Sandglass Theater Brings International Puppetry to Vermont 

click to enlarge

• Courtesy Of Richard Termine
• The Road of Useless Splendor

Mention internationally renowned puppeteers from Vermont, and many people will think of Bread and Puppet Theater, the Glover troupe famous for its larger-than-life spectacles and anti-war demonstrations. But for more than 30 years, Sandglass Theater in Putney has also been touring the world with its own creative version of puppetry. This week, the nonprofit company presents its 12th edition of Puppets in the Green Mountains, a biennial festival of performances, discussions and workshops from local and international puppet masters.

PGM, as it's colloquially known, is the longest continually running international puppet festival in the U.S. Founded in Germany in 1982 by husband-and-wife team Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass, the company relocated to Vermont in the mid-1980s; Eric, a New York native, had attended Middlebury College. In 1996 the couple opened Sandglass Theater in a renovated barn in Putney.

"The U.S. doesn't really have its own puppetry tradition like most other countries do," said Shoshana Bass, 37, the couple's daughter, who now serves as artistic director of Sandglass Theater and PGM director. "The festival grew out of this desire to share this art form with our community."

click to enlarge

• Courtesy
• The Doubtful Sprout

This year's festival, whose theme is "Just Around the Bend," features puppeteers from Canada, Germany, Spain, Iceland and the U.S. Each company performs its own show, which Sandglass members scouted during their own tours through more than 30 countries.

In Things Easily Forgotten, one of the featured puppeteers, Xavier Bobés, tells the history of Spain in the second half of the 20th century using everyday objects he found or purchased at flea markets. Rather than building actual puppets, Bass explained, Bobés uses inanimate objects "through which he intuits the memory or history of that object." Bobés will also teach a two-day master class on so-called "object puppetry."

On the opposite end of the spectrum are beautifully detailed marionettes with built-in robotics, created by Alice Therese Gottschalk and FAB-Theater of Germany. During their show, called Free as a Robot, audience members will be invited to become part of experiments involving robots, puppets and people.

In Road of Useless Splendor, presented by Maskhunt Motions and Deborah Hunt from Puerto Rico, two time-traveling mad alchemists tell a meandering tale with pop-up pages that spring to life and are populated by odd characters and artifacts.

click to enlarge

• Courtesy Of Ryan Maxwell
• Marooned! A Space Comedy

In addition to the live puppet shows, held at seven venues in Brattleboro and Putney, PGM will also feature a screening of the 2004 cult-classic film Strings, an international sci-fi/fantasy production involving puppeteers from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom. That all the film's characters are marionettes is incorporated into the story itself, with puppets dying on-screen only when their head strings get severed.

Bernd Ogrodnik, who served as the technical puppet designer and lead puppeteer on the production, will attend the PGM festival and give an in-person, behind-the-scenes presentation, including a discussion on the puppet controls and designs he created specifically for the movie.

Bass emphasized that PGM is open to people of all ages. While some shows contain more adult themes, others are family-friendly and will amuse and entertain children and adults alike. As she put it, "There's a way in for everybody."