HAND TO GOD by Robert Askins. Directed by Jarrad West. ACT Hub. To December 20. 

Photos Janelle McMenamin and Michael Moore

Here’s a wild pre Christmas revival of this somewhat mad play that is a kind of dark Sesame Street. It will be very much to some people’s off-beat festive season tastes.

Awkwardly trendy Pastor Greg (Lachlan Ruffy) has a puppet workshop running at the church, where harried divorcee Margery (Amy Kowalczuk ) is training a few young people in the art of using puppetry to tell religious stories. These include the self assured Jessica (Meaghan Stewart) and the rather feral Timmy (William Allington). Her son Jason (Michael Cooper) is working with a puppet called Tyrone. 

And Tyrone is the one to watch as he changes gradually from mild and meek to savage with a mouth full of teeth and an attitude and  vocabulary to match. Cooper is both increasingly deranged puppet and increasingly cowed puppeteer with an admirable dexterity in switching from one to another. 

It’s certainly an adult horror play with some drive and humour and a heap of sexuality. 

But apart from Cooper, this is a revival with a different cast and it could use a little more certainty and a little less thrashing around. I seem to remember the 2022 production as having more clarity and a less frenetic approach. 

Nonetheless it’s a piece to see. The whole notion of puppets who are maybe more than wood and cloth is always a haunting one. 

ALANNA MACLEAN