Bonjour! Parlez-vous francais? No? Oui? Peut-être un peu? No matter! You will have a glorious good time at Alex and Olmsted’s latest fabrication— Happy Birthday, Mon Ami playing now through December 8th 2024 at Baltimore Theatre Project. Charming, wholesome family fun put together by these majestic creators of puppets, this delightful experience, reminiscent of a proper Punch&Judy show on Brighton Beach with hints of panto and improv thrown right in the mix is a charming outing for the whole family this chilly weekend in December. Don’t worry, it’s not too cheesy…well…except for all those ripe puns that just blossom when Jacques and Colette travel to the Fromagerie but brie-lieve me, they’re such gouda puns, you’ll laugh through your groans.
Hand-crafted, every element you see for Happy Birthday, Mon Ami is lovingly made by Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas (of Alex and Olmsted). The puppet booth, which is a magical entity all its own with the hand-painted backdrops to showcase the three different locations experience during the 60-minute journey around Paris, and all of its fantastical trappings— like the Murphey Bed that becomes such a high-farce component of the show, you’ll giggle your head right off! There’s even a hand-cranked display sign that shows the name of the two different shops— Patisserie & Fromagerie— as well as the show’s title on its other two sides. The detailing of the booth is exquisite. The detailing of the puppets themselves divine.
There are hand puppets and stick puppets— personal favorite is the dancing, twirling frog (who perhaps did a bit more jumping and dancing at this production because of the very spirited audience in the front row egging him on, but that’s the beauty not only of live theatre but of the masterful work that Vernon and Thomas are able to create with their sublime improvisational skills and slick adaptability to incorporate audience engagement into the narrative journey of the show.) Mere words won’t do these glorious old-world creations justice but with five hand puppets (all voiced by Vernon except for the Chef at the Patisserie, who is voiced by Thomas…using a reed in her mouth to make him completely incomprehensible, which adds to the humor of the scene!) at leat two stick puppets and a good half-dozen or more little puppet-prop accessories, audiences from age six to 106 are in for a real delight!
The elements of a traditional British puppet show— Punch&Judy style where the puppets are tackling one another, slapping up on one another, or having some other whimsical silly physical thing happen to them— are fitted flawlessly into the performance and the audience spends nearly the whole of the 60-minute experience giggling along. Vernon and Thomas have a crafty script, allowing much leeway for improvisational moments with the audience. The callback jokes— between the Murphey Bed and the “Oh, sorry, I did not see you there”— are comedic genius at their finest, pure and simple, giving the audience a great deal to chuckle over as the story progresses.
Vernon, who manipulates all of the puppets (save for one, can you stealthily detect which puppet is being operated by Sarah Olmsted Thomas? She’s so clever in how she handles it, you may not catch it, but see if you can!), lives primarily inside the Puppet Theatre Booth for the duration of the show. And he comes complete with varying accents, patois, cadences and deliveries for each of the different puppet characters that he displays. And this includes his “Fwheep!” sound-effect for whenever a puppet character has to disappear out of sight to retrieve something. Thomas, who plays the fiancé Colette, stays outside the Puppet Theatre Booth, interacting as a full-sized human with these wondrous creations, all while playing her squeezebox for transition music, added sound effects, and little touches of humor (like in those scenes with the Murphey Bed, which are simply too humorous to describe with any accuracy!) The puppets each have their own unique styles for ‘costumes’ and so too does Olmsted, wearing a houndstooth skirt, a vertical black and white striped top, a black and white polka-dot neckerchief, an all-black beret, and black-and-cream-square-stripe-patterned heels. She is the epitome of the stereotype of French culture and it’s delightful to watch her interactions with the puppets. Olmsted also gets to perform her sad clown routine, which is a beautifully hilarious moments for the older members of the audience.
The working chemistry between Vernon and Thomas is sweet and sublime. The pair have a synchronicity that is utterly out of this world, creating visual and auditory magic on stage with their puppetry. It’s experiencing and reliving nostalgia and childhood— even if you never saw a puppet show growing up or never got to see one of these dazzling, fabulous Puppet Booth Theatre contraptions or a Punch&Judy show— the sense of fondness, recollection of joyful simplicity, and utter magic happening right before your eyes is the evocation of spending an hour with these two talented individuals and their perfectly plucky puppets. Praises must be lauded across the board for the pair when it comes to the little clever nods all throughout the script— particularly the whole Fromagerie scene. It’s very gouda. And you cheddar believe that it doesn’t stink…unlike that cheese the Cheesemonger is peddling…Vernon and Thomas have you so invested in the experience, when they whiff the block of stinky, stinky French cheese in the general direction of the audience, several members, myself included were momentarily convinced they could smell a pungent odor!
It’s brilliance and beauty and joyful nostalgia wrapped up in one charming production of perfect puppetry and old-world grace. Simple, stunning, and the uplifting experience everyone needs nowadays, Happy Birthday. Mon Ami is extraordinary. Don’t miss this opportunity to see beauty, grace, and giddiness in live-time inside a marvelous Puppet Booth Theatre!
Running Time: Approximately 60 minutes with no intermission
Happy Birthday, Mon Ami Plays through December 8th 2024 with Alex and Olmsted, a resident artist theatre company at at Baltimore Theatre Project located at— 45 W. Preston Street in Baltimore, MD. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 410-752-8558 or by purchasing them in advance online
