I was delighted to find Liz Christie’s cool Flickr photoset sequence of Men of Steel in full flight at the recent Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Men of Steel made its debut at Art for Puppet’s Sake, the production that showcased the work of the Victorian College of the Arts inaugural class of postgraduate puppetry students in 2004. It’s wildly raucous and messy: a funny, high energy piece of object theatre, by Hamish Fletcher, Tamara Rewse and Sam Routledge.
Men of Steel refers to the little cookie-cutter puppets whose only language is of cries and grunts and shrieks. They perform a miniature circus act of their own with eggs and various kitchen implements, out of which comes dough, out of which come little dough puppets.
— review in The Age
And there is also the giant cookie cutter and the broccoli forest! I saw Men of Steel at the One Van Puppetry Festival in Blackheath in 2005, and it was also on the bill at the Big West Festival last year.
Liz has some other fine photos. I love her backyard set as well – lorikeets, a beautiful grub, and other stunning macros.
Links updated 2015