Meghan Healey, Subterraneo: A Cruel Puppet’s Guide to Underground Living (2010)
“Life must be hell when a subway beggar doesn’t want your money.
“Meghan Healey was a design student and flat broke several years ago when she handed a man her pocketful of pennies. ‘I really was giving him all the money I had,’ Ms. Healey recalled. ‘And he threw them back in my face! I couldn’t believe a homeless person was telling me my money was no good.’
“But humiliation turned to inspiration: she has transformed the penny-flinging panhandler into Homeless Bob, the surly yet selfless soul of her play-in-progress Subterraneo: A Cruel Puppet’s Guide to Underground Living. The piece is a puppet mash-up of Dante’s Inferno and real-life subway stories gathered by Ms. Healey and a half-dozen student volunteers at Queens College, where she is an assistant professor of costume and scenic design.
“Plans call for Homeless Bob to guide the Commutrix—an earnest rider not unlike Ms. Healey—through the subway the way Virgil led Dante through the nine circles of hell, from Limbo to Betrayal. Along the route, they will be serenaded in Spanish by the Undead Mariachi Trio and watch beggars like Legless Joe bewail their afflictions to tug on the heartstrings and purse strings of weary commuters. […]” –David Gonzalez, “Through Puppets, Bringing Life to Life Below the Street,” The New York Times, September 17, 2010
Pictured above is the in-progress puppet Homeless Bob, the Virgil figure of Subterraneo.
Sighting Citation:
“Meghan Healey, Subterraneo: A Cruel Puppet’s Guide to Underground Living (2010).” Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Elizabeth Coggeshall and Arielle Saiber, eds. September 18, 2010. https://www.dantetoday.org/sightings/meghan-healey-subterraneo-a-cruel-puppets-guide-to-underground-living-2010/.Related Sighting
Kat Mustatea, Voidopolis (2020)