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Newer PostOlder PostT U E S D AY, F E B R U A RY 2 1 , 2 0 0 6A Four Hour Puppet Show Version Of "ParadiseLost?"Wallace Shawn and his brother Allen are promoting their opera TheMusic Teacher, a work they collaborated on more than 20 years agoand finally being mounted. Shawn is always funny, but the descriptionof their childhood makes it sound like a New Yorker caricature come tolife, a Salinger-esque world of little boys doing elaborate puppet showsthat make Wes Anderson's movies seem tame in comparison. As kids,they did a four hour version of Paradise Lost for their father WilliamShawn (editor of The New Yorker of course) and his famous friends,with a break for dinner. And I couldn't stop laughing over this story:When it came to their productions, the older brother would takecharge. "Do we butt heads?" Allen asked rhetorically. "We bothhave, in a funny way, big egos. But we meet each other halfway."He does remember though, when he was 10 and Wallace was 15,that "we'd be doing a puppet show about Patrice Lumumba inthe Congo, say, and we would often have very wonderfuldiscussions about the story. At that point I'd be following Wall'slead."A 10 year old and a 15 year old doing a puppet show about Lumumba?My God, if you put it in a movie, no one would believe it. The rest of thearticle is just as entertaining.POSTED BY MICHAEL IN NEW YORK AT
9:30 AM

1 C O M M E N T S :Anonymous said...What a bizarre childhood. And hilarious.11:30 AM
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