Confession: I know next to nothing about puppet theater. Besides (secretly) belting along to “Avenue Q” in my car, my last puppet experience before watching Don Quixote in the CFA last weekend consisted of me and a group of fellow four-year-olds, sixteen years ago, at the Temple Tifferith-Israel in Cleveland Heights watching some old Jewish lady behind a red curtain perform the story of Passover, with Moses on one hand and Pharaoh on the other. Needless to say, the performance last weekend was a completely different experience.
The first half of the production, “Master Peter’s Puppet Show,” consisted of sixteen actors with extraordinary puppets, a full orchestra, and three opera singers. I enjoyed the opening, as the actors moved through the audience with their puppets, performing magic tricks and “mind readings,” especially as I watched two little boys in front of me frantically waving their hands and bouncing in their seats for the monkey to read their minds. The opening engaged the audience with the puppets before the performance actually began.
However, as the first half of the production continued, I found it difficult to split my attention between the puppeteers, the puppets themselves, the singers, the orchestra, and the subtitles (necessary for the Spanish lyrics). While I thoroughly enjoyed the music, the production might have benefited from the inclusion of the singers into the actual staged show, rather than leaving them on the sidelines. Many of the audience members I spoke to afterwards had difficulty matching each puppet with its voice until far into the performance, and I encountered a similar problem.
Despite this factor, each singer performed fantastically. Wesleyan hired Baritone Chris Pedro Trakas as Don Quixote, yet students Rachel Lerner ’06 (Soprano) and Samuel Harrell ’07 (Tenor) performed and sang just as well. The voices gave such life to each puppet, especially when coupled with the excellent movement created by the puppeteers.
The set and the puppets themselves impressed me tremendously. Costume designer Leslie Weinberg designed each puppet amazingly, and the students, most of whom, I imagine, had about as much puppet experience as I did before performing in this show, learned the art of puppetry extremely well, as seen through the lyrical movement and choreography. Well-crafted and beautiful, the “carriage,” which morphed into several sets throughout the piece, particularly impressed me. While I enjoyed these aspects of the production, I believe a smaller space would have benefited the piece, as the stage seemed a little bare at times.
Throughout the second half of “Don Quixote,” “The Marvelous Puppet Show,” I watched sympathetically as gifted theater students tried to make the most of a flawed script. A certain former actor in this production, who left after experiencing a tragic accident involving her foot, a stair, and a fat suit, clued me in on the anachronisms in the script: apparently, the present-day references replaced ones referring to the pop culture of Spain in the 1400s, which the director correctly thought the audience would not understand. Yet the present-day allusions simply confused me, as the actors jumped from speaking rather formally to discussing Scooter Libby and Neil Simon. While references to fifteenth-century Spain would have flown over most of the audiences’ heads, the original script probably would have added much more fluidity, and generally more sense, to the performance.
Because the actors began the second half in front of the curtain, I imagined it would part to reveal a magnificent set. Unfortunately, only a red checked curtain hung half-heartedly in front of me, along with a few mismatched chairs. Again, the space of the CFA stage proved too immense for this production, as the rest of the second act seemed barer than the first.
While the script certainly contained some problems, I enjoyed watching these talented actors perform. Molly Gaebe ’07 and Kieran Kredell ’08 entertainingly opened the second half through their fun (and well-accented) characters. The costumes added much to this part of the production, defining each role well, especially in contrast to the lack of set. As the curtain opened, I laughed along with the audience upon glimpsing Hayley Stokar ’06, hilariously dressed in a huge purple wig and colorful dress, and continued to giggle at the accent and physique she developed for her character.
While the production lacked in set, use of space, and script, the costumes, puppets, and actors definitely strengthened the piece. “Don Quixote” provided an evening of entertaining, creative theater for the Wesleyan community, through the use of puppetry combined with incredible vocals and the orchestra.
With Molly Gaebe ’07, Kieran Kredell ’08, Jess Lane ’06, Kenton Atta-Krah ’09, Rebecca Josue ’06, Randa Tawil ’09, Quinn Hechtkopf ’06, Gedney Barclay ’09, Hayley Stokar ’06, Garrett Larribas ’07, Gabriel Fries ’09, Anna Moench ’06, Erin Smith ’06, Corinna Zeltsman ’06, and Johan Bage ’09.
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