BY JENN GODDU
A bevy of events perhaps best classified as improbable or inventive are scheduled for Chicago this month. Four bald men will live in a department store window for two weeks, a lazy man will be forced to leave his house in search of his runaway cheek, hand puppets will explore outer space and a British country lad will thwart evil ogres.
What has prompted this spate of strange, surreal and surprising antics on the city’s streets? Blame Puppetropolis Chicago, the city’s latest addition to its festival calendar.
The official opening ceremony is June 14 at the Field Museum (although Australia’s Urban Dream Capsule moves into Sears’ store window at 2 N. State Street on June 12). Events continue at a variety of city venues through June 24.
"There is no way that you are not going to run into a puppet in this city during those 10 days," says festival co-director Cheryl Hughes.
Featuring marionettes, rod puppets, giant puppets, toy puppets and hand puppets, Puppetropolis Chicago should expose people to the wide range of contemporary puppetry.
"Puppets speak to people on a real fundamental level and we can really relate to them," says Eva Silverman, the festival’s other co-director. "Puppets can do things that human actors can’t do and we’re willing to suspend our disbelief a little further.
"Puppetry really appeals to people of all ages and all cultures," Silverman continues. For instance, Peek-a-boo, a piece by the Loren Kahn Puppet Theatre of Albuquerque, N.M., aims to entertain children from nine months to three years old. Meanwhile, The Storefront Theatre’s Combustible Puppet Cabaret will showcase experimental short works aimed entirely at adults.
Puppetropolis brings together puppeteers from Peru, Argentina, United Kingdom and Turkey as well as the United States. The event is sponsored by the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, the Department of Cultural Affairs, the Chicago Park District and the Field Museum. Other partners include the Museum of Contemporary Art, Performing Arts Chicago, Redmoon Theatre, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Lookingglass Theatre Company and The Actors Gymnasium.
"This festival doesn’t really have one artistic director or one person making all the choices," Silverman said. "All the partners have different goals and different interests."
The wide reach of the collaborators helped build a diverse program of performances, workshops and exhibitions.
Among the program options are Evanston’s Michael Montenegro performing his new puppet play about a fictional dictator Iktu Blas at the Chopin Theatre, while Jim Henson’s daughter Heather Henson explores the rhythms and cycles of nature in Echo Trace at the Storefront Theatre. Or The Field Museum hosts an exhibition of the work of Julie Taymor, the director of Disney’s The Lion King on Broadway, while the Gene Siskel Film Center shows puppet films from the United States, Czech Republic, England, Finland and Russia at the Chicago International Puppet Film Festival.
Free puppet performances will also be offered throughout the city as part of the festival’s Street Stages initiative.
Puppeteers from throughout the U.S., Italy, France and Korea will perform in 10 portable puppet theatre booths. The booths are "an homage to the tradition of the itinerant puppeteer with a new twist, a contemporary twist," said Chicago puppeteer Blair Thomas, artistic director for Street Stages.
Once Thomas was convinced the artists could be innovative in the medium while coping with being transient, the performers were given free rein to develop their own 15 to 20 minute pieces. The result is what Thomas calls a "puppet feast." It combines artists using an array of puppetry styles performing pieces inspired by war, anger, space travel, fights against evil and the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes.
"Street Stages is unique in that it is sort of like a commando troupe of skilled puppeteers who can infiltrate the city with great ease," Thomas said.
With so many puppets invading the city, Thomas predicts, "what people traditionally think of as puppetry will be exploded."
The festival includes performances at venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center, the Field Museum, the Storefront Theatre, the Chopin Theatre and Theatre on the Lake. Street Stages will set up in the Loop, Pilsen, Bronzeville, Chinatown, Rogers Park and the lakefront. Many Puppetropolis events are free. For more information visit www.cityofchicago.org/specialevents or call 312/744-3315.