Based on the Jewish myth of the Golem, a large clay man created to protect the Jews of the Prague ghetto from persecution, the story is narrated by Wasserstrom in a heavy, deliberate style, loudly and ploddingly. The production's winning aspects are its colorful, toe-tapping music and the cleverness with which the smaller puppets, representing the ensemble of villagers, are integrated with their puppeteers' dance movements. Alluringly detailed knee-high marionettes manipulated by black-clad, fully visible dancers, the "villagers" traipse about the stage with loose-jointed, individualized gaits and gestures that conjure delightful characters. During a wedding dance they get placed on the shins of their dancing manipulators and are taken for a spin, while at other times they perch on their puppeteers' shoulders or soar through the air, twisting and turning upside down in reaction to the puppeteers' formally choreographed dancing.
The leading-character marionettes are larger and less active, their slender, 4-foot-tall bodies situated inside metal frames on wheels. The rolling platforms allow them to be moved speedily about the space, but more sweeping, large-scale movement is not what this production needs. Better dancers than they are puppeteers, the performers spend a tremendous amount of time fiddling around with the mechanics of moving the marionettes (crafted by Jakub Krejcí) and engage in too much uninteresting, transitional movement between the making of compelling images or actions.
We never become deeply affected by the drama of the puppet characters because our focus isn't drawn tightly enough onto them. Their tiny actions are surrounded by an expanse of open space that includes an abundance of other activity and no visual boundaries. The performers are always either dancing or rolling cagelike abstractions of churches around the stage; the energetically playing musicians are in full view; Roman Hladík's set contains no framing structures; and Federico Restrepo's lighting does little to distinguish the marionettes from their milieu.
Presented by La MaMa ETC, in association with Goh Productions, at La MaMa ETC, 66 E. Fourth St., NYC. Nov. 18–Dec. 4. Thu.–Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m. (No performance Thu., Nov. 24.) (212) 352-3101, (866) 811-4111, (212) 475-7710, www.theatermania.com, or www.lamama.org.
