…we here at Under the Poppy offer the following advice:
Banned Books Week (September 26–October 3, 2009) celebrates the freedom to choose for yourself what to read, even if that choice might involve books that others consider unpopular or unorthodox. Support banned books!  Buy one, write one, take one out of the library, exercise your right to rebel and read.

… but the Paolo Roversi photo spread (in the 10/09 issue) was like turning a corner and bumping into an unexpected friend: half these gals I recognize from Under the Poppy, and the other half would be quite at home in my just-finished YA novel, Planchette.  Beauty in the dark, certainly, as well as that delicately ferocious Gothic esthetic.  (I could do without the sad and chilly taxidermy, though the Victorians were always stuffing things, weren’t they.)

What’s so cool about this show (besides everything: that forest, swoon!) is its canny mention of scent as a component of theatrical experience. In the world of Under the Poppy the novel, there are all sorts of aromas, many of them rather dicey, some of them comforting, a few powerfully erotic (and not the obvious ones, either).

We mean to incorporate this wordless and passionate sense into our production, too.

When I see stuff like this, I wish I was one — are they not fantastic?  “Once upon a time, men wore topcoats and top hats.  They will again.” As the Under the Poppy production ideas mutate and accrete (attain accretion?), I see more and more clearly the drapes, swaths, grime, flowers and slutty little furbelows (come to think of it, what a word!) that we’ll be dressing our players in, and enjoying it all wildly in advance.

Clothes do make the man, you know.

(P.S., if you are a costume designer, let’s talk.)

Would you not like to A) go back in time and watch this performed live, in the shadow of those fantastic sets, or B) make yourself small enough to frolic in the paper doll version?  Or yes to both?  What visual wit.  “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” have been bubbling up lately, prompting me to remember and renew my admiration for and delight in the work of the great Mr. Gorey.  (P.S., Puggy would have loved it.)

Yes, we are friends of the theatre in any case, but it’s been a terrific education anyway, watching alongside Diane as we take in performances of various kinds.  Over the weekend we were here.  And we may be here, too, depending on the Venn diagrams of schedule…Hunt and peck, pick and choose, remember that name, that face, the way that shadow fell against that wall.

Well, in mid-October, after a stop in Heidelberg.  But the prospect of puppet theatre has me giddy already; and the sheer odd beauty of the streets. And the puppets in the streets …  The Charles bridge, Ta Fantastika Theatre. The capital of Bohemia!