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Cabaret of Desire
Forget “desire”: Melancholy’s the elemental force in this mesmerizing medley of puppet plays and private letters from acerbic 1920s Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. The master puppeteers of Blair Thomas and Company have mined Lorca’s oddball canon to produce a creepy cabaret united more by its bleak, chic aesthetic than any revelations on human yearning.
That’s not to say it doesn’t work. Somewhere between the eerily upbeat account of Buster Keaton’s homicidal promenades through the park and the morose musical rendering of a letter in which Lorca bemoans “the phantom within,” the audience warms to Lorca’s caustic wit, and an arresting portrait of his warped worldview takes form.
Thomas and Company prove perfect guides on this freaky foray. Their multifaceted artwork matches each eerie anecdote to a T. It spans from a nearly never-ending array of gorgeous, Gorey-esque black-and-white illustrations that tell the tale of Keaton, to a series of crude burlap-and-shoe puppets thrashed together to convey an even more eerily opaque narrative of a father abandoning his family for the mountains. The imposing Art Deco backdrop adds era-appropriate ambience with a sinister jolt of offbeat, David Lynchian flair.
A piece that surveys such moody material could easily wallow in the solemn stuff, but Thomas delves deep into his formidable talent to bring Lorca’s mishmash of gloom and humor to full-bodied life. Discontent pervades Lorca’s work, but even the sunniest audience members will find something to enjoy here. Plenty of artists dabble in despondency; they don’t all have the gifts to make watching it worthwhile.
