Culturemart: the Ludicrous Trial of Mr P; Drum of the Waves of Horikawa January 17, 2007

From the Middle Ages through the early 20th century, animals were put on trial for causing death by a bite or a kick in the head. In 'The Ludicrous Trial of Mr. P' playwright Susan Yankowitz and puppet designer/director Jane Catherine Shaw use eleborate puppetry, masks and video to take the audience on a bizarre journey into the world of criminal prosecution where a dirty rat is, quite literally, a dirty rat. Loud, violent, transgressive and fueled by radical politics, Kabuki and 1970s punk were both unforgiving performance movements that captured the stories of social disorder. The Theater of a Two-headed Calf calls on both forms to take on 'Drum of the Waves of Horikawa,' a five-episode sage by Mozaemon Chikamatsu.