This past year I experienced strangers hugging and kissing me; one held my upper arms in their clutch with eyes of amazement and awe transfixed on mine. It was a look of disbelief or of having discovered a big secret.
Last weekend we performed our “Carp Diem” shadow puppet show for the 4th time in public. This time it was really public, in one of the louder more crowded bars of Gainesville, Durty Nelly’s, with about 180 people that night. It’s an Irish Pub (as Irish as they get in SE USA) and we were part of a lineup for a CD release party which included 3 other bands, a belly dancer and a comedy act. Our refrigerator box – haphazardly painted black, with a semi-square opening papered over in white – couldn’t have looked very promising sitting on stage in the din of the semi-drunk crowd that had recently booed the comedy act off the stage. But oh, what an accordion can do to get folks’ attention. It announces that the show is beginning, then stops.
The fishmonger-lady shadow puppet appears, and things get quiet. Her clogs, stripey ra
gged outfit, poochy tummy and sagging breasts in bright colors of red, marine blue and rusty orange show her nebbish nature brightly on the screen (see below). I begin my slow, alto, a cappella “I’ve been a fishmonger all my life... because no man will take me as his wife…” The crowd is still hushed. The dancing-man shadow puppet pulling on his beard comes out with fish and buxom silhouettes of ladies and mermaids following him around. The goddess of the sea (we use the deus ex machina quite literally) Indonesian rod puppet supplies the magic flying sturgeon that strikes him in the head and wakes him up to his love of our fish-throwing heroine.
All ends in frenetic love with good amounts of spluge and ecstasy. Big applause and cheering climaxed with our puppets. I’m a bit nervous to show myself after being safely hidden in my box with Kathy Sohar, my puppet partner. Rob tells me to bow; the audience is standing, clapping and cheering, so I semi-curtsey, bow off the stage.
I am again surprised by the intense amazed reaction and love of our little show. Their was no electronica, lights, explosions or fast fast anything, just paper, lights and lyrics. I guess we made them feel something they didn’t know they were going to feel when they first saw that ramshackle refrigerator box.
Last weekend we performed our “Carp Diem” shadow puppet show for the 4th time in public. This time it was really public, in one of the louder more crowded bars of Gainesville, Durty Nelly’s, with about 180 people that night. It’s an Irish Pub (as Irish as they get in SE USA) and we were part of a lineup for a CD release party which included 3 other bands, a belly dancer and a comedy act. Our refrigerator box – haphazardly painted black, with a semi-square opening papered over in white – couldn’t have looked very promising sitting on stage in the din of the semi-drunk crowd that had recently booed the comedy act off the stage. But oh, what an accordion can do to get folks’ attention. It announces that the show is beginning, then stops.
The fishmonger-lady shadow puppet appears, and things get quiet. Her clogs, stripey ra
gged outfit, poochy tummy and sagging breasts in bright colors of red, marine blue and rusty orange show her nebbish nature brightly on the screen (see below). I begin my slow, alto, a cappella “I’ve been a fishmonger all my life... because no man will take me as his wife…” The crowd is still hushed. The dancing-man shadow puppet pulling on his beard comes out with fish and buxom silhouettes of ladies and mermaids following him around. The goddess of the sea (we use the deus ex machina quite literally) Indonesian rod puppet supplies the magic flying sturgeon that strikes him in the head and wakes him up to his love of our fish-throwing heroine.All ends in frenetic love with good amounts of spluge and ecstasy. Big applause and cheering climaxed with our puppets. I’m a bit nervous to show myself after being safely hidden in my box with Kathy Sohar, my puppet partner. Rob tells me to bow; the audience is standing, clapping and cheering, so I semi-curtsey, bow off the stage.
I am again surprised by the intense amazed reaction and love of our little show. Their was no electronica, lights, explosions or fast fast anything, just paper, lights and lyrics. I guess we made them feel something they didn’t know they were going to feel when they first saw that ramshackle refrigerator box.
Note: our show has still not been loaded to YouTube, but it will be coming soon.
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