'Puppets' skillfully pulled off
By KAREN SHADE, 8/14/2006
Andrew Agee and Erin Good work puppets during the performance of "Puppets Gone Wild" Friday night in the Norman Theatre at the Performing Arts Center in Tulsa. MICHAEL WYKE / Tulsa World
The colorful misfits are a bit off-color
I've been asked more than once why I would review a puppet show.
While there's no question that "Puppets Gone Wild 3D," which played for two shows at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center on Friday night, is much inspired by the heyday of Punch and Judy in a little box theater on the green, I found a better answer sitting in the nearly full Charles E. Norman Theatre on the top row watching Andrew Agee with his randy cast of colorful misfits.
Your attention may be on the feather-topped, green creature on Agee's arm, but only because Agee (who is visible through almost the entire show) wants you to watch it. If he lacked passion for his craft, even a "topless" puppet in cat-eye rimmed glasses lip-syncing to the Lords of Acid might be just an amusement to some, anarchy to others.
But animating the inanimate in front of people takes more than a gravely voice and a willingness to flirt with carpal tunnel syndrome. Agee packs personality into his characters, making them come alive with attitude and spontaneity in a show that, while it may not be solid as a whole, is best taken piece-by-piece.
"Puppets" takes its audience through club and hip-hop hits such as Rihanna's "Unfaithful" and "Beep" from the Pussycat Dolls. Agee and human cast mates Erin Good and Jennifer DuBois can't help but dance as their plush counterparts strut in unison.
Some parts of the show are just musical and dance performances. Others are skits and songs starring puppet characters such as the narcissistic Formico and an angel-faced (well, mostly) pack of foul-mouthed, politically incorrect kids with names to match.
But whether Agee and Co. are grooving or teasing each other and the audience, "Puppets" almost always borders on the off-color and low-brow. More than once, I asked myself, "Is that what I think it is?" The answer was always, "Uh, yeah."
Agee parodies "Brokeback Mountain," "Little Shop of Horrors" and even "Fraggle Rock." There's no sexual innuendo here -- everything is spoken plainly.
Does that make "Puppets" obscene or vulgar? That depends on your tolerance for uncensored song lyrics and language, musical anatomical puppetry and rampant general naughtiness. However, the useful thing to keep in mind is that there is no actual nudity, only stuffed toys with extra padding. Agee said it himself -- there are some things you do not do.
Agee's real gift is for putting himself into a character, even without a puppet. He is an engaging-enough host, charming the audience with improv style jokes opening into his first feat of puppetry. More of that interaction with the audience or an emcee might have better linked the various skits together. Instead of a single program, "Puppets" mostly felt like a series of smaller disconnected skits, however entertaining they were individually.
If you've seen the posters around town, "Puppets Gone Wild 3D" is raunchy by it's own labeling. I wouldn't disagree. But the show doesn't need red and blue cardboard specs to reveal that fact. If you're looking to scrutinize the show's artistic merit, save it for the final piece, which is alternately funny, twisted and strange.
Admire the craftsmanship of the puppets (Agee made them all in his shop) and applaud his artist's gumption and ability to pull breath out of Muppet fleece. But the real prize is how easy the laughs come while watching a ball of fabric say and do things you could never bring yourself to do.
"Puppets Gone Wild 3D" comes at the close of SummerStage 2006, but the show will move to the Nightingale Theater, 1416 E. Fourth St., from Sept. 21-29.
For information on the run, call 583-8487 [As of February 2007, 633-8666].