In the meantime, get thee to a puppet show before the 2023 festival closes. Fortunately, the festival has moved to an annual schedule beginning this year, so Chicagoans won’t have to wait too long for it to come around again. Puppetry is a niche genre that even the most avid theatergoer may be unfamiliar with, and the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival presents an excellent opportunity to sample a vast range of artistry from around the world.
#Chicago puppetry manual
However, there are still many promising shows to catch in the final week, including a South African version of “Hamlet,” a Canadian deconstruction of “Macbeth,” and an adaptation of the popular Brazilian novel “Macunaíma.” (The festival finale, a production of “Frankenstein” by acclaimed Chicago-based company Manual Cinema, is now sold out.) In addition, a pop-up Puppet Hub is open daily at the Fine Arts Building, with exhibits that include puppets, photography, models and sets. Most of the festival’s productions run for only a few days, so it won’t be possible to replicate the lineup that I attended. Du Bois, who both believed in the power of photography to convey the humanity of its subjects and the breadth of the African American experience.Īudience members applaud after watching Ishmael Falke and Sandrina Lindgren perform in "Invisible Lands" at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival at the Chopin Theatre, Jan. Designed and directed by New York-based artist Theodora Skipitares, the show draws on the lectures and writings of Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. To wrap up the weekend, I saw the opening performance of “Grand Panorama” at the Harold Washington Library’s Cindy Pritzker Auditorium. Unlike its ephemeral protagonist, this melancholy production will live on after its Chicago premiere the festival plans to bring “Anywhere” on a national tour with its U.S.-based ensemble.
As they creep across a stage slick with ice and rain, Oedipus gradually melts while Antigone desperately tries to hold on to him. Here, Oedipus is a marionette made of ice - a fragile figure small enough for his loyal daughter, Antigone (Chennat), to carry in her arms.
Based on Henry Bauchau’s novel “Oedipus on the Road,” the play depicts the travels of the mythical king of Thebes when he goes into exile after discovering that he unwittingly killed his father and married his mother. The vulnerability of the human body serves as a throughline between “Invisible Lands” and “Anywhere,” a production staged by France’s Théâtre de L’Entrouvert and performed by Chicago puppeteers Mark Blashford and Ashwaty Chennat. When they come up together, gasping for air, it’s a visceral reminder of the many refugees who have been lost at sea. In one harrowing scene, they methodically fill two bowls with water and salt, then plunge their faces underwater for an agonizingly long time. Falke and Lindgren soberly bear witness to these treacherous journeys as they handle the figurines, and occasionally the performers themselves stand in for refugees.
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