The last time Bread & Puppet veteran Paul Zaloom - played Boston was a limited run without much fanfare at the ART, prior to his fame as the mad scientist on "Beakman's World". Zaloom is known to many in this area as the longtime ringmaster at the Domestic Resurrection Circus for many summers in Glover VT and less for his edgy off-Broadway shows. But many of the faithful turned out for the East Coast premiere of "Velvetville" on its one night stand in the old movie theatre turned concert hall in Davis Square, two stops up the Red Line from Harvard Square. His two part presentation was vintage Zaloomery.
His shorter opening piece was a rather traditional Punch & Judy show in a tall booth painted to suggest an apartment building. Punch in his usual garb has a new partner, Jimmy - a domestic partner - thanks to Vermont's new liberality. Of course, the pair has adopted a child, which predictably goes out the window when Punch becomes annoyed. The Lawman who shows up is an L.A. cop, ready to beat on the old reprobate who of course turns the tables. He's had more practice than even the L.A. police. The Hangman, conveniently pointy-headed shows up to execute old Punch for his crimes and is tricked into his own demise, as he has been for at least 200 years. Death is only a bit trickier to beat down, and the last visitation, from the Devil - wearing a mitre over his horns - requires a caveman's club before Old Scratch is down for good. Any Victorian street urchin would have recognized the show, though most of the aging hippie audience was getting their first taste of this scenario. Zaloom has done various Punch show's in the past as sideshows at Bread & Puppet events, most famously, "Sen. Punch's Opinions"
"Velvetville", Zaloom's latest excursion into the wonderful world of object puppetry, using artifacts gather from secondhand shops and other sources of trash, is structured as a nightmare. The puppeteer represents himself - and eventually the rest of us - as black rubber rats - wandering through an increasingly surreal urban landscape, starting on the West Coast where the one bus in Los Angeles is represented by a gas mask. The final destination is the Freshkylls landfill on Staten Island, with a side trip to Vermont, which is being turned into a theme park, and an epilogue at the 2005 Presidential Inauguration, where the next president is a small bushy plastic Xmas tree with crossed eyes and the Veep is invisible. A meteor destroys Washington just in time - for the puppeteer to wake up and take his bow. During the show, he doesn't play the trombone, though he threatens to.
The title of the show, "Velvetville", refers to a series of large garish paintings on black velour hung to one side surrounded by a string of lights, which serve to move the nightmare along. Most of the action using props from plastic toys to broken household appliances is presented on a table downstage center. The performer's energy level never slacks as he recounts his dream, which he informs us will take 9 hours - and the doors are locked. At that point of course a door slams at the back of the house. There's nothing subtle about this approach to theatre, though its political message is not that simple. For the moral, harking back to the antique hand puppet show which started the evening, is that everyone is responsible for their own actions, whatever they choose to do. The pollution everyone complains about is probably their own.
Zaloom hasn't appeared off-Broadway in several years, spending more time on the West Coast. He's been seen at Puppet Terror in LA - actually San Pedro, but something should show up in the City quite soon. Consider this a warning. Puppeteers are coming to a theater near you. Preston Foerder just did a weekend presenting his tabletop show based on "Slovenly Peter" at the Puppet Showplace here, and Adam Gertsakov, known for his solo rendition of "Oedipus Rex" using Barbie dolls is playing his Acme Miniature Flea Circus for a weekend at the same location. And the final PuppetSLAM/Boston Cabaret of the season will follow shortly thereafter.