Riveting ‘Puppetmaster’ Opens Circle Theatre

It’s 1950 Berlin, where everyone is trying to put World War II behind them. But there is no letting go for the paranoid shut-in Finkelbaum, in the return of the powerful Actors Alley production of Gilles Segal’s “The Puppetmaster of Lodz,” a worthy selection to inaugurate the 99-seat Circle Theatre at El Portal Center for the Arts.

Reprising his riveting performance, Joe Garcia breathes pathos, humor, megalomania and tragedy into the haunted Finkelbaum, who endlessly reenacts with handmade puppets the concentration camp experiences that robbed him of family, friends and even his beliefin God.

Insulated by his delusion that the war is still going on, Finkelbaum resists the overtures from a succession of visitors (played by the versatile Henry LeBlanc) trying to coax him from his hide-out.

The distraught concierge (less convincing Carol Sigurdson) and fellow camp survivor (sympathetic Tony C. Burton) complete the cast, though the succession of puppets make an increasingly creepy impression as characters in their own right.

Jeremiah Morris’ staging makes fine use of the intimate Circle Theatre, with a horseshoe seating configuration that thrusts Finkelbaum’s hell aggressively before the audience.

Good sight lines and acoustics plus high flexibility make this black-box space well-suited for planned proscenium, thrust and theater-in-the-round productions.

But as always, what counts most is what’s onstage. Plays like “Puppetmaster” are essential in preventing the horrors of the Holocaust from slipping into the comfort zone of the historical--as opposed to the remembered--past.

BE THERE

“The Puppetmaster of Lodz,” Circle Theatre, El Portal Center for the Arts, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Through March 12. $20. Ticket information: (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours.