Bill, operated by Dorothy James and Andy Manjuck, hosts a party to remember at HERE Arts center (photo by Richard Termine)
BILL’S 44th
HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 28, $35-$100
here.org
Bill’s 44th is the must-attend party of the summer, and everyone is invited. Although it looks like his friends, relatives, and colleagues have something else to do, their loss is our gain.
Bill is all prepared for his forty-fourth birthday. He puts out the hors d’oeuvres, makes the punch, and gets out the party hats. The music is flowing — it starts with Burt Bacharach’s bright and buoyant theme song from the comic 1967 James Bond film Casino Royale, performed by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass — and Bill is ready to celebrate.
He keeps checking the clock and the door, but as time passes, no one shows up.
There’s a knock at the front, but when he answers it, he sees only a small box on the floor all by itself, from his mother, who apparently has sent a package but will be skipping the festivities as well. Growing sadder by the second, Bill becomes even more dejected when his mother’s present breaks. Bill draws a happy face on a balloon, but, magically, the smile turns upside down into a frown.
Nothing is going right for poor Bill; we feel his pain, his loneliness, his disappointment. We’ve all been there at one point or another, desperate to make a connection with anyone, anything.
Oh, did I mention that Bill is a puppet?
The protagonist is a puppet with a bald head, empty eye sockets, bushy eyebrows, a thick black moustache, two long arms, and a paunchy stomach. He is operated by sound designer Andy Manjuck and puppet designer Dorothy James, who created the piece together; dressed all in black and wearing black masks over their mouths, James handles Bill’s right side, while Manjuck takes care of the left. They each have one arm in a sleeve of Bill’s sweater, using their other arm to move Bill’s head and torso. It takes only a few minutes to get used to the setup and believe that Bill is just another human being, trying to enjoy life and beat the ticking clock.
But with faith in people, trust in oneself, and a boundless imagination, even potential disasters can become moments to treasure.
Bill is afraid that no one is coming to his party in the ingenious Bill’s 44th (photo by Ben Wright Smith)
Running at HERE through July 28 as part of the Dream Music Puppetry Program, Bill’s 44th is a fifty-five-minute rollercoaster of emotions that will both break your heart and lift your spirits. There is no dialogue, evoking the silent films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in addition to Jacques Tati’s beloved 1950s and ’60s character Monsieur Hulot, who never speaks as he encounters unusual situations in the city, at the beach, and other places.
Eamon Fogarty’s playful score picks up where Bacharach left off, accompanied by M. Jordan Wiggins’s mood-enhancing lighting and Peter Russo, Joseph Silovsky, and Taryn Uhe’s props, which range from balloons and birthday cakes to an unforgettable carrot stick and a dazzling scene in miniature. Jon Riddleberger joins in by operating surprise puppets that are utterly delightful.
With Bill’s 44th — which next travels to the Edinburgh Fringe — Manjuck and James have delivered a marvelously inspired gift, an involving and infectious experience that explores the human condition in ingenious ways that, well, will turn that frown upside down.
This is one party you truly do not want to miss.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]