Frankenocchio

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=80 BGCOLOR="#999933" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04000700ddwnfv.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Andrew Kim </B></FONT><B>     |    </B><B> </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Andrew Kim "><U><B>home</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Gallery"><U><B>gallery</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Bio"><U><B>bio</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id46.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Press"><U><B>pres</B></U></A><B>s     </B><A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Links"><U><B>links</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id27.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U><B>contact me</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="http://www.thingumajig.info/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.thingumajig.info/"><U><B>thingumajig</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" background="041bec00esnpes.png"> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id71.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Frankenocchio"><U><B><IMG SRC="54980930.jpg" border=0 width="128" height="147" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id71.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Frankenocchio"><U><B>FRANKENOCCHIO Gallery</B></U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=400 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Frankenocchio</div> <div> <B>Seattle Weekly </B></div> <div> Februrary 5, 2003</div> <bR> <div> Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab isn't going for cute with its meshing of Mary Shelley's gothic horror tale and the one about the wooden marionette who just wanted to be a real boy. The title character is a mute kid who is decapitated and has his noggin successively reattached by circus freaks to a baby doll, a seal, a dog, et al., while his beheaded body is picked up by a horny pair of female Siamese twins who drool, "We don't question a good thing when we find it." </div> <bR> <div> As conceived and designed by Brian Kooser, this weirdly charming, Bunraku-style adult puppet show is full of color and light--and a decidedly dark irreverence. (When God descends from the heavens, he accidentally demolishes someone and is denounced as a "motherless, omniscient bastard.") The production has the mischievous melancholy of a Tim Burton film--strange and sad things keep happening, but it's out to have fun. Everything is helped immeasurably by the grandly kaleidoscopic live musical accompaniment of Circus Contraption, whose offbeat cabaret melodies give the proceedings an odd sort of uplift. If Stephanie Timm's playful script had pushed everything a little further, the show would have real resonance. That it doesn't--instead remaining fanciful and bleakly funny--is no real tragedy. And Kooser's design is wonderful--there's a dreamy, terrific underwater sequence done in black light that brings out the wide-eyed child in you.  </div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>