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| | Eye - The puppet saint - 10.16.03 |
 | | On top of the alienation, writer-director Sarah Phillips applies an acute intimacy; Joan is the only main character who appears exclusively as a puppet, while her mother, father, and childhood friend Hauviette are played with great pathos by people, Karin Randoja (who also operates Joan), Patrick McManus and Christine Brubaker respectively. |
 | | Joan is fascinated with its heroine's fame, presenting her as an enduring receptacle for a spectrum of fears and desires; this conceit becomes clear as puppet Joan, composed of a Styrofoam head and sequined armor, goes through her grandiose travails, while those around her try, humorously and intimately, to figure it all out. |
 | | Randoja looks up at puppet Joan as quizzically as puppet Joan looks up to heaven, and Brubaker, in prayer, becomes the human Joan, twisting her face with the same complex anguish as Renée Falconetti in Dreyer's renowned silent film version. |
| www.eye.net /eye/issue/issue_10.16.03/arts/onstage.html (1431 words) |
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