Accused of Cruelty to Cardboard
Alexis SoloskiDecember 3, 2014: No animals are harmed in the making of Jeff Achtem’s Swamp Juice. But plenty of cardboard, plastic foam and pipe cleaners come to a bad end. Mr. Achtem’s mostly wordless, largely wondrous and fairly repulsive puppet play centers on a despicable dude who cruises the bayou torturing various snails, snakes and birds until he arrives at the other end of the food chain. It’s a nasty story, even if Mr. Achtem does furnish it with a mostly happy ending. A lot of the comedy depends on the questionable hilarities of flatulence and regurgitation. But there’s real virtuosity in the telling. Mr. Achtem is a bashful comedian with a seriously demented stage persona. He appears in shirt, tie, waistcoat and bedraggled trousers. Mutton chops frame his face, and the sparse hair on his head sticks up in disorderly tufts. Thick goggles mask his eyes. He barely speaks throughout the hourlong performance. Instead, he chirps, chitters, croons, croaks, grunts, groans and growls. At a fairly frantic clip, he dashes back and forth across the Barrow Street Theater stage, snatching up his puppets. Made from found and scavenged materials, these are strange assemblages of paper, foil and creepy plastic tentacles.
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