Puppeteer and host Anatar Marmol-Gagne was trying to start the Pinned and Sewtered Puppet Cabaret at the State House on Sunday night. The problem: fellow puppeteer Madison J. Cripps, who attempted to hijack the audienceâs interest with puppets, dance routine, and blazing harmonica. It seemed like chaos might reign for a moment, until he was dragged away by a giant red cane wielded by a silent stagehand. Marmol-Gagne smiled.
âWho invited you?â she said to Cripps, now offstage. ââOh, right. I did.â
That sly, madcap spirit infused the entire evening, as the Pinned and Sewtered Puppet Cabaret, which has regularly graced New Havenâs stages since 2017, returned after a long pandemic-related hiatus. Helmed by Marmol-Gagne with support from the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, the cabaret remained true to its name, staging a real variety show from shadow puppets to mimes to marionettes, with the occasional dose of heavy metal to grease the ears.
âWe are Nasty Disaster, and weâre here to offend your ear holes before you watch a delightful puppet show,â the lead singer of the band announced before ripping into the song ââPlay Some Fuckinâ Metal.â Over the years the lineup of the band may have changed, but its musical allegianceâââto play raging heavy metal with a keen sense of humor and funâââhas not wavered. Acting as house band for this particular cabaret, Nasty Disaster more than set the mood for what was coming, making sure the audience was primed to smile, laugh, cheer, and overall engage with whatever would happen on the stage.
âFor who in the audience is this the first time coming to a puppet slam or cabaret?â Marmol-Gagne asked. About half of those gathered raised their hands. ââFantastic!â she said. ââWelcome to a really weird evening!â
First up was Jim Napolitano of the CT-based Nappyâs Puppets, which has performed shadow puppet programs to kids and adults across the state and beyond for over 25 years. At the State House, Napolitano offered something like fractured nursery rhymes. He got the audience to sing along to off-kilter melodies while his animals followed the trajectory of kidâs stories with a few more sarcastic, at times suggestive stops along the way, rewarded with laughter of surprise and mirth.
Cripps then took the stage for the first of three routines that, in hindsight, were an exercise in escalation. This first routine featured a puppet swathed in what could have been either a furry green coat or a long green beard, who pranced around the stage while Cripps sang a guttural song that first could be taken to be the voice of the puppetâââabout being an oil drillerâââexcept for the high-pitched interruptions of the puppetâs voice, with Cripps telling it to be quiet. The not altogether settled relation between puppet and puppeteer was a taste of things to come.
Mackenzie Doss then dimmed the lights in the house; dressed all in black, she became nearly invisible as she held up a small puppet who floated out into the audience in her own private spotlight, looking for her swamp witchâââfriend, mentor, savior? Who was to say? She interrogated three audience members (including this reporter) who had to let her down (âwhy would you lie?â we were asked, once it was determined we werenât who she was looking for). Just as she was about to give up the search, a large figure appeared on the shadowy stage; the witch was found, and wordlessly took the small creature in.
Marmol-Gagne performed a small section of her larger work Sueños, which she is nearing the end of developing (pieces of it appeared at Artspace in early 2021). The piece as a whole is deeply autobiographical, wading into Marmol-Gagneâs tumultuous past, involving complex relationships with her parents against a backdrop of immigration from a steadily imploding Venezuela to finding footing in the United States. As a prelude of the larger work to come, Marmol-Gagne offering a conversation in which she got to talk to her younger self, played as a reticent, almost intransigent puppet. In just a few minutes, Marmol-Gagne sketched the scope of her complicated story while already framing it, ultimately and most intriguingly, as an argument with herself, with the chance for acceptance and happiness hanging in the balance.
Cripps returned to the stage for a routine called ââHorse Soldier.â To the song by the same name by country singer-songwriter Corb Lund, Cripps, in horse costume, symbolically enacted the way horses have been made creatures of war, fighting and dying in battle. Death piled on death, but then, as a final gesture, Cripps pulled back the kilt to reveal that the horse was endowed with a truly prodigious phallus that elicited helpless laughter from the audience as Cripps proceeded to dance in mocking provocation. The entire routine had something to say about war and masculinity and treatment of animals, and was also hilarious at the same time.
Anthony Selitto-Budney then performed a routine that was half mime, half puppetry, showing that talkative puppet and mute puppeteer did not, in fact, get along. The dynamic got more unsettling as the humor increased, as it was revealed, minute by minute, that the clown kept the puppet trapped in the box, and punished it for trying to escape. The routine built to a climactic battle, in which the clown finally trapped the puppet in the box again. The cheers and applause that came at the end were for the strength of Selitto-Budneyâs performance, but had the twist that the crowd was cheering for the puppetâs oppressor.
Nappyâs Puppets returned for another twisted tale. Cripps came back with the worldâs smallest vampire, who cheerfully drained an audience memberâs blood. And Nasty Disaster closed out the evening with a couple more songs that had the cast of the show dancing in front of the stage. The Puppet Cabaret will happen again in the spring (watch its website and social media for details); Sunday night marked a triumphant comeback for this regular New Haven event, all strings attached.