Alex & Olmsted get mechanical at Theatre Project
The puppeteering and filmmaking duo known as Alex & Olmsted, recipients of international recognition and a solid handful of Jim Henson Foundation grants for past work, return to Baltimore Theatre Project with their latest creation, intriguingly titled Really Quite a Lot of Mechanisms. The new piece–which blends a variety of puppets with an array of mechanical devices that would make Leonardo da Vinci sit up and take notice, along a blend of social satire, humor, and heart–runs from March 12th through 29th.
The creators, who go by Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas in what passes for real life, describe the production as “a darkly comedic puppet show set in the not-too-distant Now when nations are at war, bad things happen to good people, and dropped toast always lands butter side down.”
Into that high-stakes, low-comedy situation they inject some of the illogic of life, the tyranny of productivity quotas, and the elegant precision of mechanics. Devices like The Lever, The Pulley, and The Mighty Inclined Plane. These come together in a secret boiler room at the center of the earth, an operations center “full of machines and the semi-capable technicians who operate them.” Obviously, a situation ripe for comedic-yet-resonant disaster, yearning, and maybe even some lessons learned.
The creative team promises a tale “told with puppets and simple machines,” in which “individual workers form their tasks, troubleshoot mechanical failures, and struggle to maintain productivity quotas” takingn audiences “on a journey from accepting a world in which some must suffer for no reason to the realization that it is within our collective power to help others.”
Hear more from Alex & Olmsted in our full conversation here:
Find more about Alex & Olmsted, and their other work, online here: http://www.AlexAndOlmsted.com
And get tickets or other show information here: https://theatreproject.org/really-quite-a-lot-of-mechanisms/
