Puppets bring Dying to life

Through Sept. 23, New Street Arts in Decatur and Haverty Marionettes are presenting a primarily marionette production of William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying.

The story, which deals with the death and burial of Addie Bundren, is told through the eyes of various friends and family members of Addie as well as the deceased herself. The play, opening with Addie on her deathbed and ending with the family's return home, is structured around the happenings on the journey from the family's country home to the cemetery in Jefferson. The scenes deal largely with the stories and motivations surrounding Addie and the family members traveling with her corpse.

The presentation itself might be considered to be the puppeteering equivalent of lo-fi. Backgrounds and props are swapped out in more or less full view of the audience and little effort is made to hide the puppeteers themselves from view. Done even slightly differently, this could result in the production feeling cheap and sloppy, but the Haverty players manage to deliver a certain charm and character to the whole affair.

Rather than going out of their way to hide the puppeteers, the players merely dress in the same costumes as their marionettes. This has the benefit of allowing the actors to more directly take on the roles of their characters in situations where the scene dictates more action or a broader range of emotion than a marionette can readily provide. The lack of more overt methods of concealment gives the periodic appearance of the puppeteers a matter-of-fact, inconspicuous air. This is, in fact, just one of the many ways that the players work around the logistical limitations of their wooden avatars. As a consequence of the nature of marionettes, the actual stage proper upon which they perform is rather small, even by the standards of the relatively tiny theater in which the performance took place.

However, to maximize the use of space as well as expand their range of storytelling media, the borders of the stage regularly play an active part. Periodically, the family members will talk through the portraits of themselves arranged along the border of the stage, and occasionally other forms of media such as animation or shadow puppets are used to make full use of space and vary the performance type.

The design of the characters and sets looks like a cross between folk art and something from the mind of Dave McKean of Sandman fame. They have a haunting and haunted quality that works very well with the play's subject matter.

The acting ranges from the excellent to the merely solid with none of the actors turning in poor performances. Though a handful of characters lacked convincing Southern accents-which one wouldn't think would be much of a problem in Georgia- it's hardly a deal breaker. Michael Haverty himself turns in a particularly strong performance as two of the sons, Jewel and Vardaman. His voice work really captures the long-winded, borderline stream of consciousness style of Faulkner's writing.The production is not perfect, however. The blending of all the different media types sometimes makes it difficult to tell who's who, and while the marionettes usually get the job done, sometimes the limitations feel very distinct.This production feels experimental without being obtuse and is ably performed by all involved. It is definitely worth seeing.