I absolutely love Richard Bay and his puppets. I was so happy to take his classes when I was going to school. The semester I took advanced puppetry from him, I was also taking Japanese, and Rich took me to see Bunraku (the Japanese Puppet Theater) in Berkeley. I didn't understand it, but I loved it. Meanwhile, Bay was talking about doing Oedipus Rex with puppets. Unfortunately, he didn't manage that till I was through with his class. (I still treasure his comment on my notebook, with the "A": "I wish all my students were like you.") Rich and I went to see Oedipus Rex when he did produce it. The puppets are big and done Bunraku style.

I've also seen A Thousand Cranes about Sadako, written by one of Roni's high school friends. Midsummer Night's Dream was fantastic, and last year I liked The Forest of the World. So I was delighted to see this:

(Photo by Leilani Hu, the Bee.

I called up right away to get tickets for the Ring (he said 85 minutes, but it's an hour longer than that.) I told Patrick's babysitter, as well, and they went Saturday night as well.

Frankly, it was a disappointment. Oh, before the show started they were playing the Bugs Bunny cartoon, which I'd not seen before. I did know the "kill the wabbit" part, of course. I saw Roni's friend, mentioned earlier, and another teacher at Jesuit and I accosted them asking if our money isn't good enough any more. (We haven't been getting Patrons of the Arts notices and have been missing the J-high plays.) I was assured that we'd be back on the list.

Richard's daughter adapted the operas for the puppets. Wagner is very turgid and confusing, so her material was suspect. I thought she wrote the stuff a little too, uh, florid. It was too deeply poetical and symbolic, I think. Furthermore, the only puppeteer who really got into his character was Siegfried. With the others, I kept having to remember to look at the puppets, not the person animating them. They were good, just not terrific. Fafnir the dragon was wonderful to see, but on the whole it wasn't much fun. I was sitting there worried about Rich, who could have been staying home watching football or something. (He was surprised at this, particularly after the Bunraku, but that was a birthday present and we knew going in that he would be bored. I'd thought he'd like this.) Patrick fell asleep and once Siegfried dispatched Fafnir, they went home. My credibility is shot for awhile. The Bee reviewer gave it 3 stars, blaming Wagner the most.

Then Sunday I forgot about another puppet show I wanted to see, Peter and the Wolf. Oh, well.