Nice profile of puppeteer extraordinaire Basil Twist in the new (April 15) issue of the New Yorker. The magazine did a “Talk of the Town” bit on Twist just a couple of years ago, but this is a full-blown article by Joan Acocella. Its hook is not a New York-based show Twist is working on but a production based on Stravinky’s ballet “Rite of Spring” the puppeteer is preparing for the Carolina Performing Arts Festival in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Twist has received impressive grants and support, and is one of the most acclaimed and influential artists in his field. He could presumably work whenever and wherever he wants. It’s noteworthy that throughout his career he’s balanced his New York work (Symphonie Fantastique, for instance) with projects he’s done out of town.
Here in Connecticut, for instance, Twist designed the puppets for the Long Wharf Theatre 2004 production of Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home (a co-production with Trinity Rep). This wasn’t a premiere, or a tour, or New York-bound. It was just a good, ambitious production which wanted the best life-sized puppets imaginable, so they asked Basil Twist and he said yes.
Twist’s work was also on view at the Yale Rep in 2010 for the world premiere of Rinne Groff’s Compulsion. The play is about novelist Meyer Levin attempting to adapt The Diary of Anne Frank for the stage. Anne Frank appears in Levin’s dreams in puppet form. The play is referenced in Acocella’s New Yorker article, not as a Rep show but from when it played at New York’s Public Theater.
Basil Twists also designed the puppets for the Mabou Mines show Peter & Wendy, which had a weeks-long run at the Yale Rep in 2007, and the Broadway musical The Addams Family, which just played the Shubert in New Haven.
I met Twist when he was in New Haven working on The Long Christmas Ride Home. Our interview was going OK, nothing spectacular, and he was clearly treating me like the sort of writer who probably couldn’t grasp the intricacies of what he does. So I made a point of mentioning that my father was a puppeteer who performed Greek tragedies with marionettes. At which point Twist’s entire demeanor changed, and he accepted me as a playmate. “Wanna see the puppets!?,” he beamed, and of course I did. He was so much more energized when showing off the puppets than he was just talking about them. I’ll never forget that twinkle in his eye; it almost distracted me from his skill in animated those gorgeous puppets.