PLASTIC BAG STORE PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS

PROLOUGE

The Plastic Bag Store opens 5-10 minutes before showtime. Audience members wander around and explore the grocery store installation. Canned muzak is playing quietly. Five PBS employees (puppeteers) are working on various store related tasks, stocking the shelves, picking through produce etc.

Here is some rough B roll of people checking out the store

There are occasional announcements via the intercom “Attn Plastic Bag Store shoppers be sure to check out….” After several announcements that grow more and more bizarre, the intercom announces “places” and the cast begins transforming the store into a “theater” The bakery table and produce stands turn into seating and several boxes are unstacked and handed out to the audience to sit on.

Here is a short clip of some of the set transforming:

Once everyone is seated the intercom announces ACT 1 and a large shelf is opened to reveal a shadow screen. ( wish I had footage of this but I do not)

ACT I: THE ANCIENT PAST

This 8 minute section presented in shadow puppets that look like Black Figure Greek pottery, tells a made up history of a man who invents a single-use disposable vase. The discarded vases end up polluting the ocean. People of the village eventually see the error of their ways and decide to warn the people of the future by painting their story on to the vases so that nobody will ever, ever, ever, ever …… make the same mistake again.

The shadow puppet screen is roughly 12’ wide and 8’ tall. The backgrounds are digitally projected.

Here is a short clip from dress rehearsal:

The shadow play ends and the puppeteers emerge from behind the screen and begin stacking and unstacking boxes in a choreographed manner. They roll out and unfold a shelf transforming it into a table. They stack boxes on the table and remove them simultaneously magicly revealing a 24” bunraku puppet and two columns.

Here is a clip of that transition:

ACT II: THE PRESENT DAY

HELEN is a custodian in a museum who admires the creations of the ancient past (including a vase from Act I) and disparages the disposable plastic creations of her own time. She realizes that a plastic bottle, because it doesn't decompose, will last longer than a vase and that someday it might be discovered by someone in the future. So she scribbles a message to the future on the back of a receipt and puts in a bottle, ties it up in a plastic bag and drops it into the trash, essentially sending it into the future.

HELENS whole world takes place on a table that is 2’ deep and 8’ long. Cardboard sets and props enter and exit and sometimes give the impression that she is moving trough the city or the museum.

Here are some clips from ACT II dress rehearsal, this is almost the entire act minus one short mopping moment:

After HELEN drops her plastic bag into the trash there is an 8 min cardboard animation that tracks her bag from the preset day to the far off future.

Here is it is in its entirety:

As the movie ends the row of freezer cases begins to glow and pulse. They slowly drift away to reveal a plastic bag ice cave. More shelves are unfolded to create a long table. Here is a video of that transition:

ACT III: THE FAR OF FUTURE

It is the far off frozen future and we meet KIRKTD who is living alone at an outpost. He is fishing for jellyfish when, by surprise, he pulls HELEN’s plastic bag from below the ice. He takes it home to investigate. He is baffled by the objects he has never seen before though they are all familiar to us.

Her message is pulled from the bottle but all of the text is completely faded except for at the bottom the receipt where it says “Most Valued Customer” He concludes that he has discovered the possessions of the most valued practitioner of the ancient customs. He finds more item and eventually makes a journey below the ice and discovers the remnants of a grocery store stocked with plastic items which he calls “The Temple to the Most Valued Customer”

Here is ACT III almost in its entirety from a dress rehearsal:

EPILOGUE: MUSEUM OF THE MOST VALUED COSTMER

The audience is given a guided tour of the Museum of the Most Valued Customer ( a room that has been hidden until this moment) in which all of our trash is on display and its function is completely misinterpreted. The tour conclude with an unveiling of a diorama of the temple containing the puppeteers frozen as if made of wax.

Here are some clips from the museum, some from during the show some from people wandering after the show. For the film Tyler would be giving a guided tour directly to the camera.