Review: The Crapstall Street Boys by Trouble Puppet Theatre Company
by Hannah Bisewski
As part of Austin’s 2012 Fronterafest Trouble Puppet Theatre Company stages performs a haunting and unapologetically macabre piece at their home venue the Salvage Vanguard Theatre. The Crapstall Street Boys by TP leader Connor Hopkins tells the story of a factory employing boys, located in the heart of a town overrun by monsters. YouLad’s parents sell him to the factory in exchange for the money that will buy them a “monster masher” to protect themselves, and he starts to notice something strange happening around him. Some boys in the factory disappear; others grow bigger and bigger.
The puppets in the show are dark, nearly grotesque, but appropriately so. In keeping with that style is the technique of using a small camera inserted shakily into scenes, projecting images in eerie night-vision blur onto the projection screen above the puppet set. A brisk, deep violin piece accompanies the more frenetic action of the puppets, and when it returns at the close of the show it hints at the eerie events that will continue to haunt the small village.
Narrated by Steve Moore as a sort of demented bedtime story, The Crapstall Street Boys inevitably reminds you of the more macabre fairy tales that colored your childhood. The sheer morbidity of The Crapstall Street Boys may remind you of how dark these stories really were. Maybe this particular fairytale isn’t much of a parody after all.
All in all, the show, directed and designed by Connor Hopkins, is a fine piece of puppet theatre and an excellent showing on Trouble Puppet’s part.
Review by Cate Blouke for the Stateman's Austin360.com Seeing Things blog, January 25
Comments by Elizabeth Cobbe for the Austin Chronicle, January 26 (215 words)
Comments by Georgia Young for austin.culturemap.com, January 31 (302 words)
EXTRA
A message from Connor Hpopkins in the program leaflet:
Director's Note: If you've ever seen a Trouble Puppet show before, it will be quite clear to you what a departure from our usual form this one represents. A different sort of puppet, a different sort of story (although our traditional themes get in there: capitalism, cannibalism, corruption ... ), and a new technological tool in the live-feed camera traveling around onstage with the puppets: these all make this show a big experiment for us. So our hope is that what the show lacks in mastery and technique it makes up for in innovation, and, well, the puppets are real cute. Plus we've got Steve Moore. So how far wrong can you go, in that situation? I know, I shouldn't ask.
Anyway, thanks for coming out, and we hope you enjoy our stab at this style. Also, we're taking a poll: I originally conceived Crapstall as a kids' show. Having seen it, do you or do you not think this show could be a kids' show? I say yes; others say that would be a prosecutable act. Tell us what you think. And if it goes well, look for a more developed version sometime in the future. If it doesn't go well, let us never speak of this again
Click to view the program leaflet for The Crapstall Street Boys
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The Crapstall Street Boys
by Connor Hopkins
Trouble Puppet Theatre Company
