Puppets Tug at Heartstrings of Audience - and Creator

By Victoria Scott

Evanston artist Michael Montenegro built this marionette for Piven Theatre's current play. His puppets are also creating magic in Lookingglass Theatre's "Argonautika."

A marionette baby dies onstage; it "goes from moving frantically to total immobility when its strings are cut. The contrast rings true, metaphorically," says the puppet's creator, Evanston's Michael Montenegro.

The murder of the puppet is but one scene in the Lookingglass Theatre production of Mary Zimmerman's "Argonautika," currently playing in Chicago's Water Tower. But it was still haunting one reviewer the morning after he saw the play. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune called the incident "a heart-stopper."

Though the Evanston painter/sculptor did not expect his marionette infant to evoke as strong a response as it has, Mr. Montenegro admits to a certain awe of the puppets he creates.

"There is something mysterious or mesmerizing or magical about bringing to life a little figure," he says.

The effect of cutting the puppet's strings is "not morbid," says Mr. Montenegro, who also built a number of other puppets for "Argonautika." "It's a moment. Theater needs those to shock us out of our regular way of thinking to absorb what theater has to offer. That's the value of masks, puppets." They are a "good match," he says, for myth.

Playwright/director Ms. Zimmerman must have anticipated the dynamic Mr. Montenegro could bring to her adaptation of the mythical voyage of Jason and the Argonauts. She had seen his work elsewhere.

But the two met for the first time last spring, says Mr. Montenegro, and Ms. Zimmerman merely hinted at her vision for the play, conveying "a sense of images" rather than particulars. She did request "a lot of birds and a centaur," he says, which startled him because of the mechanical difficulties such puppets would present.

But making them became a "nice challenge," he says. Since work on "Argonautika" began without a script, shaping the production became a collaborative exercise, "an adventure [in creating] a play about a risky adventure," says Mr. Montenegro. "[Mary Zimmerman] makes nice associations like that.

"Mary Zimmerman has faith in herself," he says, "which allows her to dig in deep." Like her, he believes that "if you know where you're going to land, it's not as exciting."

Mr. Montenegro began crafting the puppets with the goal of "capturing the undulating movement of birds with kinetic sculptures that are abstractions of birds," he says.

He prefers to make his puppets with the materials at hand. Since he has for years supplemented his income by doing carpentry, he often uses the stuff of the building trade: rusty nails, chicken wire, sticks and cloth, he says.

His puppets tend to be insubstantial, expressing his "sense of the fragility of human beings - people fall apart, then patch themselves up," he says. He believes that motif, like others he has woven into his work in the past, resonates with our times.

A couple years ago he wrote and staged a show called "The Sublime Beauty of Hands," using large puppets to speak out against cluster bombs and land mines. For the International Puppet Festival some years earlier, he wrote the dark comedy "Iktu Blas" about the rise and fall of a dictator.

Mr. Montenegro discovered the power of puppets as a child. His parents were artists and professors who moved frequently for their jobs, and his mother involved her children in a variety of projects - partly to harness the boys' energy.

One project was a puppet theater. It taught him that "there is something primordial, primal, deeper than intellect about the experience of creating events with inanimate objects - something disturbing about it that indicates there is inexplicable power and force."

Like most artists, he says, he is fascinated by childhood, "when creativity is most on fire and pure. Puppetry," he says, "draws you back."

He has worked with a number of local theaters in the past year. Evanston's Next Theatre Company chose his puppets to portray the three children in "The Long Christmas Ride Home." Last spring Writers' Theatre of Glencoe used one of his puppets in "The Duchess of Malfi."

He has just finished building a porch - and a "semi-realistic" marionette for the Piven Theatre Workshop. The tiny female figure will tie together the various strands of "The Emerging Woman: A Collection of Chekov Short Stories," he says.

And he will create many puppets for the February run of "The Puppetmaster of Lodz" at the Writers' Theatre. The play's title character, a holocaust survivor, re-creates his lost family with marionettes and bunraku puppets (three-quarter-sized figures worked by three manipulators).

Mr. Montenegro thinks the novelty of puppetry satisfies audiences "even when it is not as powerful as it could be." But he says, "I feel I'm selling short if I don't push the limits." Along the way, he says, his "art takes on a life of its own. Like a kite, you are pushed and pulled. It's an odd but heady experience."

