The Traveler

The Traveler is a trilogy of ghost stories that follow vagabonds on the road between “here” and “there,” confronting forces that hold them back in their journey. It opens with The Road, an adaptation of Richard Middleton’s On the Brighton Road (1911), in which a tramp awakens on a snow-covered road, wondering how he got there. A young boy that might have the answer he seeks soon joins him. In the second tale, William Yeats’s Purgatory (1922), a desperate father tries to redeem himself and his son by ending the cycle of transgression that has defined their lives. The final tale, K, was written for Dramaton Theater by Enma Ito, Artistic Director of Fantoma Theater Company of Osaka, Japan, and translated by Shima Ushiba. The faceless ghost of a painter and a nameless street-wise alley cat help each other awaken their identities in a lonely world. Dramaton Theater uses a minimalist design with an original style of puppetry and an evocative soundscape, transforming the stage into a threshold between life and the beyond. The Traveler is presented as part of the Third Annual Voices 4 Vision Puppet Festival.