Puppets and their puppeteers are equally a pleasure to watch in Seattle Children's Theatre's new "Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like," based on a beloved book by author Jay Williams and the enormously popular illustrator Mercer Mayer.
In this all-ages story set in ancient China, the characters are performed by sumptuously costumed puppets designed with highly expressive yet all-purpose faces. But their human minders and voice actors also occupy the simple if elegant set, making no effort to hide. They wear costumes appropriate to the tale and, while never upstaging the puppets visually, prove irresistible to observe as they define characters through nuances of tone, or make the action seem plausible through masterful control over puppet movement.
The actors seem to have one basic guideline: don't crack a smile or reflect any emotions. The extremes of feeling and wit coming out of their mouths are in sharp contrast to the neutrality of their expressions, and the process is fascinating to watch. But it is also hard to miss an occasional sparkle in the eye of a puppeteer such as Don Darryl Rivera, who looks a little like a haughty headwaiter as he underscores the officiousness of a smug army captain or the prattle of a silly mandarin.
Adapted for the stage by local playwright Bret Fetzer, "Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like" concerns the orphan boy Han (voiced and manipulated by actress Khanh Doan), living an ignominious existence as sweeper of the gates of the ancient Chinese city of Wu.
Lonely (except for the company of his pet pig, Ping), Han is played for a fool by a crafty merchant (Timothy Hyland), who preys upon the boy's naïveté. Along comes a hermit (Sarah Harlett) who initially yells at Han, then out-cons the con artist who talked poor Han out of his few possessions, including Ping.
A grateful Han befriends the hermit, but then has to contend with a miserable monk (Hyland) who arrives at Wu warning of an imminent invasion by wild horsemen. Han leads the monk to Wu's feckless leader, a mandarin (Rivera), but the monk's claim is dismissed when the mandarin decrees that all of Wu should pray to the Great Cloud Dragon for help.
But who is the dragon, and what does he look like? The mandarin insists that it must resemble him, so great is his own importance. Same with an army captain and other members of Wu's staff. But while they boast, one of the characters in this play announces, with seeming absurdity, that he or she is, in fact, the dragon the mandarin seeks. It's just that he or she is not yet in dragon form.
This intriguing claim lifts the story to the next level, and invites a young audience to think about what it means to have a slumbering beast within.
There are other values on hand: Han's selflessness with the likes of the hermit and monk is remarkable, especially since he knows their presence complicates his own threadbare existence.
It all goes down with a certain grace and ease, helped along mightily by Fetzer's colloquial, modernist dialogue, which is very accessible for children. Director Rita Giomi ("Jason and the Golden Fleece") emphasizes what is comic in tragic or frightening situations, and keeps the action brisk and fresh.
The team responsible for making a bunch of puppets seem like living, breathing characters must be commended: scenic and puppet design by Tristan M.T. Dalley, costumes by Lee Dombrowski and a puppet coach in Douglas N. Paasch. Together they help give this show a unique appeal to everyone, which is not always the case at SCT.
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