Dream Music Puppetry Program’s 26th Annual Puppet Parlor

A Vaudeville

By Alix Cohen

Imagination, theatrical skill and physical puppet craft has had a home at HERE Arts Center’s Dream Music Puppetry program since 1999. Endowed by his grandmother and run by the incomparable, third generation puppeteer, Basil Twist, twice a year the DMP salutes its own making merry with a variety show of short pieces, music, and song. Internationally known, Twist has garnered a plethora of awards and grants, most recently working on productions for The Royal Shakespeare Company and The Metropolitan Opera.

This year’s festivities begin with Basil’s husband, actor/dancer/choreographer Ken Aard, performing an infectiously cheery “The Man with The Bag” as Twist hands out candy. Opening act is Brooklyn puppeteer, Tau Bennett who made his first character age 10, apprenticed with a Sesame Street puppeteer, and found his creative vision. ( with Zachary Garner)

The segment explores irrational fear in droll fashion. A mouse, poking his head from the shower, hears unexpected sounds in his should-be-empty house. A mischievous Boogeyman Man appears (part human, part puppet; small head, walrus mustache and prominent teeth. A ball of lint? floats by way of puppeteer in black- two bug eyes and a sizeable mouth. (Love the Boogeyman, don’t get the ball of what) “What would my reality be like were my mind less altered?”

Nightclub veteran Joey Arias, vocalist, songwriter, theater, drag artist, and fashion icon, is next. Holding a personalized microphone with horsehair tail, Arias wears a black velvet sheath with green inserts and a diaphanous, floor length coat. Hair is pulled severely back, bangs and eyelashes perfect. Flirting with audience, he sings a jazz inflected songs with iconoclastic phrasing, breathy delivery and high sounds that teeter on scat.

Later wearing period lingerie, Arias performs a number from 2008’s wonderfully bizarre Arias With a Twist between his captors, two very tall, imaginatively manifest aliens with electric eyes. His voice slip/slides. They dance. The space adventure had a fabulous wall of animated jungle by Basil Twist. HERE is considering reviving the play.

Performer/actor Sophie Becker works at the intersection of ventriloquism, theater, and experimental comedy. Her appearance represents the first time Puppet Parlor has included a ventriloquist. Prefacing with a riff on the perils of Botox, the attractive young woman moves not a single facial muscle as she “speaks.” Articulation is pristine. Miss Ronnie, “the matchstick with attitude”, talks of “breaking away from codependency, free of someone else’s mind and ideas”, then decides they need each other.

Ronnie’s particularly anthropomorphized face is created by eyes that move back and forth, unusual for a dummy. The character coughs and spits up a bronze peanut (peculiar choice) which Sophie somehow accidentally swallows. Their spirits briefly change places, each voice distinctly that of its host body. A kiss rights things. Ronnie sings “The Great Pretender.” Well done!

Jonothon Lyons, an Independent Theater Award winning writer, blows cigarette smoke onto a 20”, evocatively crafted music hall stage. A marionette dressed as he is, sings Leonard Cohen’s gritty “I’m Your Man” on and off stage. Vocal is swell. The stringed figure has an expressive face, but shows little distinct movement.

Maria Camia is a Brooklyn based Visual Theatre Artist and Introspective Hypnosis Practitioner. She appears with 6 eyed mask-as-costume, its 3D mouth opening since hers does not. Using a painting somewhat manipulated by pull strings, the artist offers a workshop on self realization-obscure and too long, though the painting intrigues.

Maximally queer Machine Dazzle, artist, costume designer, set designer, singer/songwriter, art director, and maker, lounges in a sparkly dress and six in platform heels. His headpiece is a fabulously constructed, giant oyster which opens to reveal his head as a pearl. We hear “The First Time I Saw Your Face.” Behind him, collaborator Cathy Kathe Mull, in matching dress, swims a series of cut out fish across the stage before an undulating silk wave. A spiked sea urchin moves of its own accord.

“I want you to think of the first time you heard these melodies and carry it into the season,” Jono Mainelli says. At the piano, he plays Vince Guaraldi’s two most beloved songs from A Charlie Brown Christmas. The room stills growing collectively nostalgic.
Aard returns to sing an extremely moving version of “Here’s to Life”, vocally understated, but packing a wallop. Arias renders a seriously lascivious rendition of “Silent Night” during which Twist presents his first puppet, Stickman, in choreographed flight as it snows.

Another year, another Holiday Puppet Parlor. The warmth of community at the Dorothy B. Williams Theater could keep a fire going. It’s tender, wicked, unique and fun.

Look for other uncommon programming at HERE.

Photos by Richard Termine

Dream Music Puppetry Program’s Puppet Parlor
Basil Twist- Host/Director
Jono Mainelli- Piano
HERE 145 Sixth Avenue https://here.org/