"The Cabinet" at Redmoo Theater in Chicago on 3/6/10

In traditional theater, one hopes for a production in which the art design is integral to the piece and beautiful in its own right but also somewhat invisible. In puppet theater, the mechanics of the performance is visible by necessity. For one, its impossible to ignore the people manipulating the puppets. Puppeteers have tried to make themselves somewhat invisible by covering their heads in black, wearing black clothes, and black gloves. My favorite puppet theater pieces, though, have left that convention behind and made the puppeteers visible.

"The Cabinet" is such a production. The set, which is a series of drawers in a cabinet that open and close noticeably, and at time magically, is manhandled by a group of puppeteers who are spookier than any of the puppets. I love the way contemporary puppet theater asks you to be aware of the puppeteers' presence and yet suspend your disbelief. In this production, the puppeteers create the dark and somber mood of the play, making it scary even. That they so visibly control the puppets and the various drawers of the cabinet reflects the theme of the play nicely.

In the play, which is based on the 1919 film "The Cabinet of Dr. Callagari," a film I've never seen, a somnambulist (a wonderfully somber word that is fun to hear and say) goes to a mental institution hoping to overcome his condition. Instead of providing help, his doctor uses the protagonist to satisfy his own curiosity about how thoroughly one can control a somnambulist. He leads the somnambulist to the extreme of murder, killing not only various strangers but also someone who seems to embody life and love, things missing from existence as a somnambulist.

"The Cabinet" is blessed with incredible art design, evident both in the cabinet that serves as its set, beautifully expressive puppets, and the puppeteers whose dress is as disturbing of their demeanor. They wear monocles that are bend and missing glass, which somehow makes them seem incredibly sinister. One of the puppets of the doctors has him as a short rotund man with little hands. The little hands lend him an air of the grotesque and encapsulates the cleverness of the design work. The show is not a home run, though. While it's a wonderful show, its theme seems somehow less developed than its mood. It's lots of fun to sit through and something that should not be missed because of its inventiveness but could stand to have a better developed narrative.