"Prospero's Daughter"

A Book Review By Sue Brooke

"Prospero's Daughter" by Elizabeth Nunez is a novel set in the West Indies in 1961.

A movement for independence was under way on Chacachacare Island, still under British rule. Carlos was born on the island of a British mother and the black fisherman who had saved her life. His parents both dead, Carlos lives in the house his father built, along with his mother's dying servant and her 9-year-old daughter, Ariana. Separated from the world by a leper colony few people visit, Carlos and the family experience the kindness of the afflicted.

Into this island world, when Carlos was 6, came Dr. Peter Gardner and his 3-year-old daughter, Victoria. Though Dr. Gardner had come to help the lepers, he was not needed because another doctor had taken the position. Dr. Gardner pursued his other interests instead: transplanting, grafting and genetically altering native plants.

Lacking a place to live, Dr. Gardner approached Carlos's family for lodging. He offered to fix the house, a part of which had been recently damaged by a huge storm.

Twelve years later Inspector Mumsford is called in to investigate an incident at this house. Dr. Gardner accuses Carlos of attempting to rape his daughter. The inspector is horrified. He regards Carlos as a black man who no longer knows his place, and he intends to protect the reputation of the white British girl at all costs.

But just as the inspector prepares to arrest Carlos, he receives a letter from Ariana, the black servant who grew up in the house. "He never rape her," she wrote. "I tell you he love she and she love him back."

In a setting where most people accept that class and race determine a person's place in society and the British occupy the highest position, British Inspector Mumsford and a French-Creole Trinidadian commissioner are compelled to investigate a situation that challenges their assumptions.

The author, who was born in Trinidad and immigrated to the United States in her youth, is CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York.

Big Bad Wolf and Wicked Witch Go on Trial

Those infamous fairy tale characters, the Big Bad Wolf and the Wicked Witch, will have their day in court when the Evanston Children's Theatre presents "Fairy Tale Courtroom" Nov. 17-19.

Taking the stand to testify are the Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood and more. Come hear what they have to say.

Performances are at 7 p.m. on Nov 17-18 and 3 p.m. on Nov. 19 at the Levy Senior Center, 300 Dodge Ave. Tickets are $8. Call 847-448-8250.

Politicians Distribute Arts Council Grants

Holding an Illinois Arts Council grant check for the Evanston Public Library in photo below State Representative Julie Hamos, Kate Todd of the library, State Senator Jeff Schoenberg and Karla Kunzeman of the Illinois Arts Council.

In photo above, State Representative Beth Coulson, left, and Suzanne Kanter, second from left, hold a check for the Evanston In-School Music Association, together with Sen. Schoenberg and Ms. Kunzeman.

State Senator Jeffrey Schoenberg, together with State Representatives Beth Coulson and Julie Hamos, handed out checks totaling more than $450,000 to local arts organizations at a ceremony held Oct. 23 in the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie.

"This is a chance for us to pay tribute for the tireless, selfless work that you all do to ensure that arts remain vibrant along the North Shore," Sen. Schoenberg told the recipients. "I believe how we allocate our resources reflects our values," he added.

Rep. Coulson said it was "important to recognize each of you for the work that you do in our community, for our kids and in the field of education."

Rep. Hamos spoke of "how the performing arts can change people's lives." Noting that the Illinois Arts Council is giving $20 million in grants this year, she said, "Our goal is to spend $2 per person - that's $24 million."

Eye aRound Evanston

INVENTIVENESS

By John Macsai

Andrew Spatz project at 930 Pitner Ave.

It says something that many of the best modern buildings in Evanston - certainly the most daring - are by architects who are their own client (and often their own general contractor). And most are buildings "by right," thus requiring no zoning variations or negotiations with the City Council.

The architect best known for daring modernism is David Hovey, whose Optima Inc., has built a good number of new projects in Evanston. They include the colorful townhouses at Michigan Avenue and Main Street, the high-rise with the orange balconies at Sherman Avenue and Davis Street, the faceted tower across the street from the cinema on Maple Avenue and the most recent, the aluminum-clad apartment building with the bright red accents at Benson Avenue between Clark Street and Elgin Road.

The elegant apartment house at 817 Hinman by Jim Torvik - both designer and developer - belongs in this group of daring buildings.

So does the whimsical group of condominiums at Elmwood Avenue and Grove Street by Aaron Wilson. One would err not to include the delightful group of townhouses at 1511 Monroe Street by architects Steve Beck and Scott Krone (CODA Developers).

