Boneyard Prayer - 25 Shows Down, 75 to Go

Describing Boneyard’s plot belies the sheer joy of watching Redmoon's puppetry, artistry and well-oiled ensemble work come alive: Martin, a gravedigger turned alcoholic, is trapped in a real-life purgatory after the death of his infant son spurs his marital estrangement. Shifting between the heaps of graveyard dirt to the protagonists’ sparing, broken home to the sentimental A/V presentation of happier times, the show packs a hell of a lot of invention into an hour.

Maybe it’s these tricks which make the harshest undertones easier to swallow. Puppetry’s always been Redmoon’s bread-and-butter. Here, puppet likenesses shadow Martin and wife, forcing the actors to play their own role while manipulating their glassy eyed, hollow faced, wooden jointed counterparts.  For a few moments, man and machine become one. Martin has a drinking buddy, subtly soused despite the frozen facial expression; his wife has a confidante who can’t hear her. They remember simpler, if not completely happy, times and, in the face of it all, attain a sort of spiritual redemption. A “cheery” ending is rather impossible and, to the writer’s credit, they don’t go there.

Post show, Redmoon invites the audience on the set to examine the apparatuses and puppet handiwork up close. Martin's puppet, so lifelike a few moments prior, fixed his lazy gaze at me as if preparing to hibernate.  With some subtle but precise coaxing, he had wailed, moaned, and passed out rather convincingly. You almost swear the little fella did it himself. Appropriate for a show focused on what becomes possible when we believe.