There are two cosmic mysteries at the core of “Puss in Boots,” which is playing at the New Victory Theater on 42nd Street: 1. How a drama critic allergic to cats, indeed born into a family of cat-haters (whose great-grandmother chased a stray kitten out of the house with a broom; one of his earliest memories) could be so enchanted by the tale of a mangy cat named Puss. 2. What Moises Kaufman does to turn everything with which he is involved – even a 1946 Spanish opera….told by puppets — into an intriguing, innovative AND accessible work of theater.
Kaufman came to fame 13 years ago as the writer (using only verbatim transcripts and letters) and director of “Gross Indecency,” about the trials of Oscar Wilde, which I was fortunate enough to stumble on in what is now the Barrow Street Theater. He made his Broadway debut seven years ago directing Doug Wright’s true-life play about a German transvestite antique collector who lived through both the Nazis and the Communists but turned out to be a secret informant. He followed that up last year as the author and director of “33 Variations,” a play about Beethoven starring Jane Fonda. Along with the company he co-founded, Tectonic Theater Project, he put together the Laramie Project as a play and then a film, talking to the residents of a town where Matthew Shepard had been crucified.
Kaufman is the director of “El gato con botas,” an opera by the little-known Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge, but he is only one of an army of talented artists behind this co-production of Gotham Chamber Opera, Tectonic Theater Project and Blind Summit Theatre, a British company founded to create puppetry for adult audiences, but obviously willing to entertain children as well (age 8 or older).
Eleven opera singers (Ginger Costa-Jackson sings the cat’s part), eight puppeteers (three assigned to Puss), 13 orchestra musicians and countless puppets – the rabbits alone multiply too rapidly to keep track of — are needed to put on stage the simple 70-minute tale of a wily cat who is inherited by a poor, lonely miller. The miller wants to roast his inheritance and make the cat’s coat into a hat. To save his skin and prove his worth, Puss promises his new master that he will provide him with untold wealth and the love of a beautiful woman. 
And that’s exactly what he does, dressed in cape, hat and (of course) boots, and armed with a sword – mesmerizing those rabbits, winning over a king and a princess, outwitting an ogre. There are shades of Shrek in some of the amusing effects – the king is something of a little person, half man, half puppet. But there are benefits to live puppetry that animation can’t match; watch while the giant ogre assembles itself and then reconstitutes as a lion and a bird and a rat. It’s a magic ogre, you see. But all of “Puss in Boots” is magical.
The show, which is playing until October 10th, has Spanish-language, English-language, and sign-interpreted performances, all with super-titles.
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Jonathan Mandell
Jonathan Mandell, who tweets as New York Theater, is a native New Yorker and third-generation journalist with diverse experience on newspapers, magazines and websites.He has ...
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