‘Cinderella’ & ‘Charlie’:

A Fable in Two Parts

‘Cinderella' and 'Charlie’: A Fable in Two Parts, is the latest large-scale puppet production by New Orleans-based company The Mudlark Puppeteers. Told through large scale shadows, giant puppetry, music and marionettes, ‘Cinderella' and 'Charlie' are companion accounts of an intersecting tale. Together they outline the tragedy of two families from parallel worlds whose lives and destinies intertwine through a misbegotten love; setting in motion the dual blessings and burdens of legacy. In 'Cinderella,' a young woman invites the viewer to wander with the ghosts of her mother's romantic past. We meet Charlie and all the possibility he represents, daring the world to dream. In 'Charlie,' the ghosts of ‘Cinderella’ reveal a life all of their own. The viewer is invited into Charlie’s world, where the cost of dreaming is dire and the mantle of the storyteller is sacred and sometimes cruel. When the ways to tell a story are as limitless as there are ways to live it, sometimes it is simplicity which eludes our understanding. Borrowing from contemporary Queer theory and traditional Japanese storytelling, this piece is an act of sincerity, steeped in an intersectional understanding of the world and what is real.