Joan Acocella: Lee Breuer's "La Divina Caricatura," at La Mama: The New Yorker Since the nineteen-sixties and seventies, New York's experimental-theatre scene has toned down its wild-man character, but Lee Breuer, who, at seventy-six, is the grand old man of the movement, still works with the primary materials of mid-century theatrical modernism: mixed media, puppetry, irrationality, anachronism, miscellany, transgression, politics, and - very important in Breuer's case - a carnivalesque spirit, a sense of people having a good time. In his "Lear" (1990), the king was played by a woman. His 1981 production of "The Tempest" had eleven Ariels. "I started looking at art differently after doing peyote and LSD," he recalled in a 2007 interview. Such shows have won him a lot of Obies and a number of uncomprehending reviews in the mainstream press. The Times likened his "Tempest" to a "drunken picnic." Later this week, Breuer unveils a new piece, "La Divina Caricatura," at La Mama. It's a takeoff on the Divine Comedy, but, were it not for the title, you might not guess its parentage. The story has to do with a dog, Rose, who is in love with her master, John, an East Village junkie who says he's an independent filmmaker. They are both puppets. Rose is constantly making forthright sexual advances to John. She sticks her wet nose into his armpit. She licks between his toes. At one point, she fellates him, right up there on the stage, while he is in bed with his girlfriend - an incursion that does not strengthen Rose's case. I said to Breuer that I didn't see much connection here with the Divine Comedy. "What about Paolo and Francesca?" he answered. It's like Joyce with the Odyssey. You're not trying to copy it. You're riffing on it as a metaphor and a hook. Accordingly, "La Divina Caricatura" has a lot more than puppets. We get video, a live band, and an impressive crucifixion. There's a quartet of male soul singers and a trio of female backup singers, in sequinned gowns. The music incorporates rhythm and blues, soul, tango, reggae, rap, Gregorian chant, French folk songs, and Indian ragas. Breuer says that he was also influenced by ancient Indian epics such as the Mahabharata and by Disney's animated features, especially "Snow White." The show, like Dante's Inferno, is only the first part of a trilogy. It's all been written, and the script will be published next year, under the title "I don't want to change your mind, I want to change your music." But part one is already enormous, with a cast of almost forty, plus sixteen puppets, and a running time of two and a half hours. I always want to work bigger, wider, more flamboyantly. As a result, Breuer says, "I've never been out of debt since I was sixteen." ♦