Dead as a Dodo . . . and thoroughly enchanting *****

Baruch Performing Arts Center, to 2/9/25

When it comes to puppetry, theatre-lovers tend to fall into two camps: avidly pro or averse. Allergic to preciosity, I gravitate toward the latter attitude but fell hard for this eco-fable devised by the bi-continental (U.S. and Norway) “visual theatre” company Wakka Wakka. At the outset, the stage is coal-dark, glittery. We can barely make out two scrawny little skeletal figures, The Boy and Dodo, grubbing in the primordial muck for replacement bones. The bodies are so far gone that they hardly quality as such, but the two are determined to reconstitute themselves. They enjoy a teasing, fond relationship that’s convincingly childlike. It might take you a while to discern the manipulators: black-clad humans (eight in all) who make up an amorphous blob. Their presence barely registers at first: just bits of pink (eyelids) glinting through their shrouds. For whole stretches at a time, hints of a human touch fade into the background, as the plot evolves into a great murky mystery/adventure. Refusing to crumble into nothingness, the buddies embark on a quest through the underworld in search of borrowable limbs. They meet peculiar characters along the way: for example, a fiendish little Pippi Longstockingish princess determined to steal their hard-won bones, a singing gondolier (Charon as paisan), a Moby-sized aquatic helpmeet. It’s widely acknowledged that human hegemony is bumping off thousands of species a year. In devising this cautionary tale, the company cites influences as disparate as Dante’s Inferno and “old Silly Symphonies cartoons.” The whole holds together brilliantly, and the child in you – along with any tagalongs seven and up – will be thoroughly entranced.