Puppet show isn't a novelty
By KAREN SHADE 12/12/2005
A scene from "Lottie in Dreamland: A Christmas Fantasy" at the Nightingale Theater. MIKE SIMONS / Tulsa World
When you're an adult telling people you're going to watch a puppet show, you likely will get some strange facial reactions.
But when the puppet show is at the Nightingale Theater, you never know what to expect.
The Midwestern Theater Troupe hasn't faltered on its reputation of providing a story and presentation unique to the entertainment flooding movie and live theaters alike.
Last weekend, the troupe unveiled John Cruncleton's "Lottie in Dreamland: A Christmas Fantasy," a shadow puppet show fashioned after the rod shadow puppets of Old World craft, but in the style of Windsor McKay's "Little Nemo in Slumber Land" comic strip from the early 1900s.
The results were colorful (even for shadows), thanks to some inventive use of video projection, which animated the "background" world of Dreamland. The results were creative, thanks to Lottie Cruncleton, director Cruncleton's 2-year-old daughter, and her dreams, the basis of some of the story in addition to "Little Nemo."
But the end presentation may have missed its intended target -- small children who want to watch cartoons. Instead, "Lottie," with its clever sense of humor and offbeat imagery, is probably more attractive to older children with a more developed artistic sensibility and to adults who can appreciate the originality and wade through the occasionally heavy dialogue.
Asking the average 5-year-old boy to sit through one minute-plus of Lottie on a sea horse hovering over coral while she talks with a school of fish might be a lot to ask.
Adults also shouldn't mind seeing a few stray heads and hands working the rods to which each puppet is fixed.
Lottie is a girl who has been invited by the Prince of Dreamland to tour the North Pole with him, where they hope to meet Santa Claus. Lottie, however, must pass through three mysterious gates before she can go. With her nemesis, Flop, hard at work to wake her before she gets to the Prince's kingdom, Lottie and her guide Kidoo encounter the strange inhabitants of Dreamland -- a world where clowns are in positions of responsibility and where squid live in the clouds.
The best part of watching Lottie are moments when the video, and sound become so integrated, you find yourself intrigued by a simple arm movement or a character's eye as it pans and scans to focus.
The last time Cruncleton and company put on a shadow puppet show, it had to share stage time with a deviled egg gone bad in October's "Old Fashioned Poison Candy," and it was one of the highlights of that show. This time, the work gets the full attention it deserves in a presentation under one hour.
In the end, "Lottie in Dreamland" might come up short in storytelling for adults or occasionally lack animation behind some of the voices for children, but it definitely is worth a look and beyond novelty.
"Lottie in Dreamland: A Christmas Fantasy" at Nightingale Theatre, 1416 E. Fourth St., 7 and 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and matinees at 1 and 2 p.m. Saturday, $5- $10, 583-8487 [As of February 2007, 633-8666]