"There is no such thing, as a voice, whispering in the night . . . hee hee hee hee hee!" Thus opens the evening show of the Black Lantern Puppet Troupe. For we are the voices in the night. As the sufi brings the voice of wisdom to the sleeping Prince, so do we present our humble efforts to entertain and enlighten. Our efforts, however clumsy an inastute, attempt to capture the wisdom of the Sufi teachers of the middle ages. In this image, the Prince, in his opulent palace, sleeps the sleep of the ignorant. To the left, approaching, is a Sufi, prepared to deliver words of great wisdom.
In this next shot, the characters portrayed are the Rabbit, the Fox, The Document, and the Lion, in a scene approximated from The Fox's Proof. |
| This image is from our play, The Mad Sultan's Idol. Depicted on
the left is the Harlot, whose low moral character is depicted in her bare arms,
visible feet and ankles, and makup. (The makeup, regretfully, is difficult
to see in this photograph.) Next is a Sayed, a documentable descendant of
the Prophet Mohammed. In this production, we have used our Elder Sufi
puppet, as the Say-ed was under repair when we had to go on. Next to the
Sayed is the Scholar, whose lack of wisdom can be seen in his short beard and
armful of scrolls of worldly knowledge. Next is the Prince, whose short
beard, grand clothing, and imperious manner all symbolize his lack of
wisdom. Finally, we have the sultan's idol.
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This shot is from the opening scene of our signature piece, Elephant Meat. On board the ship are, from left to right, the Prince, The Merchant, here portrayed by the Young Sufi, the Merchant Puppet being on medical leave, Ibrahim Khawas, called the Palm-Weaver, here portrayed by the Elder Sufi, and the Scholar. |
| Here the travelers face the wrath of an infuriated adult elephant, whose
child they have eaten! Does Ibrahim survive? Catch us at Pennsic and
find out.
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| This image is from another signature piece, Gamorra vs. The South Downs.
As you can see, we have departed somewhat from our regular program, and this
merits a little explanation. Years ago, our Barony sponsored a Japanese
collegium. We were asked, at a very late date, to produce a "Japanese
puppet play." As the making of Bonroku puppets is the subject of a
lifetime of study, the few weeks we had were insufficient to do a
"straight" puppet play. Rather than decline, we decided to be
creative. On of the Master Puppeteer's guilty pleasures is collecting and
screening bad movies. Real yakkers. Stuff that makes Ishtar
look entertaining. Among them are a series of badly dubbed Japanese
monster movies featuring a giant, flatuent, flying sea turtle named Gamorra.
In the Master's (now distant) youth, our Barony was engaged in a friendly
rivalry with the Barony south of us, the Barony of the South Downs, and this
rivalry still lives on today, at least in his mind. So we conceived of a
parody of these movies, Gamorra vs. The South Downs. With puppets
made of cheap cardboard and jokes even cheaper and flimsier, Gamorra flopped and
wobbled his way across the face of South Downs, smashing all in his path.
Be careful of your jokes. For a good joke never dies. Word has gotten around, and crowds gather, shouting it out like "Freebird!" That cheap, one off joke has been called up again and again for over five years. In any case, here you see Gamorra, posing with teh Barony of Bryn Madoc, which gets accidentally smashed on Gamorra's rampage. 
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Another posed shot. Here Gamorra faces the combined might of the South Downs. From left to right, we have the South Downs Armored Division, portrayed by our DaVinci tank, the South Downs Air Force, as portrayed by our DaVinci glider, the South Downs militia, complete with catapault, and the Army of South Downs. |
| Here we have Mothra, in her early form as a giant catapiller, chasing some
Southdowns Laurels. This is a posed shot, not appearing in the
production. The Laurels are out of focus because the puppeteer on
the Laurels was a novice, and didn't know that the puppet has to be touching the
screen for a sharp image.
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Another posed shot. Here we have some of the puppets from the sequel to Gamorra, Mothra. Like I said, a good joke can get out of hand. From left to right we have: the Cowardly Warrior from the Army of South Downs, Master Cathal, the Seneschal of South Downs (authorized portrait), Baron John, of South Downs (unauthorized portrait), a porta-john from the Lilies War, and Mothra herself. |
Just so you know what it's like behind the screen, here is a single shot of puppeteers at work. Pictures are Kira, in the foreground, Saher, our mentor, next, Anastasia, Costanza, and Tormod is standing.
