New York Critic

La MaMa Puppet Series produced by La MaMa (Off-off-Broadway) An unusual kind of show is the puppet slam . The Center for Puppetry Arts defines it as “a curated collection of short-form pieces of adult puppet theater.” Recently La MaMa (off-off-Broadway) had its first puppet slam as part of its Puppet Series.   14 puppet acts took the stage, each only about five minutes long. There were sock puppets, marionettes, tiny puppets… Ever hear of humanettes? They’re actors with their faces in sort of habits, and beneath those faces are marionettes. They’re human from the neck up and puppets from the waist down, so that the faces are outsized. Sometimes the puppeteers talked with the puppets, sometimes there was music… there was a puppet trapeze act… there was “object art”, featuring a tape measure… there was a green devil, a vaudeville act by Sacco and Vanzetti and other curiosities… and an act with video from Occupy Wall Street! One act was a clever “Cannonball Love Stor...

Review by Steve Capra Dream Play produced by The Onomatopoeia Theatre Company directed by Thomas R. Gordon with Miranda Webster, Nathan Winkelstein, Finn Kilgore, J. Michael Evans Strindberg wrote A Dream Play in 1901; it was first produced in 1907. The play introduced the intemperate, heady expressionism that freed European drama from the constraints of realism. Even by today’s standards, it’s surreal. Has there ever been a more despairing play? Strindberg explores universal suffering. Success leads to failure in life, pleasure to guilt and “the sea is salty because sailors cry so much.” Of course, there’s redemption here. Suffering is redemption and death is deliverance. The daughter of the Indra, king of the gods, comes to earth in part by accident and in part to learn about mortal life. She marries and finds emotional ruin. She runs off with an officer and they reach a quarantine island for the ill. She meets a poet to greater satisfaction, but without comfort. Fin...