November 11-17, 2004

theater

Strings, Detached

by Toby Zinman

Rarely are a script and a theater company so seemingly perfectly suited to each other. Mum Puppettheatre presents The Puppetmaster Of Lodz under the direction of Robert Smythe, the puppetmaster of Philadelphia. Written by Gilles Segal, it's a play about a Polish Holocaust survivor hiding in an attic for years after WWII ends who recreates his lost world with puppets. But, as is the way with so many marriages, what ought to work perfectly turns out to be a flop.

The puppeteer's landlady (Alana J. Gerlach) has tried everything to persuade Mr. Finkelbaum that the war is over, that it's safe to come out. But her tenant is unwilling to believe her, and persists in his conversations with his puppets. His character should be sympathetic, if bizarre; we should feel his paranoia is a function of deep damage, but the emotion here comes from the button-pushing of the Holocaust, not what's on stage.

The problems with the production begin before anybody speaks. The set, which suggests nothing of the claustrophobia of an attic, features a gilded sculpture atop a puppet stage. Emblazoned on that sculpture are three words: "Work Free Might." This is apparently a mistranslation of the famous and grotesquely ironic motto above the gate of Auschwitz: ARBEIT MACHT FREI, which means "Work brings freedom."

Then there is the problem of casting. Tobias Segal, who has worked steadily locally lately, is far too young for the role. Even with a beard, he looks about 20. If he's been in hiding for five years, and if he was in a concentration camp (oddly, not Auschwitz) for years before that, he must have been no more than 12 when he married his beloved Ruchele. Not to mention that the friend with whom he escaped from the concentration camp (the excellent Arnold Kendall) looks old enough to be his grandfather. Not to mention that Segal uses a variety of accents, each more inconsistent than the next.

And finally, it is hard not to mention that the puppetmaster has no facility with puppets: Segal's manipulation of the puppets is no more subtle than his own acting. The only puppet scene that isn't reduced to tedious Punch-and-Judy is when the puppets play out the truth of Finkelbaum's experience in the camp.This moving scene is compromised by a long tour by candlelight of many other puppets in a tiny space; the real tension comes from worrying that they will catch on fire.

The show lacks the crucial and wonderful illusion fundamental to a serious, adult puppet show—that these little creations are people, an illusion even more important when the script blatantly explains that we are all God's puppets.

THE PUPPETMASTER OF LODZ Through Nov. 20, Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St., 215-925-7686