Dr. Egg and the Man with No Ear Redmoon Theater
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Only there’s no embrace of medical technology here. Science is the enemy, as in some of our most enduring horror stories, perhaps most notably Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. (Though the notion that those who covet the powers of the gods will be horrendously punished predates the birth of the scientific method—consider Icarus.) And if you’re already disturbed by the demonization of science and reason in our current political discourse, you won’t find much to comfort you in this stacked deck of a show.
The opening images plainly lay out the point of view that curiosity is an impulse best kept in check. Jamie Clennett’s stop-motion animation (first among equals in the rich visual work on display here) opens with a spreading lattice of branches and vines through which a green snake slithers insinuatingly. This evocation of Eden’s serpent then morphs into the human form of a fussy and portentous narrator (Dominic Green), who warns of the “melee of mutations, the assortment of abominations” that we’re about to see. Well, alrighty then. Thanks for doing the thinking for us.
What’s frustrating about the anti-intellectual scare tactics of Dr. Egg and the Man With No Ear is that they’re married to one of the most visually savvy and well-acted pieces I’ve seen at Redmoon in the last couple years. In vivid contrast to the cartoonish little fashionistas depicted in last year’s execrable look at female body image, The Princess Club, the daughter here (Rebecca Mauldin) is an enchanting and emotionally rich adolescent striving for parental approval and seeking her place in the world. A sequence where a puppet version of her swims with joyous abandon in the ocean is a highlight, though all of Graeme Davis’s ingeniously scaled puppet creations blend into the live-performer sequences with breathtaking seamlessness. Lara Golan’s original score provides a haunting soundscape, and Jonathan Oxlade’s retro-mechanical design should delight the steampunks in the crowd.
