The Puppet Master Who Denied That The Holocaust (Had Ended)
December 19th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker
Finkelbaum (Robert Zuckerman) plays his father (as puppet) in front of his wife-puppet Ruchele. Puppets by Ralph Lee. Image courtesy of Jim Baldassare Public Relations.
My review in The Jewish Press of The Puppetmaster of Lodz at ArcLight is online here.
Here’s the lead:
Puppeteers are supposed to be jolly sorts, who associate with Sesame Street, the Muppets and Mister Rogers’s Neighborhood. They have an eternal smile plastered on their faces, as they surround themselves with happy children carrying lollypops and balloons. But the profession also has a darker side. By manipulating helpless puppets, the puppeteer plays God, and risks blurring the boundary between reality and the imagination.
Samuel Finkelbaum, who is a Holocaust survivor in Gilles Segal’s borderline Theater of the Absurd play, “The Puppetmaster of Lodz,” confuses his puppets with real people – primarily his murdered wife. The puppets reflect their master’s growing insanity, and yet they also become important props in his story, which is more terrifying than insane.