The Secret Death of Puppets (or) How Do Puppets Die (or) Puppets Die in Secret

There is something strange about puppets. Not alive, not dead, they've always struck me as a little too eerie for children's entertainment. In "The Secret Death of Puppets (or) How Do Puppet Die (or) Puppets Die in Secret," performance artist Sybil Kempson takes this dual nature to a deeper, elemental place. In three separate playlets, mirroring the tripartite title, she takes us on an exploration of the grotesque and the uncanny that defies logic yet stirs a primitive impulse in us.

Kempson, a playwright and performer whose past work has included "Crime or Emergency" and "Potatoes of August," has repeatedly engaged with themes of the primordial and the supernatural. "The Secret Death of Puppets," like "Potatoes" before it, was inspired by Victoria Nelson's book "The Secret Life of Puppets," which attempts to challenge our dependence on rationality and explore other, deeper ways of knowing.

Kempson's three disconnected playlets have a deep-seated sense of unease and chthonic ritual running through them. All rely heavily on prerecorded voiceovers, which add a disembodied and ghostly quality to the proceedings. The first and perhaps most effective one features three characters whose presence is indicated only through the positions of three chairs. Or are the chairs themselves the characters? Kempson's interest in the inanimate and the ambiguous relationship between what is living and what is dead leaves the question open. The chairs take on a human quality, subtly adjusted and repositioned in accordance with their lines by a puppeteer who stands by, like a dutiful aide, attentive but unassuming in an Edward Gorey–inspired ensemble (the costumes are also by Kempson). The piece that unfolds is a pleasingly spine-tingling experience: half "Rosemary's Baby" and half theater of the absurd.

The other two parts of the evening continue to play with the ideas of the supernatural and otherworldly communication, but with the introduction of more-traditional puppets to the mix. Designed by Amanda Villalobos, the puppets are beautifully evocative: a raven, that classic harbinger of supernatural forces, is delicate and striking in its careful construction, while the primitive quirkiness of two hand puppets are both familiar and strange. These two final sections also incorporate several human actors, but their words often continue to be dubbed in by voiceovers, challenging strict divisions of animate and inanimate. They wander the labyrinthine passageways of the space, ducking behind the cluttered corners and autumnal foliage of Eric Berninghausen's eerie set.

In her program note, Kempson quips that Nelson is "no easy read," and neither is "The Secret Death of Puppets." Attempts to explain it are futile. At times, the elements Kempson introduces are so disparate that they almost seem random: Why, for example, do the chairs sometimes speak French, with accompanying subtitles in an old Kodak carousel slideshow? It seems inexplicable, but somehow the combination produces an otherness that is just right. It's an experience that forces us to stop thinking and start feeling. And that is the really scary part.
 
Presented by and at Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St., NYC. Nov. 3–19. Thu.–Sat., 7:30 p.m. (212) 219-0736 or www.dixonplace.org.