Parents, along with their children, gathered on Sunday morning, September 28th, at Lenape Playground (Snake Park), at East 37th Street and Avenue U, to witness a spectacular, imaginative marionette performance.
Part of the continuing Marine Park Alliance’s (MPA) Just for Kids series, The Choose-Your-Own Adventures of Turtle Boy (TB) was hosted by puppeteer Emmanuel Elpenord. Although Elpenord helped TB shake his shell, it was the children who controlled the show.
“This TB piece was created of something that I thought would only be interesting or funny to me, and it turned out to be a crowd favorite,” Elpenord said. “So, I’ve been doing this, on and off, for the last two years now.”
TB was based on a puppet to help tell Haitian folk tales, specifically one about a turtle and a pigeon, as well as how stories with animals tend to be easier to produce for children’s theater.
The Turtle Boy Puppet Show follows the main character as attendees chose his antics, the setting of the story (garden or casino), his enemies (robots or Australian robots) and how he will escape with his life.
“Emmanuel did a really great job,” resident Viktorya Peters, who attended with her daughter, said. “I thought it was really engaging with the audience, and all the kids were laughing. I was amazed that the MPA could get him to come here for the community.”
The show had two performances, each with a different setting, characters and climax — but the same ending. In the final scene, TB said, “All’s well that ends shell” and even mentioned the myth of the World Turtle, in which the world is held up by four elephants who a larger turtle carries.
During the intermission, Elpenord demonstrated the mechanics of the double airplane controller, which controls TB, and allows for photographs to be taken with the turtle.
After the shows, the children participated in their own arts and crafts projects, creating their own shells.
“The feedback we’re getting from parents is that they would like more children’s activities here in this playground,” MPA board member Margot Perron said. “Which is wonderful, and we never had an artist so appropriate and with synergy with the turtle and the snake here. This was just a perfect match.”
