The Dream and the Lie~ (Forest Theater 2003) was 4 short plays woven together around the themes of humanity, inhumanity, attraction, repulsion, war and peace as well as the shell we must create around us to continue living everyday with horrible news.

Atrocities are committed, in part, by the complacency of communities across the globe. Fear and apathy are closely related in their immobilizing capacity. These thoughts and many others went into this performance.

"The Moth and Moon" featured stilt walking/dancing moths who at first are drawn to the dazzling light of the moon. Soon a new light appears in the form of a great firey woman, roughly representing humanities obsession with ever quicker and more convenient  technology, which the "moths" become attracted to. When they get too close... the fire being turns round to reveal a giant death mask, inspired by Dia de los Muertos masks from Central America, that, along with little death minions, commence a wild dance of chaos. 

The 2nd piece featured a giant "bon raku"style man with 5 puppeteers moving in sync as he walked, sat, drank coffee, and read the newspaper. Throughout, he is slowly tormented by the news coming from the paper, the radio, the phone, and ultimately his own mind. Also the minion-instigator-death thingies are orchestrating much of the mayhem. In the end the mans heart crawls out of his chest with hobo-sack in hand and starts heading for the hills, where he is met by a cat and a bird who like to waltz.

"Guernica" essentially animated the painting of the same name by Pablo Piccasso. Bringing the characters to life with cardboard, the painting is re-created in scale as accurately as we could manage. This was our way of speaking about the war in Iraq. By using the historical context of Piccasso's painting, which depicts the horrors of war. We drew parallels between then and now. The cruel irony was the very recent covering of the painting at the UN preceding Colin Powells' speech condemming Iraq to invasion. The covering seemed to us to reek of censorship, dishonesty, and injustice none of which are "American" values, supposedly. So, in keeping with our "leaders" examples, we designed a big blue curtain to cover the assembled puppets and backdrop.

"The Gift" was the shadow puppet segment of the show and it appeared at the center of the great blue curtain.(no small feat for us)
It was about a orphaned girl who was lost and alone in the world. Her tears touch the earth in a sacred place, a tree grows and a fruit is produced. The girl is told by a magical bird of the fruits ability to allow anyone who tastes it to fly. Partly out of bewilderment and partly innocence and compassion she takes it with her on a journey through many lands, trying as she goes to get someone to listen to her. The people she meets are all either too busy or too hard to hear her or even notice her at all. Finally, she eats the fruit and flies up into the air where, out of the same compassion, she drops the seeds of the fruit to the ground.
"and wherever people cried tears... trees grew... and the people.. flew."