Pinochet: A Carnival
Watching the news one can’t always tell which are the heroes and which are the monsters. Ethnic Albanians disappear into mass graves or are herded into refugee camps while we drop bombs on Kosovo. The United States mourns the victims and demonizes the murderers in Littleton, Colorado. And there are hints of hidden motivations and other undisclosed information behind the headlines.
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Imagining an Americanized Augusto Pinochet, Oobleck takes on Chile’s notorious dictator in Pinochet: A Carnival. Now under house arrest in a mansion outside London pending trial for murder and torture, Pinochet was backed by the U.S. government in Chile for at least 15 years (he ruled from 1973 to 1988). U.S. operatives trained his troops in torture techniques and also assisted in tracking rebels down, according to a recently declassified document quoted in Oobleck’s program. Their carnival–or freak show–imagines General Pinochet as a clown monster, still reeking of privilege and protection, on a madcap journey through his mostly comfortable exile, tracing his route to the mansion-prison from the injury that led him to a London hospital to the indecisive trial a few months ago that denied him immunity but offered no clear guidelines for dealing with the charges against him.
But the real star of the show is writer Dave Bye-Bye, who also plays Judge Punch, the puppet who tries Pinochet (for a parking ticket and crimes against humanity) after Judy pummels him with a sausage into an appropriate judicial stupor. Collaborating with other Oobleck members to develop the play, Bye-Bye has a campy pop-culture sensibility that makes each scene a surprise. You never know who or what will be sent up: the ensemble uses the effusive foolishness of Roberto Benigni’s Academy Awards performance as a clever footnote to its depictions of Clinton’s childish hedonism, Margaret Thatcher’s titanic capitalism, and Pinochet’s indifference to everyone’s welfare but his own.
