Ninth Street Theater performs diverse blend of drama

Laurence Olivier never expected his epic version of "Hamlet" to be re-enacted in 10 minutes by a cast of paper dolls. That, however, is exactly what Ninth Street Theater managed to execute flawlessly with its Travelling Toy Theater Festival in two shows at the Hopkins Center last Saturday. Along with "Olivier's Hamlet," the company performed a version of Tolstoy's "War and Peace," a fable entitled "The Ash King," a political anti-handgun piece entitled "Terror as Usual, Episode 8: Guns and Roses." The group also showed a super-8 film by Meredith Holch entitled "My Hero." Ninth Street Theater used the 19th century art of toy theater, which involves the use of paper stages and cutout puppets to enact dramatic pieces. The Festival opened with "Olivier's Hamlet," written by theater members John Bell, Stephen Kaplin, Nessa Rabin and Roberto Rossi, and performed by Bell, Kaplin, Rabin and Michael Romanyshyn. Two members read the narrative, which consisted of an abridged plot summary of Hamlet interspersed with readings from Olivier's book on acting, while the other two moved the paper puppets. The dramatic contrast between Olivier's austere opus and the irreverence with which the players reenacted it, punctuated by various egoisms from Olivier's book, made the entire effect hilarious. They reduced Olivier's fire and passion to a paper cutout: the ghost's voice was projected by speaking through an empty paper-towel roll and Ophelia died by casually being dropped over the side of the toy theater stage. The next piece, a more serious fairy-tale entitled "The Ash King," was conceived, designed and directed by Janie Geiser with a text by Daniel Zippi. "The Ash King" recounted the story of a man who became king after saving his country from a drought by creating an irrigation system.