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DIVAfest

review in the Oakland Tribune (May 29, 2003) Chad Jones
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Tempest in 2 teacups
IN a nearly silent 60-minute puppet show, Liebe Wetzel and her crew create more emotion and eloquence than most dialogue-filled plays can produce in two hours.

Wetzel, an Oakland resident, has become celebrated for her found-object puppet shows. Her puppets are not fuzzy, smiley creatures with googly eyes and funny voices. She takes everyday objects you'd find in your kitchen or garage and, through the magic of her puppetry, brings them to animated life.

With the considerable assistance of her Lunatique Fantastique troupe of puppeteers -- or manipulators, as she calls them -- Wetzel has done the expected thing and created a beloved holiday family show, the titles of which are variations on the original "Wrapping Paper Caper."

She has also done the unexpected in her puppet shows. In "Snake in the Basement: The Persecution of Rev. Bill Pruitt," she explored real-life child sexual molestation in a Texas church. Then, in "Brace Yourself," she used her father's actual leg braces to tell the story of how he contracted

polio as a child.

Last weekend, Wetzel premiered "E.O. 9066," a richly rewarding grown-up puppet show about a Japanese-American family removed to an internment camp in 1942.

Part of the EXIT Theatre's "DIVAfest," Wetzel's show extends beyond the festival, which closes this weekend, and runs through June 14 at the EXIT on Taylor in San Francisco.

To fully appreciate what Wetzel, co-director and writer Christine Young and the troupe do, consider this: They make us care about teacups and teapots. Not only that, they make us believe these objects are a single mother and her two sons.

The mother's head is an upside-down Japanese teapot, and her body is a short swatch of fabric that, when bunched up, resembles a kimono. Her sons have matching upside-down teacups for heads and napkins for bodies.

While Mom is still sleeping one morning, the boys unpack the family's cherished chopsticks and proceed to have a beautifully choreographed (and very funny) sword fight. Then Mom wakes up, and the boys are in trouble.

Keep in mind that all of this is played out on a table top and executed by Wetzel and five black-shrouded manipulators: Ben Dzuiba, Greg Frisbee, Candice Milan, Kate Duffly and Aundi Taylor (Susie Gaskill replaces Wetzel at some performances).

Except for a few grunts, whispers and rudimentary sound effects, "E.O. 9066" is silent. There's no music to tell us how to feel. Nor is there any narration to ensure we understand what is transpiring.

Given the manipulators' skill at bringing these objects to life, there's no need for anything else.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, we understand that our family's American neighbors (a white porcelain teapot and wooden spoons give shape to the mom, a white sugar bowl and a scrap of denim become her son) are suddenly suspicious of the Asians next door.

At a far table, when FDR -- played by a fedora, a cigarette holder and pie pans standing in for a wheelchair -- signs Executive Order 9066 to create the internment camps, we understand what that means.

Labels on strings begin flying around the stage and land on the Japanese-American family's possessions. They have to sell everything they can't pack and take with them to the desert camp. Scavenging fingers quickly take all the family's belongings, leaving a noisy pile of pennies in their place.

Then the white teapot from next door offers a small roll of dollar bills to buy the cherished chopsticks.

In this small act, there's a tacit understanding between the two teapot moms and a strong sense of trying to maintain dignity in a time of undignified insanity.

Riding a bus that also happens to be their overloaded suitcase, the family arrives at their new fenced-in, dirt-covered home.

One stirring image after another follows as the family adjusts to life in the camp. The elder son joins the army and, in a poignant postscript, the younger son re-visits the camp as an adult. Wetzel and company even manage to create a frightening atomic bomb detonation using newspapers and the red glare of Megan Reilly's lighting design.

Not all of "E.O. 9066" is perfect -- the attack on Pearl Harbor needs work -- but most of the show explodes with sorrow and strength.

Chalk up another amazing adventure in puppetry for remarkable Liebe Wetzel.

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