|
Building D
Magic Theatre’s final play of the 2005-2006 season revolves around the biggest holiday of the year with the West Coast premiere of Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Vogel calls her play, which uses Japanese bunraku puppets, a “love poem to San Francisco.”
Holiday tensions erupt in a family drama about the fallout from a disastrous Yuletide dinner with the judgmental matriarch and patriarch of an icy New England family. A sudden violent act shatters the lives of three young siblings, but also unites them through the trauma they share.
 Described as “lyrical and haunting,” Vogel’s play uses music, dance, poetry, and puppets to tell a sprawling story that spans decades.
By combining the actions of live actors and puppets, Vogel portrays a love strong enough to reach beyond death to heal childhood wounds.
Puppet master Basil Twist directs the Magic production as well as wrangling the puppets. Twist, a San Francisco native now residing in New York, is a third-generation puppeteer who also handled the puppets for the acclaimed East Coast world premiere of The Long Christmas Ride Home.
Brace yourself for a disturbing early Christmas at Magic Theatre. For more information, see May 13 and www.magictheatre.org.
— Claudia Willen
Photos: Bill Faulkner
|
