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Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers
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Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers, from left to right, Brian Torbek, Robin (Torbeck) Erlandsen and Erik Torbeck.[/caption]
By Annette Hinkle
Head for the hills! Big Bad Bart and his gang of bandits are riding into town on Saturday morning.
The bad guys will be holed up at the Bay Street Theater. But don’t fret, Little Chucky will be there to protect you with his big boy bravery… and a fistful of bananas.
That, in a nutshell (or rather a banana skin) is the plot of “The Legend of the Banana Kid,” a puppet show that will be hosted on the Bay Street stage by Goat on a Boat Puppet Theater and performed by the Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers.
The Bar Harbor-based puppeteers are a family troupe comprised of brothers Erik and Brian Torbeck and sister Robin Erlandsen. This show is just one of many the trio has created and taken to venues around the country since their founding in 2000. While “The Legend of the Banana Kid” is a western-themed puppet show populated by bad guys who can be kind of nasty, it is designed for kids as young as 4, so there are no guns in the show.
Bananas? Well, that’s another story.
“To write this show, I ended up watching old westerns — Clint Eastwood movies and ‘Blazing Saddles’ to get a sense of that genre,” explains Erik Torbek. “Ours is set in modern day. While watching an old western on TV a kid falls asleep and has a dream he’s a western hero.”
“We didn’t want any guns in the show, so the Banana Kid uses bananas to intimidate outlaws,” he adds. “That was how we decided to handle it. Even though it's a banana it still represents a weapon, but no one’s getting shot here. We’re going on the legend behind him.”
The main antagonists in the show, of course, are a gang of bully outlaws who enjoy harassing the residents of the small town where Little Chucky lives. But Mr. Torbek notes that even Big Bad Bart isn’t all that bad.
“We kind of ease kids into the bad characters,” says Mr. Torbek. “All our shows are comedies, really. So we try to make him a little frightening to have drama, but there’s enough comedy and bumbling characters that kids laugh at. We have learned where that line is.”
“Kids laugh whenever a puppet falls down,” he continues. “There’s enough physical comedy for young kids and some stuff for adults. Our ideal audience is when kids, parents and grandparents are all enjoying themselves.”
The Torbeks grew up near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and though Mr. Torbek remembers creating puppet shows with his siblings when the were young, making a living at it wasn’t exactly a defined career objective when he went off to college.
But college was where Mr. Torbek developed his passion for the puppet arts — the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, to be precise. That’s where Mr. Torbek enrolled in a puppetry class with well-known puppeteers Andrew and Bonnie Periale just for the fun of it.
“I wanted to make a Muppet, and they encouraged it. I took apart stuffed animals to figure it out,” says Mr. Torbek who even used puppets as the stars of his thesis film.
After college, with puppets fresh on the brain, Mr. Torbek enlisted the help of brother Brian, and a year later, sister Robin, to create puppet shows for a summer renaissance fair near their childhood home in Pennsylvania.
But the idea of pursuing puppetry as a profession didn’t gel until after all three Torbeks had finished college and moved to Bar Harbor. There, they created a show, performed it an old vaudeville theater and were soon asked by local teachers to perform at local schools.
The Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers were born.
“It was three years before we had enough work to sustain it,” says Mr. Torbek who is now 45, while brother Brian is 44 and Robin is 39. “I think I was 29 when I started. We’ve been doing this 16 years.”
“A lot of people don’t realize our age. If you hear about two brothers and a sister traveling as a puppet show, you think they’d be a lot younger.”
But as Mr. Torbek has come to realize, working with puppets and children has a way of keeping anyone young.
“Five hundred kids at a show — that’s a lot of energy coming back at you,” he says.
Over the years, each of the siblings has fallen naturally into a specific role related to the puppet business.
“I do most of the writing of the plays, but they change as we run through them and all of us throw ideas in,” says Mr. Torkbek. “When we started, I taught my brother how to build puppets, but he’s surpassed me now. My sister has fallen into the business side of things. She handles booking and coordination of whatever’s going on, and we all perform.”
Next up for the Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers is something they haven’t yet attempted.
“The newest show we’re doing is a dinosaur musical,” explains Mr. Torbek. “I want that Broadway musical feel. It has 12 musical numbers and dances with brontosauruses.”
Unlike a full scale Broadway musical with a singing and dancing cast, creating one with puppets is a lot more economical.
“You don’t have to house and feed them, organize actors or build a big set,” says Mr. Torbek.
When asked if he and his siblings have ever considered creating adult-centric or topical puppet shows based on current events, Mr. Torbek explains that initially, that was their focus, and even with current shows, there is “wink and a nod” style humor for the older members of the audience.
But he’s learned to never discount the cleverness of the younger audience members as well.
“I’ve often found after a show when we come out and talk to kids, they’re more sophisticated than you realize,” he says. “We try not to talk down to them.”
With the presidential election recently behind us, does Mr. Torbek think that political material will ever work its way into one of their shows?
“I think Trump stuff will be coming out,” he admits. “He is very puppety.”
Goat on a Boat Puppet Theater presents “The Legend of the Banana Kid” by the Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers. Saturday, November 26 at 11 a.m. Bay Street Theater, Long Wharf, Sag Harbor. Tickets $15 to $25. (631) 725-9500.
gavinmenu on Nov 22, 2016