'Lowdown Wax' works wonderfully

FORT WORTH -- Remember how creative and engaging music videos used to be?

Now imagine someone doing that sort of thing live on stage, and you have a bit of an idea of what to expect if you see Lowdown Wax, part of the Cowtown Puppetry Festival at Hip Pocket Theatre.

Lake Simons, daughter of Hip Pocket founders Johnny and Diane Simons, created and directed the show. It features the music of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, a group that specializes in an uncategorizable melange of retro hot jazz and swing that often recalls the music of the Great Depression.

A cast of 11 silent performers provides visual responses to several Zippers numbers, sometimes literally and sometimes abstractly, with the aid of props -- suits, pillows shaped as instruments, stuffed animals and cutouts, among other items -- and puppets.

And, as daunting a task as this enterprise is, it works wonderfully overall. The 55-minute show moves briskly through its dozen songs (all from the 1998 album Perennial Favorites) and uses an impressive variety of approaches to visualize the recorded music. Like her source material, Lake Simons maintains a charming and energetic sense of fun throughout the segments.

Among the bits that work best are the numbers employing shadow puppets, played out in a theater that, like most of the show's clever framing devices, is created spontaneously by the players. There are also some over-size puppets that make some of the pieces stand out, such as the huge set of lips and eyes that mime one of the tunes. And an especially lovely presentation of one of the few slow songs sails on the simple beauty of a few umbrellas and some thoughtful and graceful choreography.

There are some flaws. Lake Simons' definition of puppetry often includes highly visible actors wrestling with some inanimate object. On the whole, though, this well-designed and executed show surprises as often as it delights.