Once past the moderate comic effect of watching men play with themselves, the male genitalia in "Puppetry" are only raw material for the creativity of Friend and Morley, which turns out to be not particularly well-endowed.Puppeteers Rich Binning and Christopher J Cannon of Puppetry of the Penis. The penis, as puppet, is a more passive instrument. In truth, there's just so much a man can do with a penis. Morley's genital portrait of the Loch Ness Monster is a treat.īut "Puppetry" fails to build on its opening effect.
Friend's scrotal representations of various vaginas are ingenious. The first few creations are funny or inventive enough to arouse some interest. The show looks promising at first, as Friend and Morley stretch and crank their equipment. " Then the capes come off and the puppeteers set to work with the tools of their trade, their creations magnified many times by the magic of closed- circuit video on the large screen behind them.
#JAPANESE PENIS PUPPETRY ORIGAMI TV#
She works the crowd pretty well in a 25-minute stint of routines about dating, roommates, TV ads and candy bars - bringing almost every topic around to a sexual or other off- color punch line to set a risque tone for the evening. The opener Wednesday was Alexandra McHale ("I'm the official fluffer for this show"), a breezy, casually sardonic (and fully clothed) New Yorker who alternates with Gretchen Rootes at some performances. A warm-up act by a stand-up comic, though it gets the audience in a roaring, appreciative mood, serves as an unfortunate contrast in stage technique. Their patter, which is pretty ordinary at best, is delivered with little regard for comic timing. They're working with a part of the anatomy that many of us are quite fond of, attached to or both.īut neither exerts much personal magnetism. They've followed Eve Ensler in breaking a taboo about the use of certain explicit anatomical terms in the media (which is all "Penis" has in common with "The Vagina Monologues"). Friend and Morley are personable blokes who share an unusual but not extraordinary skill. What "Puppetry" isn't is what the average theatergoer has every right to expect at these ticket prices and after so much hype: funny, or even very creative.
Wearing little more than sneakers and a smile (Friend, the one with the mustache, also sports a hat and shades), the two take turns pulling, stretching and twisting their penises, testicles and scrotums into all sort of shapes and configurations - "The Eye," "The Wristwatch," "Snails," "The Hamburger." "Puppetry" is, to a large degree, exactly what it claims to be: two naked guys playing with themselves, onstage, for about an hour. It's the kind of show that could close just about any theater. "Puppetry" opened Wednesday at Theatre on the Square as the last show at the house under the management of Jonathan Reinis. Now, coming off an extended off-Broadway run and with four spin-off companies up and running, Friend and Morley have brought their act to San Francisco. They've played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, London's West End and several other countries. David Friend and Simon Morley have been performing what they call "the ancient Australian art of genital origami" since 1998, when their "Puppetry of the Penis" opened at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Talk about taking a long ride on a slim concept.
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