Arts & Entertainment A weekly guide to music, theater, art, movies and more, edited by Rebecca Wallace
Left: The shadow box “Shakespeare Writes A Play,” complete with crinkly-paper hair. Below left: In “Theater in Brazil in the 1500s,” the puppets have clay bodies and wiry legs. Below: Artist Raquel Coelho in her exhibition.
A DOZEN
Scenes from the history of theater come alive in artist’s fanciful shadow boxes
VIGNETTES
LÞÊ,iLiVV>Ê7> >ViÊUÊ« Ì }À>« ÃÊLÞÊ6 Û > Ê7 } t would be tough to recount the entire sus’ cart wheels, they may be intrigued history of world theater in 12 shadow to learn more about the theater. boxes, but artist Raquel Coelho does The Brazilian artist, who teaches in a pretty good job hitting the high- San Jose State University’s animation/ lights. illustration program, also creates kids’ Inside handmade redwood frames, books. Illustrations of the “Teatro” boxes Coelho’s dioramas depict crayon-colored were published as a book in Brazil, as scenes from theater traditions in Japan, part of a series that also includes the hisGreece, India and other lands. Perky clay tory of animation and music. puppets take center stage, orating and First Coelho wrote the books, then dedancing. It’s like a festival of visual-art signed them. She then created the boxes one-acts. and illustrations. It’s all done in a cheerAnd the Bard gets a box to himself. In ful, approachable style. At the CSMA “Shakespeare Writes A Play,” the puppet opening reception last Friday, Coelho told playwright has a body made from elegant a crowd she sees the works as “rustic, not wine-colored corduroy and hair of crin- perfectionist,” almost improvisational. kly paper. He grasps a giant quill. Clearly delighted to see all the shadow The details aren’t just whimsy. In the boxes together again in a gallery, she said: dozen shadow boxes now on display at “Here’s my family. My 12 kids!” the Community School of Music and The crowd seemed pleased, too. One Arts in Mountain View, Coelho hopes to visitor, John Reiland, praised the work for capture the fleeting attention of children. its “folkloric quality.” Once they zero in on the doll eyes of the In creating the shadow boxes, Coelho medieval actors in the “Middle Ages” said, she started by thinking about her box or the pennies that serve as Diony- favorite aspects of theater: the sense of
I
Page 22ÊUÊ iLÀÕ>ÀÞÊ£ ]ÊÓä£äÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii Þ