“I don’t know why, but people like to see puppets swear and have sex,” says Andrew McNeal. “There’s a lot of vulgarity and curse words you shouldn’t say in public but can get away with if you have a sock puppet on your hand.”
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McNeal should know. He and his partners in Harvey Finklestein’s Institute of Whimsical, Fantastical, and Marvelous Puppet Masterage first came to relative fame last year with their production of Sock Puppet Showgirls, a profane 30-minute send-up of Paul Verhoeven’s famously bad 1995 film. The group originally intended to do a few free late-night performances of Showgirls–enacted by homemade sock puppets–for friends at Rogers Park’s Side Studio. But after positive reviews of the show (which included plenty of sex and lots of unscripted giggling) brought in sellout crowds, they extended the run and started charging admission. After five months Showgirls moved to the Noble Fool Theater’s Loop cabaret, where it ran for an additional two months. Their next production, The Branson Family Comedy Christian Cavalcade, was a critical bomb, but, says company member Stephanie Shaterian, “We’ve taken a lot of things we learned from Showgirls and Branson and have been able to progress.” Now they’re about to try their hand at a naughty Christmas show.
The job didn’t last, but the couples remained friends. They hatched the idea for Showgirls with Jolls while watching the 2002 Super Bowl. “I had talked about wanting to do a sock puppet show like Oedipus Rex or something,” says John. “But the more beer we drank, the crazier the ideas got.”
