Produced by Crabgrass Puppet Theatre, The Day It Snowed Tortillas is a simple story about a husband and wife who have no money and end up finding a bag of gold. Two burglars originally buried the gold, and try to get it back from the couple, but are outsmarted by the wife; she uses her husband’s dimwittedness to her advantage, and makes him believe it snowed tortillas in order to make him less believable when asked if he’d seen the bag of gold.

Presented in the Ferst Centre, the stage is set up with a curtained off booth upstage (where puppets could be performed from below), and a short table in front of the booth. The top of the curtain had a palm tree placed in the middle, and a cactus either side. On the table, stage right, was a small house. 

The puppets consisted of rod puppets for those used above the curtain/booth, and table-top puppets for those used on the … table.  An armadillo and chicken also features in this play, and were rod puppets. All of the colours are bright, and what you would consider to be typical of Mexican designs.  - What makes this play more interesting is that the puppets used above the curtain/booth are smaller versions of the table-top ones. By doing this, they created a sense of scale and distance; the ones at the top seem further away than the ones on the table, which are physically closer to the audience.

When I realised that they were using two different scales for the puppets, I suddenly was reminded of all the shows I saw in South Korea at the Chuncheon Puppet Festival in ‘04. There, they seemed to play with scale that most people don’t seem to do in Western countries. It’s a nice relief to see, and it was done extremely well. It also added a very subtle - and quite literal - dimension to the performance.

The characters are fun, with lots of slapstick for audiences to enjoy; from puppets falling down holes to a palm tree that refuses to be chopped, to lots of silliness with tricking the husband and the burglars. The manipulation for the most part is excellent, but for a few moments where it’s not obvious that there’s a pregnant pause; it seemed a little strange when a character waits for something in silence (perhaps I wasn’t close enough to see a nuanced movement, as the set was a little too small for the size of the venue). 

There wasn’t much by way of sound, if I remember correctly, most of it was vocalisations done by the puppeteers. The burglars did sing, which seemed a little awkward and a bit like it was just an excuse to put in something musical for a children’s audience. Lighting was simple warm washes, which was effective for the content of the play. The puppeteers are seen throughout the show, and there was an interesting choice of wearing all black, plus black gloves; but no hood. At first it jars to see the ‘naked’ head against the black curtain of the booth, as if the heads are floating mid-air (well, not quite, but you know what I mean), but after a while you get used to it. 

To be honest, when I started watching this show, it didn’t really appeal to me. But after a while, it grew on me, and when I left, I found I’d really enjoyed it. There was simplicity to the show that you don’t often find, even though it’s quite a complicated performance to operate. 

(You can watch some of this play here)

I give The Day It Snowed Tortillas: