Puppeteers Relish a Life With Strings Attached

Minutes before show time, Laurie Olin of The Puppets & Players Little Theater is setting up scenery, ensuring the strings of the show’s 20 marionettes aren’t tangled--and changing her 14-month-old son’s diaper.

“If there’s ever been a child born to show biz, he’s the one,” Olin says. “He’s been on the road with us every place . . . . Gypsy life always fascinated me when I was a kid. A footloose and fancy-free life. Now I’m in it, I realize a gypsy life is a lot of hard work.”

The 39-year-old Olin and her husband and partner Gil Olin, 42, go through a similar ritual behind the scenes of their portable stage sandwiched between the petting zoo and railroad tracks before each of their three daily shows during the Ventura County Fair’s 12-day run. The couple may be Ethan’s mother and father, but this is no mom-and-pop operation.

The puppeteers’ elaborately designed 24-foot-long and 10-foot-high stage sports crimson curtains, intricate bas-relief, balconies and a bubble machine.

The sets for the fully choreographed production--based upon the ditty “Puff the Magic Dragon”--were designed by Laurie Olin’s retired father, who also designed sets based on such movies as “Ghostbusters” and “Paint Your Wagon.”

The lovingly detailed hand-made marionettes used in the 30-minute show are up to 3 feet long and can take Laurie Olin several months to build in the garage of the couple’s west Los Angeles home.

When the performance finally begins, the production boasts a hip octopus with dreadlocks called Rastapus, a chorus of clams singing backup on the Beatles’ song “Octopus’ Garden,” a smoke-blowing dragon and an allegorical plot about a search for stolen treasure that symbolizes the power of imagination.

“She makes the marionettes and I do the stories,” said Gil Olin, who spent 1 1/2 years developing the current production. “That way we don’t kill each other.”

The puppet show is part of the fair’s calculated effort to appeal to the younger set. One-third of fair-goers--and as many as half of the crowd on Friday’s Youth Day--are 12 or younger, fair officials estimate. A slate of special events that includes balloon sculptures and a scavenger hunt attracts hordes of kids on Youth Day.

“It means more kids than you’ve ever seen in one place in your whole life,” says fair spokeswoman Terri Raley. “I think the people under 12 and over 65 enjoy the fair more than anybody.”

Peering out from behind the puppet stage, the Olins can see the crowd, young and old, filling up the temporary seats at the grassy Children’s Dell. The couple share a cramped 8-by-3-foot backstage space.

“That’s our dressing room, baby feeding area, snack area-slash-puppet stage,” Gil Olin said.

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Mouthing the taped dialogue and songs while virtually acting out the puppets’ actions behind the scenes, the couple must communicate their measured movements to each other to avoid a potential show-stopping entanglement. At times, each puppeteer manipulates two marionettes simultaneously.

It’s hot, sweaty work that, to complicate matters, includes several scene changes and even costume changes for Gil Olin, who periodically dashes out the stage door to interact with the marionettes and audience.

Despite Ethan bursting into tears immediately before the curtain rises, a freight train thundering by mid-song and a child dashing from the audience in a futile attempt to snare a bubble, there are no serious mishaps in this particular performance.

“I liked the dragon,” says blond-haired Lauren Sanders, 5, of Camarillo, who sits mesmerized on the knee of 62-year-old grandfather Eldon Mrstik. Together, they sang during the “Puff the Magic Dragon” finale.

The Olins say performing with marionettes is as alluring to them as their young audience.

“It’s bringing a kid into a miniature world of their own they can relate to,” Laurie Olin said. “You get into this world where you’re a kid [too]. It’s a magical world. There’s just something about controlling a little character.”

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Former San Francisco housemates who met in a drama stage fighting class, the Olins have performed with their little theater for about six years. Laurie Olin dreamed of doing such work as a child, but had to push her theatrically-trained, actor-partner into puppetry.

The couple travel incessantly, performing at such venues as the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and San Diego’s Sea World. This is their fourth appearance at the Ventura County Fair.

They eventually hope to cut back on the traveling and open a permanent puppet theater in the Southland. Gil Olin, true to his classical training, dreams of staging such puppet productions as Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Whether they can fit brothers and sisters for Ethan into the picture is more problematic.

“The theater is like a big baby,” Laurie Olin said, exchanging glances with her husband, “with constant attention and repair [required] to keep it fresh-looking. So having another baby, I don’t know . . .”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

FYI

The Puppets & Players Little Theater performs at 12:30, 2:30 and 5:30 p.m. daily through Aug. 25.

* EVENTS: B2