Chock full of whimsy

Kalan Sherrard

Witch-doctor or demi-urge, armed with a cog rattle, he’s a strange prophet in a strange mask that approaches the raft in his skiff. His mask and his sail decorated with a fascinating spiral- the symbol of hypnosis. The rag-tag wooden raft of survivors appear gullible and hapless. He’s invited aboard. They’ve let their guard down. He describes comets and cities and atom bombs. He has a way with plants.

The children who gather close around the raft to stand knee-deep in the shallows of the Hudson River know something about the man is wrong- like fish gone off- before the crew does, but the children must suffer the fate of all spectators.

Resembling a riverborn stage, when a wooden vessel adorned with shack and pilot’s quarters- or is it an outhouse- drifts to within a gangplank’s distance of the beach and is there made fast in the sand with rope and stake, a child would have to be a dull lightbulb indeed not to stand open-mouthed, transfixed, waiting to see what comes next. Even if it’s all a little frightening. But after all, the crew seems plucky.

Like a motley group of impossibly talented hobos, there’s been a few demonstrations of can-do spirit, inventiveness and physical dexterity by this point in the show, which maybe explains why these survivors of a future apocalypse- ramshackle, foolhardy, chock full of whimsy- are still floating.