Puppets Upstage Human Actors in a New Titus Andronicus

Mindy Leanse and Ross Hamman with

Lavinia in the Puppet Shakespeare

Players' Titus Andronicus.

In today's New York Times, Andy Webster reviews the Puppet Shakespeare Players' Titus Andronicus. The production mixes human actors and puppets, and Webster writes that the human actors are 

upstaged by the . . . puppets, designed by A. J. Coté, who plays Tamora’s lover, Aaron (here a boar).

These beings include a green, eye-patched Lucius (son of Titus), voiced by Drew Torkelson; Chiron, a garrulous creature with a New York accent inhabited by Shane Snider; and Demetrius, an impressively hulking blue beast with tusks, floor-length arms and a white Mohawk, operated by Tom Foran. 

Webster especially praises Mindy Leanse's Lavinia:

Lavinia may lose her hands and tongue, but Ms. Leanse turns her puppet, an innocent red countenance surrounded by curly blond locks, into a marvel of movement and guttural utterances who sticks up for herself.