Kayfabe

Name: Kayfabe
Start: 2026-03-05T19:30:00-05:00
End: 2026-03-05T20:30:00-05:00
Location: The Fruit

Schedule

Thu Mar 05 2026 at 07:30 pm to 08:30 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

The Fruit | Durham, NC

Kayfabe is a puppet wrestling entertainment spectacular written, directed, and designed by Josh Rice. Table-top puppetry meets pro wrestling meets a rock show! High art meets low art meets Samuel Beckett! This frenetic frenzy of puppet wrestling action is an absurdist meta-fictional love letter to professional wrestling and puppetry.
Philosopher Roland Barthes wrote, “the function of the wrestler is not to win; it is to go exactly through the motions that are expected of him.” What is expected of a puppet when the persona of Dr. Kiss, and the tropes and trappings of the professional wrestling world are thrust upon them, as they barrel toward their destiny as the main event of PuppetMania?
Expect the unexpected when form meets function, when reality and fantasy collide, when the lines between real and fake blur—this is Kayfabe.
Appropriate for all audiences.
Event URL: https://arts.duke.edu/events/kayfabe/