Prnch/Trnk - Mon. and Tues. Aug. 20-21 and 27-28

[Blue Hair Sar]

Wellfleet Harbor Actor's Theatre's WHATbar Presents...

Prnch/Trnk
Monday and Tuesday, August 20th - 21st, 27th - 28th, 8pm
WHAT - Wellfleet, MA



Creator and Puppeteer: Ellen Anthony
Lighting Designer and Puppeteer: Sarah Tundermann
Music Composed and Played by: Richard Johnson

This show is going to be stunning. I promise an amazing evening, and it would mean the world to me to have friends there to support it. Please let me know ASAP if you are interested - we are expecting to sell out.

[Dani fo fani]

oh! perhaps perhaps? if anybody in the valley wanted to go down with me i'd be in - just a matter of transport . . .

sounds cool sar!

[tarapeze]

polka dots! i LEAVE boston this friday, go to pennsylvania, and the next weekend i'm moving back to school. grrrr. it looks amazing though. puppets!

[Blue Hair Sar]

The show was reviewed:


‘Prnch/Trnk’ is best of the season
By Rebecca M. Alvin
GateHouse News Service
Thu Aug 23, 2007, 11:51 AM EDT

Orleans - Behind the overwhelming shadow of WHAT’s new Julie Harris Stage, there is still the old theater, the Harbor Stage, where something unique and creatively inspiring is going on. It’s not theater in the common sense. It isn’t exactly a “puppet show,” though it involves puppets. It is a mesmerizing performance called “Prnch/Trnk” conceived and performed by Ellen Anthony with music by Richard Johnson. As the lights go down in this little theater, the stage appears set with lots of interesting looking junk against a black backdrop. In the corner, Johnson sits surrounded by several musical instruments, some familiar, some unusual. He has an accordion in his lap, on which he begins to play an eerie song that has an old world flavor, a sad, yet sweet melody. A black-cloaked figure comes onto the stage wearing a white mask. The figure examines each of the many handmade items on the stage, watching with surprise as each comes alive before her.

There is not much to compare this to. It is at once spooky and whimsical, reminiscent of Czech surrealist animator Jan Svankmajer’s films, in which all sorts of inanimate objects acquire personalities via animated motion. Although all of this might sound a bit obscure and avant-garde, I assure you it is not dry or dull. In fact, “Prnch/Trnk” is even appropriate for well-behaved children (over 8 years old, probably) who will find the show almost as fascinating as their parents will. It will also likely open the creative channels in their brains to a world of possibilities outside televised cartoons and conquest-focused video games.

This is a play, not so much in the traditional sense of something with a plot or theatrical form familiar to us, but in the sense that it is a performance in which the drama, the humor and the significance of it comes to us through play. For the whole show, we watch the cloaked figure play with the various items on the stage. These items are at first only vague shapes, not modeled on any specific living creature, but as they become animated, they appear to be little human beings or snakes or other living things. This is accomplished by the wonderful skill of Ms. Anthony and her puppeteers Sarah Tundermann and McNeely Myers. Lighting design by Tundermann is an excellent accompaniment, creating expressive shadows that are instrumental to the
overall experience. Johnson’s music has a major role as well. The music is at times just that, a musical accompaniment, but more often than not, it provides another layer of expression to the puppets and their interactions on stage. Johnson created several of the instruments used in the performance. There is nowhere else you are going to hear the unique tone of the bass connecto or the tension violator. This is not a show to sit back, relax and be passively entertained by. This one requires your input. What does it mean? What is it about? There are no definitive answers here – it is what you make of it. But there is no doubt in my mind that this is clearly the most imaginative, inspired performance of WHAT’s entire season, and maybe even the best show on the Cape this entire summer. With only two shows left, I urge you to get out and see this. A word of caution – not all seats are equal for this show. Tickets are general admission and if
you don’t get there early enough to sit close, some of the finer details of the puppets will be difficult to appreciate, even in the tiny Harbor Stage theater.

If you go...
What: “Prnch/Trnk” by Ellen Anthony
Where: WHAT Harbor Stage, 1 Kendrick Ave., Wellfleet
When: Aug. 27 and 28, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $23, Call 508-349-WHAT or online www.what.org