If Robert Askins’ puppet-based play were a puppet itself, it would be stitched together from raw leather scraps (trauma), latex (sex), felt (childhood), muslin (death), and raw silk (a certain tough beauty), There would be googly eyes to signify humor, and big sharp teeth for violence, and the seams would be showing, and it would look much better from some angles than others.
Angry young puppet Tyrone opens the play with a bit of silly narrative straight from the id about how we used to rut and shit as we pleased until somebody invented the group for the sake of better hunting and protection of the young, and that gave rise to right and wrong (right = good for the group, wrong = good for the individual). Okay, fine, but then we get this: “The same motherfucker who invented the group kill and team virtue…invented the devil. When I have acted badly, in order that I may stay around the campfire, all I have to do is say ‘The devil made me do it.’” That’s nonsensical on the face of it: the devil in that scenario would be the invention of a guy who hated team virtue, not its creator.
It also doesn’t have much to do with the play that follows, which despite the many gag lines is a seriously painful depiction of a mother and son who are both reeling from the death of Dad, and who are working through their grief in dramatic and inappropriate fashion — largely because the church to which they belong doesn’t really know how to help them, even if Pastor Greg’s heart is (mostly) in the right place. (He probably shouldn’t be pitching woo to mom, no matter how sincerely. And it might be more believable if he mentioned Jesus on the cross now and then to a Christian trying to comprehend suffering.) The Roustabouts’ production is strong, especially in the acting department. The scene where two puppets bone is little short of astonishing in its demands — the characters having a meeting of minds and hearts even as their creations have a meeting of genitals — and Adam Daniel and Samantha Ginn carry it off with such skill that it quickly ceases to be “shocking” and becomes genuinely touching.
It’s a shame the writing can’t keep up: Tyrone’s closing speech about letting ourselves off the hook for the stuff we do contradicts not only his opening rant, but everything that’s just happened.