Photo credit: Alice Wilson
In its 10th year, Angry Young Men’s The Night of the Living Dead Puppet Show proved that there is an inexplicable power in the weird as the scene-for-scene, all-puppet spoof of George Romero’s 1969 zombie movie haunted Next Act Theatre. The annual show opened with a puppet variety program. Scene-establishing video is projected onscreen above the stage as head-and-torso puppets move about in the likeness of all the main characters in the film. Contemporary humor and political commentary pepper a show that remains quite reverent to the vintage horror film from which it draws its inspiration.
The puppets can be as crude and simple as most people these days, but there’s something transcendent about seeing a simple action-horror story flow across the stage in felt, flying objects and cascades of blood-like red ribbon. There’s a lot of detail. Every zombie puppet has its own distinct personality. It’s amazing how much action can be delivered simply with flying objects and briskly running head-and-torso puppets. Zombies feasting on human flesh are made somehow subtly more disturbing in puppet form.
Those adorable, little puppets are slurping and gnawing on lifeless fabric, pulling long red material into their mouths. By the end of the show, there’s a pile of dismembered felt on a stage covered in streamers of red fabric. It’s strikingly vivid and bizarrely satisfying to see it all come to an end.
For more information about Angry Young Men, visit them at facebook.com/angryyoungmenltd.
