If you don’t like sex jokes, it’s likely a good idea to leave now.
Then again, you probably already know what you’re in for with one look at the name of “Fifty Shades of Felt,” the All Puppet Players comedy production spoofing the popular book “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which is, appropriately, also showing in a theater near you.
I’ll throw out a disclaimer here — I’ve never read the book. But I’ve been following All Puppet Players since they performed before Nearly Naked Theatre’s production of “Jagged Little Pill” with a short segment ruthlessly breaking down the Alanis Morissette song “Ironic,” so when I found out about this production, it didn’t matter that “Fifty Shades of Grey” is buried deep, deep on my Never-To-Read list. I had to go.
For those of you who don’t know about “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the book centers on a romance that develops between recent college graduate Anastasia, or Ana, Steele and young-and-successful bigwig entrepreneur Christian Grey. It involves a lot of BDSM — or bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism — sex stuff. That’s the most basic important context.
“Fifty Shades of Felt” adheres fairly well to the plotline of the book, including its main characters and two personified parts of Ana’s mind — her Inner Goddess, played by All Puppet Players owner and artistic director Shaun Michael McNamara and her Subconscious, played by Zach Funk. The production makes a point of highlighting ridiculous parts of the book throughout.
Take Ana’s father, who takes every opportunity to storm on stage (that is, as well as a puppet can “storm” anywhere) and point out the absurd use of Englishisms in a story set in the United States, including Ana’s repeated use of the word “satchel” instead of “purse.”
Or take every moment the action stops as the Inner Goddess and Subconscious turn to the audience to point out that the last impossibly absurd line of dialogue was, in fact, taken verbatim from the book.
I won’t go on much more about the humor. As in any comedy situation, summarizing it is never enough. “You should have been there” is the mantra in these cases — but this time you’re the lucky one, because you can be. “Fifty Shades of Felt” will be playing through Feb. 21.
I’ll admit the show had its rough patches. But I will also admit that those rough patches were no fault of the players’ — Saturday night’s performance was executed perfectly, without a single dropped line, confusing gesture or awkward recital of lines. However, there were some issues with the transition music skipping and even more issues with drunk people in the audience assuming that they were as funny as the performers.
(Pro tip: you’ll never be as funny as the performers. If you’re in the audience at any show, ever, and think for a single moment that you ought to yell things out while a performance is going on, please staple your mouth shut, for everyone’s benefit.)
Whatever issues came up, the performers handled them spectacularly. While it’s true that making fun of drunk people in the audience will make the rest of the audience laugh and generally egg the drunk people on, when their bad behavior didn’t stop, Ana’s Inner Goddess made it very clear that it was time to sit down and be quiet — without losing the humor. The audience went wild as the puppet turned and snapped, “If I wanted a comeback from you, I’d wipe it off your chin.”
But the show actually deviated from a lot of performances here, because the audience was given the chance to interact with the puppets. After intermission, Ana read off sex terms from a list while the audience had the opportunity to raise their hands and let her know exactly what those terms meant. Correct answers received a free condom as a prize.
“Fifty Shades of Felt” combined sexual humor, absurdity, excellent timing and edgy improvisational wit to make a show that is, as I wrote in my notes Saturday night, so worth seeing. If you’re not afraid of a few sex jokes, make sure to clear some time to go see this show.
“Fifty Shades of Felt” is playing at Playhouse on the Park on the first floor of the Viad Tower at Viad Way and Central Avenue through Feb. 21. Tickets are between $21 and $75 for VIP.
All Puppet Players’ next show will be “Puppet Wars,” based on “Star Wars,” playing May 15-30.
Contact the columnist at molly.bilker@asu.edu
