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Challenging war's futility with puppetry and pathos, this nearly silent pantomime forges empathetic links between wounded soldiers, injured pit bulls, and the hierarchy of circus clowns alongside the military industrial complex. The post-war legacy for countless veterans is exposed when a lowly tramp clown, rescuing his beloved dog from a side-show fight ring, toils to heal the deep scars of violence.
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Ten Must-See Spring Season Bay Area Plays: You may think you have an aversion to pit bulls, clowns, or both, but don't let that stop you from checking this out.
BRIDE
After the "one true God" concept of monotheism utterly conquers polytheism's belief in a multitude of deities, (along with the reign of the Mother Goddess), God the Father sits alone in a decrepit paradise, battling dementia, loneliness and regret. Juggling his schizophrenic alter egos as Yahweh, Jehovah & Allah, along with the billons of prayers from his believers below, The Almighty must come up with one last good idea to save a crumbling world— and his own legacy.
Brilliant puppeteer Kevin Augustine has a God complex... (his) astonishing Bride is an utterly bizarre and spellbinding fable... Oh, and it's a heartbreaking family tale as well... jawdropping... In the church of puppet artistry, Augustine is divine.
Seeking relief from his depression, Jeff takes a workshop in shamanism. But instead of being led by a spirit guide like an eagle or bear, his bleak vision conjures a genetically altered humanoid (Eugene), systematically being driven insane for Jeff's sake. Exposing the pharmaceutical industry's dark methods of inducing animals with human diseases they hope to cure (and sell medications for), this unlikely duo spirals downward towards that most ephemeral of goals: happiness.
What part of ourselves must we brutalize to reach happiness? On an $84 vision quest, Jeff wades through his subconscious with Eugene—his wraithlike spirit guide—gradually forcing his own feelings of worthlessness and self-hatred onto the little creature. Kevin Augustine's masterful puppetry and pulsating stage presence expose the under-belly of the mental health community, where institutions ask us to surrender anything feral, delicate, and alive to “the system.”
Jilted at the alter, a groom retreats deep into his creative work. Riffing on all things Frankenstein, who needs love when you can make a patch-work being who will dance to Tchaikovsky? But what if your work just isn't that good? And what happens when your work feels your disapproval of it? Discover the price paid for a life devoted to creative pursuits that may be doomed to fail.
Kevin Augustine's "10" was generating significant buzz and turned out to be the most exciting of the shows I saw; "10" is an hour of psychologically eerie puppetry and monologue with an edgily sweet twist.
A luckless dreamer joins the circus in search of life's wonders. Following the myth structure of the Hero's Journey, Stan battles dragons of the corporate kind at the Allied Circus Inc. where greed lets nothing go untouched. A boozy ringmaster regales bygone heroism as feats of daring are relegated to yesteryear. And yet, far below the trapeze wires and rings of sawdust, there exists a secret side-show where magic might still be conjured.
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Before the movies became the conquering hero, Matty Rollins once had top billing on every Vaudeville marquee. Now in a nursing home, he can't quite tell the difference between his ventriloquist dummy Jimmy and his own estranged son. Reviving his father's act while trying to step out from its shadow, Matty Jr confronts his past with Jimmy on his lap—
now a hulking decrepit puppet wanting out of the business. A wounding showdown, long in the making gets exposed tonight, center stage.
In a masterful display of creative control, Augustine becomes the entire cast—five life-size puppets and three flesh-and-blood characters—of the two-act play he wrote and directed. Grotesque and disturbingly real, Augustine's foam rubber puppets transcend the innocent bounds of 'family entertainment' with an eerie, breathtaking profundity.
