Our suggestion for Saturday, is Danse Macabre: The Constant Companion. From the warped minds of 14 Pews artist-in-resident Two Star Symphony, and its dark puppet-master counterpart, Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre, Companion is a despairingly funny black comedy . It's the tale of Sid, a man who wallows in hopelessness and despair, eventually resolving to kill himself. "He seeks help," Joel Orr, Bobbindoctrin's founder and artistic director, tells us, "but only finds encouragement to commit suicide. In a way, this is a parable of depression. All around him he sees signs that this is the best possible solution. It's cruel, for sure, but funny."
Houston audiences first saw a Two Star and Bobbindoctrin collaboration on The Constant Companion a decade ago. After a two-week run, the show closed and the puppets were packed away. Two Star Symphony recently approached Orr with the idea of resurrecting the show when it won a residency at 14 Pews. Orr agreed and the puppets came out of storage. "I still had all of the puppets, but had to rebuild the sets and some effects, and then do my best to reconstruct what we did back then. Luckily, Christopher Daniello, our sound designer, had all our sound archives, sound cue instructions and the list of videos we ended up reprising in the show. With this, I was able to successfully piece the show back together."
To be sure, Constant Companion is low-tech. The puppets are handmade and manipulated by Orr and other puppeteers who are visible to the audience. "In this...world of CGI and lush digital sounds, we operate in a decidedly analog way. Even the video [seen in the show] was constructed using an old PixelVision video camera to give it an old, grainy, otherworldly effect."
See The Constant Companion at 8 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. 800 Aurora. For information, visit bobbindoctrin.wordpress.com. Pay-what-you-can to $15.
Our suggestion for Sunday is "Traditions Transfigured: The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi," a one-of-a-kind exhibition presented by Asia Society Texas Center. Bridget Bray, curator and director of exhibitions at the center, tells us, "We wanted Houstonians to have an understanding of contemporary art in Japan. Yamaguchi is a unique artist. No one else is doing what he is doing." What Yamaguchi is doing is taking Noh masks - that is, traditional character masks from centuries-old Japanese dramas - and bringing them into the 21st century.
The first sections of the four-part exhibition "unpack and explain the tradition the artist is working off of." Here viewers see videos and unfinished masks that detail the carving process, other works of his art and the history of Noh theater. "The process area helps the viewer really connect with the artist," Bray says.
In the last sections of the exhibit, viewers see how Yamaguchi plays with traditional elements of Noh mask-making to create pieces of contemporary art in works from his Edo Pop series and European portrait series. In his European portrait series, Yamaguchi has created three-dimensional Noh mask--interpretations of iconic female portraits like da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Botticelli's Venus. The exhibition includes a mask that visitors can try on and take photos with (selfies!).
See "Traditions Transfigured: The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi" 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays to Sundays. Through February 15. Asia Society Texas Center, 1370 Southmore. For information, call 713‑496‑9901 or visit asiasociety.org/texas. $5. Margaret Downing and Kristina Nungaray contributed to this post.
