Gorey’s puppets celebrate Christmas

Some friends of late artist-writer Edward Gorey continue to keep his ideas, and his puppets, alive.

For a fourth year, Woods Hole Theater Company is bringing back its presentation of the Gorey-created puppets of Le Theatricule Stoique performing Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” at Falmouth Public Library. Free shows are at 2 and 4 p.m. Saturday.

Dan Tritle and Cleo Zani will narrate the 30-minute one-act, which is written from the perspective of an adult looking back at Christmas when he was a child. The story is told by a narrator standing in front of the puppet stage with the action being performed by the finger puppets of Le Theatricule Stoique, with what the company describes as “lots of activity, blizzards of snow and showers of wrapped candy from time to time.”

Children are invited to sit on a carpet in front of the puppet stage and collect the wrapped candy, which is thrown over the transom at intervals during the show. There are also refreshments served afterward.

Puppet master is Joe Richards, with puppeteers Lafe Coppola, Tom Lyons, Haley Johnson, Gina Peters, Janet Gardner, Emma Munroe, C.J. Kemp and Lauren Johnson. The puppets were invented by Gorey, best known for his books and his sets for PBS’s “Mystery!” and Broadway’s “Dracula.” Gorey, whose Yarmouthport home is now a museum, wrote many “entertainments” for local community theaters, including “Lost Shoelaces” in 1989 and “Stuffed Elephants” in 1990 by the Woods Hole company. Richards and Coppola were members of that original troupe.