Andrew Spatz, who remodeled the old Stamp Factory at the corner of Payne and Dewey (seen in the May 4, 2005, issue of the Evanston RoundTable), is another developer-designer. His new project at 930 Pitner Ave. just north of Main Street is also a remodeling that turned an existing industrial/warehouse building into condominium office spaces. Here the work is predominantly in the interior, though Mr. Spatz altered the otherwise very pedestrian low brick structure enough to enliven it and give it an unexpected identity.

The whimsical metal canopies or awnings prepare the visitor for the exciting interiors, the high-ceilinged lofts that can be subdivided by freestanding office furniture in any way the user decides. The real features created by Mr. Spatz are the mezzanine and the stairs leading up to it. The high space into which the mezzanine hangs allows the viewer to enjoy from a distance the elegant and ingenious stairs, railings and mechanical and electrical paraphernalia.

All the condominium offices have luxurious bathrooms with ceramic tile to the ceiling and a well-conceived kitchenette, complete with sink, stove, refrigerator, dishwasher and microwave.

What enriches the design is the inventive detailing and the immaculate workmanship that is especially important when the details are unconventional. This requires not only ingenuity on the part of the architect but also untiring, constant supervision.

I am curious to see whether Mr. Spatz applies the creativity he has exhibited in his loft remodeling projects to the multi-story condominium apartment buildings he hopes to develop in the future.

"Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"

A Film Review By Brian Murphy

Sacha Baron Cohen, the London-born, Cambridge-educated comedian responsible for the brazenly funny "Da Ali G Show," has made a career embodying clueless characters. His trio of journalist incarnations - hip-hop wannabe Ali G, flamboyantly gay fashion correspondent Bruno, and naïve Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev - through their shockingly candid questions and bizarre behavior, raise the tempers of and wrest unholy truths from their unwitting subjects. With "Borat," Mr. Cohen has created the funniest, most creatively offensive film of the year, as well as the most intelligent "dumb" film since "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut."

The film blends the lines between reality and fiction, documentary and scripted action. While Mr. Cohen's guerilla-style interviews remain intact, they are woven together by a fictional story involving the Kazakh government sending Borat and his television producer, Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davatian), on a trip to the United States to learn from the superpower.

Kazakhstan is presented in the film as a depressed, backwards country, which led to calls for boycotts from its citizens and government. After watching the first five minutes of the film, one can easily see why moderate, western-leaning Kazakhstan had issues with Mr. Cohen's characterizations.

We are first introduced to Borat in his small village, preparing to depart for America. He speaks with affection about his town while pointing out its problems. Along the way, we meet his sneering neighbor, his mother, his ill-tempered wife, and - after the two engage in a deep kiss - his sister.

He introduces us to local Kazakh ceremonies, such as "The Running of the Jew 2004" (an event fabricated by the Jewish Mr. Cohen for satirical purposes), which is as funny as it is intentionally offensive.

The film takes off when Borat and Azamat reach America, traveling the country in an ice-cream truck, a live bear riding shotgun (seriously), seeking advice from true Americans on their way to Los Angeles. Borat, having fallen in love with Pamela Anderson after seeing an episode of "Baywatch" in his hotel room, hopes to marry the star and bring her back to Kazakhstan.

Without giving away any of the gags, I can tell you that Borat terrorizes (with irony) a humor coach, a driving instructor, rodeo attendants, elitist guests at a dinner party, mortgage brokers at a hotel conference, security guards, and pretty much anyone he tries to greet by giving a kiss on the cheek.

Ms. Anderson herself makes an uncredited cameo appearance at the film's end, and whether the conclusion was real or staged remains unclear, though I vote for the latter.

Despite his sexism, bigotry and anti-Semitism, when Borat is put up against Americans who are not in on the joke, he escapes as a sympathetic character. Played by Mr. Cohen, Borat's ignorance is an almost childlike innocence, and his joyful exuberance is infectious.

Furthermore, we as audience realize Borat's idiocy is an act. Sadly, the same cannot be said about the disturbing array of homophobic southerners, racist Americans and misogynistic frat boys he meets along the way.

Skeptics about Mr. Cohen's relevance can look to Cannes, among the dozens of other prestigious film festivals, where the film was championed at first screening. Doubters of Mr. Cohen's talents and/or dedication to his craft can look to his talk-show promotions and film screenings, all of which he attends only in full-on Borat mode.

