If John Waters did shadow puppetry… with a sentimental wink. Animal Cruelty is a noir adventure told in the lamentably little-used medium of shadow-puppetry. Daring the audience to call it a spoof, it tells the harrowing story of one Chicken Jenny: switchboard operator, salt-of-the-earth southern girl, ousted wife, and, well, chicken, as she flees first her marriage, then the police, then a mysterious murderer.
This beautifully directed production has all the trappings of a film noir. Despite having a relentless, breathlessly funny script by Scot Augustson, it is loaded with suspense and mysterious personages whose pasts unfold into disturbing dimensions. Each has a story to tell, and each story is darkly compelling. The narrative has that smokey, dream-like quality so essential to the noir style, dancing on the underbelly of the American world with fictional local mythos. The form allows for elegant exposition and a fast-paced story arc in which all ends well, except for all the stuff that doesn’t. Plus, there’s tons of sex, and more metaphorical hyberboles than a prize pig could eat on Mardi Gras.
The puppetry takes place center-stage in a large and ornately-painted, old-style puppet theater (belonging to the fictional Sgt. Rigsby, aka author Augustson), and while the puppetry (performed by Augustson himself, along with Ben Laurance) is not particularly impressive, it is visually clear and hilarious to watch. What is impressive is the precision with which the puppet action synchronizes with the voices of the actors, who sit stage-left in full-light and fifties-era costume, voicing the characters and making the Foley sounds as if for a live radio show.
It’s a good thing these actors are brought into full-view, because all four of them are scintillating, and watching them can at times be even more joyful than watching the puppets. Stephen Hando, Shannon Kipp, Stacey Plum, and Roy Stanton bring life and light to the stage that transcends the puppet-show. Hando, lending his voice to Chicken Jenny, is a fireball of passion. Each actor, with exquisite coherence, provides the voice for at least four characters, and each voice carries with it the weight of a full history and complete personality. For those who, like me, have walked out of plays because of ill-produced accents and dialects, Animal Cruelty is a linguistic Eden spanning from aristocratic London to inner city New York to the deep American south.
Musical numbers pepper the show sporadically, performed primarily by Shawnmarie Stanton and Kathie Whitehall on stage right, and while they are not particularly memorable, they make effective punctuation, book-ending the show in a pleasing, funny manner, and creating continuity.
Visually, Animal Cruelty is very effective. The set is divided nicely into three segments: the musicians, the puppet theater, and the actors. Patti West’s lighting serves this organization well, and the lighting and other tech considerations for the shadow puppetry are likely very complex, but come off as easy. It’s a smooth and simple piece of theater that allows the audience to take in the meat of the story without distraction.
Animal Cruelty uses an outwardly simple medium to create something complex and impressive. The most venerable feat accomplished, here, is that rare and delightful achievement of parodying a tradition with true reverence. There is a real story here, in which characters feel both betrayal and real friendship. This is not a show whose foundation is mockery. Augustson clearly wrote this story in part out of a real love for noir, which, by the end, the audience shares as well.
Animal Cruelty, by Scot Augustson. Printer’s Devil Theater at Theatre off Jackson (TOJ), 409 7th Ave South in Seattle’s International District. October 17-November 9, Thursday-Saturday at 8pm. Tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/466347 or call 206-860-7163