A Puppet Regime

FANFAIR

PUPPETRY OF THE PENIS:THE NAKED TRUTH

Theirs is “the Ancient Australian Art of Genital Origami,” the molding of the marbles, the arrangement of the family jewels. Australian natives and beer-garden tricksters Simon Morley, 34, and David Friend, 32, have made their private parts public, casting their wares into a theatrical mini-sensation, Puppetry of the Penis. A hit in London’s West End and at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival, this dynamic duo is en route to America. “We keep waiting for someone to tell us to stop,” says Morley.

It begins with a warning: this is not your average puppet show, and, yes, they really are naked. The theater fills with nervous laughter. “People are anxious about the male body in all its glory,” says Morley. “I think of the show as educational; it demystifies the penis.” Each of the tricks, dubbed “installations,” consists of the puppeteers manipulating their privates into objects (e.g., Ayers Rock), animals (the Loch Ness Monster, a slowly emerging mollusk), and popular foods. For “Wind Surfer,” the scrotum becomes a sail and a whirring fan propels the puppeteer across the stage as he rides a skateboard. Unabashedly juvenile, decidedly anti-erotic, it’s dementedly good fun— you can pretend to be appalled, but at a certain point you can’t help but laugh. Don’t worry if you don’t have frontrow seats; the goings-on are projected onto a large screen. There’s even an opportunity for audience participation—“Fruit Bat”— as well as an instructional manual for those who’d like to give it a try at home. “It’s a good laugh at the human body,” Friend says. “Performance art that everyone should see at least once.”

A. M. HOMES