PUTNEY — On Thanksgiving weekend, Sandglass Theater honors the retiring of Eric Bass's award winning solo show, Autumn Portraits.
Sandglass' longest-touring piece will perform on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 24 and 25, at 7:30 p.m., for the last time. This show remains a staple of the Sandglass artistic vision and a meaningful influence in the lineage and art of puppetry globally.
According to a news release, “Autumn is a metaphor for that time of life when our thoughts turn inward, when we feel the loss of summer warmth.” In Autumn Portraits, five interwoven puppet “portraits” present a moment in one character's existence. Some are funny, some touching, some bizarre, and all speak to the human experience as only puppets can.
Bass's handcrafted puppets are characters in the “autumn” of their existence who share their stories in precise and evocative gestures as they meet their pasts, their selves, their deaths.
Autumn Portraits wears a proud and remarkable history. Since its creation in 1980, this celebrated solo performance has won awards in Australia, Hungary and a Citation of Excellence from the Union Internationale de la Marionette.
“One of the joys of life is feeling when it is the right time to let go, see things move on, and see things evolve. The Autumn Portraits pieces are moving on and evolving, and so am I. But we are going in different directions,” Bass says.