Kyle Loven’s Loss Machine Opens a Cabinet of Curiosities at OtB

There is an inherent foreboding in attending a production called Loss Machine. It speaks of tragedy, mourning, and struggle. It provides a framing attitude, an expectation of impending depletion.

But the ingenious performing objects that populate Kyle Loven’s Loss Machine, through Monday at On The Boards (tickets — it’s sold out but you can ask for the wait list), quickly overcome foreboding with curiosity. The result is a charming and sometimes moving meditation on loss. The sorrow-averse will be relieved to know that this meditation also includes the moments before and after loss, including the return to stasis.

Loss Machine is powered by a plot in which a collection of unrelated characters play out scenes centering on loss. Though individual episodes have conflict and resolution there’s little action or context between characters and ideas. Loss Machine isn’t quite allegory but the ideas take prominence. Don’t come looking for easy storytelling; Loss Machine asks its audience to work. Engaging the audience in this way is the key to its success.

Loven’s narrative tools are strong, finely honed, and intricately layered. He establishes threads in one scene and takes them to surprising places in the next. Other motifs are dropped early only to return later.

This being puppetry, the narrative is expressed primarily through structure and action. The dominant structure is that of the set: a collection of boxes and contraptions full of reveals and traps set off by removing barriers and illuminating scrims. The puppets themselves tend to be simple and depend more on performance than structure. Often a bare hand acts as a puppet, not playing anything but itself, yet complete in itself so that it seems disembodied.

More sculptural puppets range from detailed, natural creatures to objects given life, including a series of tissues. In between are puppets made of identifiable objects. A scurrying bug is made from a collection of sunglasses. A purse becomes an old lady by donning a pair of glasses and pearls before gorging on butterscotch candies.

There are a few slow patches in the performance when the audience grasps the character, situation, and idea long before Loven is done playing it out but these are the exceptions. Mostly the work of figuring out what’s going on is close enough to the promise of revelation that the show holds our attention. The scale is small—most puppets are around six inches overall—but On The Boards’ Studio Theatre is a good fit for the show. A couple of the bits achieve real, honest pathos including a scene with a fledgling in a forest fire. Occasional glimpses of Loven’s face through the machine expose striking vulnerability as he pours emotional energy into a performing object.

Loss Machine wouldn’t be nearly so effective without the careful synchronization of sound and movement. Loven provides voices for characters and a few mouth sounds but the importance of Paurl O. Walsh’s compositions cannot be overstated, since much of the show is thoroughly underscored. The contrast of a simple, innocent tune with foreboding percussion is especially effective in an overly long sequence involving a hand-puppet’s search for its cat.

In its final moments Loss Machine disappears into near darkness. The audience is left with nothing but a few glimmering lights. Reluctant to let go of those hopeful flames we might remain still with this machine all evening, but this is theatre and so someone willfully begins to applaud. We give away that stillness and go home.