HELLBOUND: Persephone + Hades. |
Young Persephone’s golden face glows with a deep crimson flush. Her eyes are pressed into slits, and her engorged red lips are wide. Wearing a flare of red robes, moving to the aching voice of a muted trumpet, she is an image of certain warm feelings that I do not think I need to spell out.She is also a puppet. But she’s such a tall and unspeakably expressive puppet, it’s impossible not to relate to her fever. Ah — remember youth’s hot nights and forbidden bad boys? From the trove of Nance Parker’s Shoestring Theater comes a lyrical and visually stunning interlude, Persephone, which uses puppets and poetry to put some heat in a very old story.
“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,” reads a voice, as Persephone smolders. The words are those of consummate love poet Pablo Neruda, one of a handful of poets whose verse accompanies the puppets’ charged gestures. And the dark thing that rouses Persephone’s warmth is darker than any of our long-ago motorcycle baddies — it is the sly bull-god of the Underworld itself, Hades.
It takes two men to produce the swagger and will of the horned god with the huge, clawed mitts. To the raucous, arrogant beats of a cowbell and bass drum, Hades puffs up his chest and seductively rolls his long back. How can Persephone refuse?
And her poor mom! With her daughter off and wanton in the Underworld, earth goddess Demeter despairs. Her full green face falls, her wide, wise eyes point to the depths, and she lets the earth go fallow. All now yearn for resolution of Persephone’s raw coming-of-age impulse.
Indulge in their steamy puppet poetry at two intimate open rehearsals on March 9 and 10, on the third floor of 155 Brackett Street, at 7:30 pm.
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, Media, Poetry, Pablo Neruda, Nance Parker, Less
