bass said
that Dave Regan, who built the set and puppets worked with set designer
David Underwood, to create an environment where the set ³is in some sense a
puppet. It is a landscape of a giant book. The actors perform on or around
it.²
    Much like his father, who was an art dealer, Benjamin was an avid
collector. Bass said that the set reflects Benjamin¹s obsession with
collecting.    ³It is all about collecting -- memories, art, ideas, books --
which we hope is how the audience views the play by collecting the images
and thoughts taken from Benjamin¹s texts.² he said. ³It will reflect
Benjamin¹s ideas through its humor, beauty and drama.²
    Acted by Bass, Ines Zeller Bass, and Merrill Garbus. ³One Way Street:²
is a collaborative venture.     ³I first started exploring the piece with
some of my students at Marlboro College.² explained Bass.   The Show¹s
director, he said, is Salvadorian Roberto Salomon who has flown in from his
home in Geneva several times during the show¹s development, and stayed in
Putney for weeks at a time. Choreographer Babs Case, he said, has flown in
from her Wyoming home as well, he said.   ³She has been key in helping us
find the movement for this material,² he said. ³Finn Campman has created
film montage for the production. It is a kind of composite with pictures and
puppets creating interesting effects.
Newfane composer, Paul Dedell has written new music for the production.²
           © Brattleboro Reformer, Arts and Entertainment, Thursday, April
11, 2002

  



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