Puppet Up! Uncensored
By MFV - Tuesday December 16th 2008 |
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They most certainly puppet up, sometimes they puppet out, sometimes they pup themselves into hoopy, poopy pieces of no-fun. It’s a hybridization of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Muppet Show, and once the shock wears off, it goes to hell but it comes back.
Not discounting the probable fiddly-bits of improv theater, anything, and I mean anything, can come from a drunken crowd of grown-up REM fans. Once host and creative director Patrick Bristow welcomes us, it’s time to get things started on the most sensational inspirational celebrational Puppetupational Puppet Up. Eight of Henson Alternative’s (HA!) master manipulators hold the funny-looking little buggers above their heads and commence zig-zagging before a camera mounted at the headline. Simultaneously, the “Muppet Show Effect” projects onto four screens throughout the theater. My eyes roam between the magic and the magicians, preferring the magic.
So here’s the thinking. Mr. Bristow gives the audience a scenario to fill in like a Madlib. “I need a person doing something.” A dentist! A guy licking his balls! A genie sitting in a bathtub! “Okay, and now I need a place where this happens.” Kuwait! Denny’s! My dick! “So, are you ready to watch a lost episode of 21 Jump Street featuring a guy licking his balls that takes place on my dick?” Yeah! Wooo! “Okay, Puppet Up!” And so begins an advance, stage-left, upon a massive, rectangular armoire filled with beautiful creatures. Sometimes they go two at a time, sometimes all eight of them suit up, or “Puppet Up”, for their improv routine. Once the lights dim, the troupe puppet-trates.
Sometimes they really do puppet up. The first routine is funny and adult-oriented. An old grumpy Muppet Show critic looking dude and a weasel with unblinking bug eyes show slides of their vacation without foreknowledge of the images. “This is where we stayed.” Slide. It’s a toothbrush. The puppets stare at us. The weasle says, “That’s why I stopped blinking.” Okay, you had to be there. Coming back from the intermission, the troupe surprises us with a James Bond film opening sequence. The audience calls for “The Spy Inside Me” and I shout out “Dr. Spike” as a villain. Not only do they produce a spike to ensorcel with slow-mo and suggestive marionette élan, playing the perspective gags for everything they can, and riffing on the name “Dr. Spike” with obligatory muppet felacio, but somehow they manage to weave in the name of Dr. Spike: What’s not to like/when you’re dealing with Dr. Spike.
As for the hoopy poopy stuff, the first act derails with a skit about aliens running an orthodontist’s office, doing the ol’ Sesame Street bit where each says one word until they form a sentence. For no fucking reason, one puppeteer gets sick of that, switches from alien to human, starts talking in complete sentences, and ruins it. It was like a kind of torture to watch that! They may work without nets, or at least without strings, but that doesn’t mean they work without audience. If you abruptly jump from kooky alien talk to English, at least suffer from turrets and make liberal use of the F word.
But enough with the kooky talk. Host Patrick Bristow may not know this, but he isn’t very likable. His stage persona is this thinly-veiled schoolmarm of an emcee who hovers above the shouts and suggestions, telling the audience with a hint of deprecation that they’ve had enough with the cheese jokes, or they’ve done George Bush to death. If your open yourself up to the floor, and the fat guy with the mustache shouts out “Balls of Cheese!”, and you say, “No, we get a lot of cheese jokes and we’re sick to death of doing them,” what do you think just happened to your credibility? I quote from the flyer, “Open your mind, release your inhibitions, and feel free to shout out the first ridiculous thing that pops into your head”. The man just did that and now he wants “Balls of Cheese”. That’s why he paid his hard-earned money to see Puppet Up! Nobody wants to be told they’re ordinary or that you’re sick to death of their humor. Fuck Bristow. I ought to puppet my foot up his smarmy ass for acting like “Dr. Spike” was something he would not have deigned to touch, not even gloved.
Maybe the future hosts of Puppet Up should be celebrity guest stars, a homage to “The Muppet Show”. Now that’s the kooky talking!
Puppet Up! Uncensored
Next shows:
Sat, January 10, 2009
Sat, February 28, 2009
I HIGHLY recommend that people go to see PUPPET UP! for themselves and not necessarily go by this review…
I attended the performance about which the review was written and disagree with MANY of the criticisms here. I noticed people of all ages there…20′s on up to 60′s…so not really the “drunken crowd of grown-up REM fans,” that was whined about.
MFV (gotta love a writer who uses their name), you mentioned Sesame Street once, and The Muppets or a variation thereof no less than six times. Yes, it’s the Henson puppeteers, but other than that, you needed to open your mind a bit more and get out of your “I’m sitting in front of my TV when I’m five” head. The show never mentions the Muppets, but you couldn’t seem to lay off of them.
The Orthodontist Office – True, not the strongest sketch, but anytime you see an improv show, whether it’s in some basement theatre or at The Groundlings, there will ALWAYS be sketches that go wrong or go nowhere. Welcome to Improv, it’s the risk people take in performing it, AND it’s the risk the audience takes in watching it. Don’t plan on seeing perfection when you attend an improvised show. One or two so-so sketches out of MANY… pretty good odds if you ask me.
You wrote, “If you abruptly jump from kooky alien talk to English, at least suffer from turrets and make liberal use of the F word.” Again, a good point that could have been made by saying that you felt like the audience was taken out of the scene when that happened. However, I can’t think of a BIGGER improv cop-out than “liberal use of the F word”…or to make an excuse that a character has “turrets.” Try taking some improv classes some time and see how well you do.
As for your hateful little rant about Host Patrick Bristow, you wrote it as though you were an angry tween complaining to your diary. Is that what this blog is for you? I’m sorry, I thought it was for the public.
Again, I was AT this performance, and Bristow HAPPILY took your suggestion for DR. SPIKE…I remember, he even said what a great name that was for a villain. This sketch in the show (an improvised song…which is SO difficult) was met with HUGE laughs and applause!
In regards to Bristow skipping the “cheese” and “President Bush” suggestions, he was never rude or made fun of people, he simply said, “We’ve had those suggestions a lot lately. How about something else.” He was trying to give the audience (AND the improvisers) something FRESH.
“Fuck Bristow”??? Really?! This is your review? Huh. Talk with people in the entertainment industry and I have a feeling that they would paint a VERY different picture of Bristow than you carelessly banged out on your keyboard. He’s had a tremendous career in a town that is NOT kind, and to have that kind of longevity and popularity, says LOADS about a performer’s talent, as well as their graciousness…of which it seems, MFV, you have NONE.
Last thing…you said, “They may work without nets, or at least without strings, but that doesn’t mean they work without audience.” You’re right. They DO work without nets and strings, and they INCLUDE the audience from the moment this brilliant show begins. And what’s more…it’s a different brilliant show every time. How many shows can say that?
Now, I quote from the flyer, “Open your mind, release your inhibitions, and feel free to shout out the first ridiculous thing that pops into your head”. Unless you are writing a well thought out reveiw, speaking about the good and bad points of a show. As for angry pissing and moaning…keep it to your personal blog, and grow up, please.
I am sorry the nature of my opinion disagreed with you. As for your review of my review, you should take your own advice.
Still not using your name I see. And, as I said, if you are writing a review…it is just that…a REVIEW. A review is to point out the good and bad points of a show. A review is NOT to cuss out someone you don’t even know. A review is NOT “the nature of your opinion”… Opinions are what you write to an editor of a local paper. Try reading real critics reviews and you will see what I mean.
Lighten up Patrick, he didn’t mean it.
I’m not Patrick…I’m using my real name. Vanessa
Yeah, anyone worth a damn publishes under their real name.