TEMPLE – Despite its location nearly at the end of a road in a town “you can drive to but you can’t drive through,” Temple Stream Theater is bringing the world to a former Congregational church there.
While splashing around after heavy rains one day in 1999, Michael Romanyshyn and his wife, Susie Dennison, saw the old church located in a floodplain and mentioned what a wonderful place it was to Susie’s mother. The next day it was listed for sale, and before they knew it, the couple owned not only a piece of history, but a place where they’d make history themselves.
The two met while on tour in North Africa with Bread and Puppet Theater. After several years with the political Vermont-based performance company known for their oversized masks and puppets, the couple moved to New York in the early 1990s, where they started a theater on the Lower East Side. Now they are working in Temple to bring art and music to their community and surrounding towns.
“The whole puppetry world expanded because art schools discovered puppets,” Romanyshyn said Wednesday while sitting in the 75-seat theater.
On Saturday, Romanyshyn and other visiting artists will perform toy theater – “toy” meaning miniature rather than children’s playthings.
It was a popular 19th-century parlor entertainment for families and friends to perform classic plays in small boxes using cut-outs and small figures. According to Romanyshyn, a revival of the art form was sparked, in part, by Great Small Works, one of the groups performing Saturday.
The audience will see a short performance lecture with song about the history of toy theater; “Three Books in the Garden” about a time in Spain when Judaism, Christianity and Islam peacefully co-existed; Clare Dolan performing an autobiographical work by depicting 20th century philosophers at an artists’ retreat, and “The Buffalo Skinners” based on a Woody Guthrie ballad by the same name about a time in American history when people were paid to hunt and skin buffaloes.
“It was a gruesome period,” Romanyshyn said.
On Oct. 14 and 15, using “moving sculptures,” Michael Cooper, Susan Schell, Kathryn Sytsma and Viva Cuba will perform “When Pigs Fly.”
Based on historical events in Haiti, the show will utilize puppets, music and masks to tell the story of the Creole pig that was nearly eradicated in Haiti in the 1970s and 1980s, ostensibly to prevent the spread of African swine fever and thereby further impoverishing already struggling peasants there. This particular breed of pig was very hardy and needed little special care, according to Schell.
“Haitians are masters at using recycled materials for art,” Schell said, and Cooper, her husband, inspired by their mastery, created a pig puppet entirely from tin cans for the show. A Haitian art show and sale will follow both shows and all proceeds will benefit people in Haiti.
In November, theater-goers can also see a performance by Obie-award winner George Bartenieff in a production of “I Will Bear Witness, The Diaries of Victor Klemperer Part I.” Bartenieff’s three-day run was sponsored, in part, through a $1,000 grant from the Maine Humanities Council. Facilitated discussions will follow each performance.
All shows are $8 for adults, $5 for children, or people may pay what they can.
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