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Meat & Potato Theatre: Revenge and retribution
Stage » Meat & Potato creates puppet theater for adults.
Updated: 11/25/2009 04:35:53 PM MST
A puppet used in "The Tigers of Akanuma" by Debora Threedy in Meat & Potato Theatre's "Shadows Of Akanuma"
When deciding on their second production, Meat & Potato Theatre producers went with what they know: puppets, as in Japanese-style bunraku dolls.
The company's "Shadows of the Bakemono" plays Dec. 4-20 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.
But first, a note of explanation. Bakemono translates as a shape-shifter, and the production is a series of five one-act stories performed with bunraku or traditional large-scale Japanese puppets, as well as rod puppets and black-light magic.
"It's not 'Sesame Street' puppets," cast member Michael Gardner said. "One of the goals is not to be a cute puppet show."
But why puppets? "We want to tell interesting stories in the most powerful way possible," said Tobin Atkinson, the company's artistic director, who is directing the show. "Theater means a whole bunch of things."
The puppet-based theatrical work follows the pattern of the company's work in Washington D.C., before relocating to Utah last year.
While onstage, the cast of six actors -- dressed in black with their faces covered -- manipulate puppets. All audiences will see of the actors are their shadow-like movements.
The five stories, all inspired by the idea of Japanese ghost stories, were written by members of the Salt Lake City Playwrights Laboratory, a collaboration Plan-B Theatre and Meat & Potato launched last year.
"I'm very pleased with what's happening," Atkinson said about the playwrights in the lab, many of whom are working with puppetry for the first time. "It's great to see them discover new things, new techniques and really advance in their work."
The novelty of puppetry attracted playwright Debora Threedy to take up the challenge. What resulted was her play "The Tigers of Akanuma," which uses supernatural elements to explore the theme of revenge.
What connects her play to the others on the bill is the presence of a shape-shifter. And in each story, something is not quite what it seems, Threedy said.
Rehearsal has been a workout for cast members, as up to three actors manipulate parts of one puppet. When two puppets are onstage, all six actors twist and contort within the space of the two dolls.
"Everyone has to work as a group," Gardner said. "We have to be in the same page together at all times or it's not going to look right or sound right."