He is like Andy Kaufman with a punch line. And, much like the legendary comedian, he refuses to pull punches, infuriating those he involves for our amusement.

1 hr. 24 min. Rated R for pervasive strong crude and sexual content including graphic nudity, and language.

"Babel"

A Film Review by Joe Linstroth

"Babel" is the latest film by the writer/director team of Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("21 Grams," "Amores Perros").

Like their previous efforts, "Babel" features multiple interlocking stories, raw emotion, and gritty, stylized directing. Yet unlike their last two films, "Babel" suffers under the weight of its heavy-handed and contrived world of fatalistic interconnectedness.

An American couple, Richard and Susan (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), are on a holiday in Morocco, trying to sort out their marriage after the loss of a child.

As their chartered tour bus winds through the mountains, two Berber boys are playing with the rifle their father bought for them to protect the family's herd of goats from jackals. Testing the range of their new toy, the boys fire at the bus, striking Susan in the neck and touching off an international overreaction by an American government quick to blame terrorists.

Back home in San Diego, the couple's two young children are with their nanny, Amelia (Adriana Barraza), an illegal immigrant from Baja, Mexico. The incident in Morocco forces her to watch the kids on her son's wedding day, and Amelia's unreliable nephew, Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal), chauffeurs the three back to Mexico for a harmless celebration that turns into their own nightmare.

Completing the global chain reaction is the story of Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), a hearing- impaired Japanese teenager wrestling with her emerging sexuality and her mother's recent suicide. Her weak connection to the action in Morocco and Mexico is that her father's (Koji Yakusho) rifle found its way into the Berber boys' hands after he gave it as a gift to a Moroccan hunting guide.

Mr. Inarritu's rugged style is refreshing. His use of hand-held cameras and muted tones and colors give his films an undeniable realism. Adding to it is his keen eye for cultural nuances. As the film jumps from the cacophony of a Mexican wedding to the curiosity of a poor, isolated Moroccan village to the sensory overload of urban Tokyo, he firmly roots the stories into their respective cultures and fluidly moves between them.

Such strong contrast makes it easy to get into the individual stories, but their differences also make it hard to justify that their links are anything but the result of fate or coincidence. "Babel" ramps up the distress and melodrama as a distraction but never provides a clear answer for these ambiguous connections.

There very well may be links between people around the world despite their vast differences of language, culture, and political borders, but "Babel" fails to find them.

2 hrs. 22min. Rated R for language, violence and nudity.

"Dr. Dolittle" at ETHS Tortoises in the Classroom

By Nick Churchill

African spur tortoise Tutti, left, weighs four times as much as Mulan, right.

The last thing one might expect to find on the third floor of the North wing of Evanston Township High School is a zoo, but that is just what biology teacher Scott Meier has contrived in the room adjacent to his own "normal" classroom. From the hallway, the room looks like a miniature botanic garden, complete with palm fronds, photosynthetic lights and a small fish pond. When Mr. Meier arrived at ETHS, he says, "The space had been around, but it was fairly unused. It's a perfect environment."

Mr. Meier became ETHS's version of Dr. Dolittle almost entirely by accident. "About six years ago, a friend of the family asked me, do you want a tortoise?" he said. The self-described lifelong reptile enthusiast said yes. And that was just the beginning.

"Somewhere along the line, people started giving me their pets. Now I loan them out. If kids are considering buying a reptile, I'll say ‘Take mine. If you like it, buy it from me.'" Mr. Meier's animal habitat has encouraged student interest in reptiles and now a number of students help him clean the area and feed the animals.

Mr. Meier's collection has grown exponentially since he started at ETHS, mostly through his willingness to take on pets that no longer interest students. Meier now has three green iguanas, a multiplicity of snakes, colonies of cyclids, crayfish, frogs and turtles - water animals, unlike tortoises - and a few different species of fish, including goldfish and a piranha-like paku. The room also boasts different species of plants - palms, coffee, ficus and rubber plants - that are used for photosynthesis.

