Cardboard Masterpieces

We love seeing the ordinary transformed into the extrordinatry.  Such is the case when sculpture artists create with non-traditional mediums like LEGO or carboard.  Their creativity inspires us to reconsider the normal as something liquid, something waiting to be altered into a new and surprising thing.

The full article featuring this full-sized cardboard car by Chris Gilmore and other amazing creations can be found here.

Puddles Pity Party perfects Brecht's Alienation Effect

M&P cofounder, Tobin Atkinson, did much of his MFA thesis work dissecting Brecht's theatrical theory better know as the "Alienation Effect".  Atkinson even penned his own play entitled The Alienation Effekt which employs most of Brecht's principles.

Last weekend the M&P crew discovered and fell in love with Puddles, a sad-yet-golden-voiced clown covering Lorde's pop hit "Royals".   The persona of Puddles immediately distances the audience from the set up of pseudo-lounge act.  We are comfortable with the reality of handsome combo musicians and lovely backup singers when this unexpected creature enters the scene.  A truer "wtf" moment never existed.  However, the second Puddles starts to sing the song (far better than Lorde ever does), he makes you listen to the song in a "new" way.  You actually hear the song differently.  

By "alienating" the audience through unexpected extremes, signage, and altering the words to pop tunes, Brecht was attempting to get his audiences to listen intellectually to the song rather than emotionally.  Puddles, whether he knows it or not, nails what Brecht was always striving to achieve:  reality disrupted by a giant in a clown outfit, a suitcase with a web address, and pop song (where you can actually understand the damn words!), and a voice that could melt butter.  

Viva La Puddles!

Folger's Fascinating Forge Request

Washington, DC's Folger Library is mounting Romeo and Juliet this fall (2013).  The director and designers wanted weapons that "fit" the production.  So rather than pull rapiers, etc, from stock, they commissioned Baltimore Knife and Sword to design and build all new functioning weaponry for what sounds like one hell of an R&J.

The link to the Washington Post article is here.  But watch the post-tv video for the "real" story (you might have to register with post-tv to see, but worth it).

Meat & Potato in American Theatre Magazine



We were flipping lazily through the October 2013 issue of American Theatre Magazine the other day and discovered an article by Salt Lake City theatre critic Barbara M. Bannon detailing all of the new plays presented annually in our home town. 

Late in the article Barbara mentions Meat & Potato cofounders Tobin Atkinson and Marynell Hinton and their collaborative work on The Odyssey and Aliens: The Puppet Musical.

It's an amazing feeling to be shocked and humbled all at once.

Breathing New Life into Old Stories

Marynell recently saw an article about Mark Morris directing Britten's exceedingly dated Curlew River for Tanglewood. At one point when looking over the original stage directions that accompanied the libretto, Mr. Morris said:

 “It’s so dated, it’s so corny, it’s so bad...I just said, wait a minute, first of all, everybody tear that out of your scores." He then spent rehearsals getting dancers to "talk and communicate" to each other rather than perform. He encouraged the singers to converse rather than orate.

And it sounds as though Mr. Morris has adopted a theatrical style that we have already started to embrace for our 2014 premier of Beowulf:

 "There are just a few props and no monks’ robes, masks or makeup. No attempt is made to disguise the fact that Mr. Bell is a young man playing an elderly woman."

But that's what the M and P mission has always been: to tell compelling stories in the most powerful way possible. We've done it with Dickens, and Poe, and Verne, and the Sci-Fi masterpiece Aliens.  Why try to invent a compelling story when 5 million of them have already been written?  Find a good story that illustrates a timeless human condition and tell it a way that makes even the X-Box generation lean forward wanting to know what happens next.

Curlew River is a companion piece to Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

Wrecking Orchestra Tron Dance

Just found this on youtube. If meat & potato had the money, this is the kind of stuff we'd want to do: TRON, DANCE CRAZE IN THE MAIN FRAME

The Continuing Appeal of THE ODYSSEY

Marynell found this incredible story in the New York Times about a group of puppeteers preparing to mount their newest event "Odysseus at Hell Gate". The traveling audience are the war weary Greeks walking through streets lined with creatures inspired by Homer's classic. The puppet makers are Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles.

Here's the link to the article.