upcoming

Hands Up!

What:

Two actors and thirty-odd puppets take the stage in HANDS UP!, a medley of nine live theatrical animations by The Independent Eye, playing October 22 and 23 at 8 PM.

HANDS UP! Is a farcical meditation on mortality. created by Conrad Bishop & Elizabeth Fuller.  It includes nine stories of struggle, doom and life journeys.  An earlier version was described by American Theatre Magazine as “a series of highly premeditated acts of imagination and intelligence.”

Years ago, a New York reviewer described one of Bishop & Fuller’s theatrical animations as “like opening the door to what was supposed to be a broom closet only to discover a brilliantly lit, well-stocked art gallery.”  This time the closet is full of dogs, goddesses, mice, giant weeds, and even Mr. Punch himself.

The show features thirty-odd characters presented by Bishop & Fuller, ranging from hand puppets and jointed dolls to near-lifesize creatures in the style familiar to those who saw The Independent Eye locally in THE TEMPEST or THE DESCENT OF INANNA. 

Besides their full-length dramas, Bishop and Fuller have created hundreds of mini-plays over their forty-year professional life.  This evening skitters from the low comedy of critters fighting over a dog dish to the surreal coming-of-age journey of a teenage virgin who meets the goddess Kali at the senior prom.

Punch and Judy show up, struggling with the puppeteer’s demand to be “nice,” lest their traditional mayhem foment terrorist violence.  The original Howdy Doody haunts the lawyer who has been forced by a court settlement to murder the marionette — a true story.  Two elders, seeing their younger selves about to end their love affair, offer earnest advice to their own past selves. A weed-maddened gardener attacks an intruder that just won’t stop growing, but has to cope with the fact that it loves him anyway.  And an unwitting housewife opens the door to the two clown messengers of “Doom.”

Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller, its creators and performers, are forty-year veterans of The Independent Eye’s national touring, presenting more than 2,500 performances in 35 states.  Their plays have been presented Off-Broadway and by major regional theatres, and they were twice recipients of writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Their public radio series “Hitchhiking off the Map” was heard for four years throughout San Francisco and the North Bay.

HANDS UP! is funded by the California Ensemble Touring Initiative, a joint project of the Network of Ensemble Theatres and FoolsFURY. 
It is recommended for teens and adults.  The show plays October 22 and 23 at 8 PM. 
 
Tickets are $15 general & $12 seniors and students and are available by calling 668-5663 x5 or online at www.dellarte.com.

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