But the most interesting sights to students as they peer into Mr. Meier's out-of-place oasis are the two tortoises. The first tortoise, Tutti, now has a mate, Mulan, who has been in Mr. Meier's possession for three years. Both are African spur tortoises (Geochelone Sulcata). The species is the third-largest tortoise species in the world, and is native to the Sahel of sub-Saharan Africa. Tutti and Mulan are about the same age, 9-10 years old, yet Tutti outweighs Mulan 40 pounds to 10 because he was fed a diet too high in protein - which may have included dog food - in his formative years.

The tortoises are relatively young; the species is slow-growing and can live to be over 100 years of age. Mr. Meier says he has seen tortoises "as big as a 55-gallon drum." Bred in captivity, both tortoises exhibit a phenomenon called "pyramiding": Their shells are rigid and angular where they should be rounded and smooth. This rigidity is mainly due to diet, and also to the fact that the tortoises' natural environment and growth process cannot be exactly simulated. The tortoises, whose ideal environment is hot and dry, live in an outdoor pen in the courtyard in the summer.

Beside the unique opportunity the room offers to students to interact with and study rare reptiles and fish, it also serves as a lab environment for Mr. Meier's biology students and environmental studies AP students taught by Craig Smith.

"We use the soil for PH and soil-content tests," Mr. Meier says, "and we use the pond for water tests, water chemistry, and phytoplankton and zooplankton tests." The environment serves as a training ground where students can learn hands-on how to perform field tests.

Scott Meier, ETHS biology teacher, has several species of iguanas in the indoor animal habitat at the high school.

Photos by Nick Churchill

Evanston EATS

A Gathering of Restaurants.

Pictured are CIF Executive Director Jane Doyle, Board member Max Davis, Jill Futransky, Maria Lemler and Mary Ann Moseley.

"Something's Cooking," the annual fundraising feast for Center for Independent Futures (CIF) brought people out of the November cold and into the warmth of Prairie Moon on Sherman Avenue last Sunday. Nine of Evanston's restaurants and caterers contributed appetizers, hearty soups and stews and sumptuous desserts: Fox and the Grapes, Prairie Moon, The White Rabbit, The Celtic Knot, Davis Street Fishmarket, Firehouse Grill, Gold 'N Pear, That Little Mexican Café and Tommy Nevin's Pub. CIF, 625 Madison St., provides supportive housing for young adults with disabilities to live independently.

Dianne Fox of Fox and the Grapes catering prepared quinoa, one of the few full-protein grains to go with a pumpkin-and-coconut stew.

Food Banks Are Banking on Banks.

Charter One Bank has launched  a month-long "Carving Out Hunger" initiative, which will combine food and monetary donations with volunteerism to make a significant impact on thousands of families in need.

Together with the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Charter One volunteers will distribute the donated food throughout the food depository's network of 600 food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters. "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks - recently named Chicago's "Hometown Hero" by major league baseball - was first in line to make a donation to Carving Out Hunger at Charter One's 71 S. Wacker branch in downtown Chicago. In Evanston, donations that will benefit the food pantry of Hemenway United Methodist Church, 933 Chicago Ave., may be dropped off at 1325 W. Howard St.
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Perfect Mashed Potatoes
  Serves 4 to 6

For stiffer mashed potatoes, use only 3/4 cup milk or cream; for richer potatoes, add another 2 tablespoons butter.

 2  pounds russet, Yukon gold, or long white potatoes 
1  tablespoon salt, plus more to taste 
1  cup milk or cream 
4  tablespoons unsalted butter 
1/4  teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 
1/4  teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 
 
Peel and cut potatoes into 1 1/2-inch-thick slices. Place in a medium saucepan. Cover with cold water; add 1 tablespoon salt. Bring to a simmer. If using a potato ricer, fill another saucepan with water; place over low heat. Keep potatoes at a low simmer until a knife slips in and out easily. Drain potatoes in a colander. Place milk in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. 

  If using an electric mixer with paddle attachment, proceed to Step 4. If using a potato ricer, place a heat-proof bowl or top of a double boiler over a pan of simmering water. Press hot, drained potatoes through ricer into bowl. 

   Stir potatoes with a wooden spoon until smooth, about 1 minute. Using a whisk, incorporate butter. Drizzle in hot milk, whisking continuously. Add pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste; whisk to combine. Serve immediately. 

  For the electric-mixer method, transfer hot, drained potatoes to bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed, until most lumps have disappeared, about 1 minute. Add butter; mix until blended. On low speed, add hot milk in a slow stream, then add pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste. Mix to combine. 

Recipe source: www.marthastewart.com