Students were heckled and cursed at Wednesday afternoon, egged on by a Satanic felt pupped named Tyrone.
“F--- off,” the blue puppet purported to yell, the words coming from an actor with the Hippodrome State Theatre. “You’re a p---y.”
Tyrone, one of the main characters in “Hand to God,” a play at the theatre starting Friday at 8 p.m., was on Turlington Plaza to promote the work. The actor who plays and controls Tyrone, 26-year-old Jon Kovach, led the vulgar display, passing out free tickets with Hippodrome marketing interns.
“Hand to God” is about a boy who puts on a biblical puppet show, only for his puppet to become possessed by the devil. The show deals with themes of religion and humanity in a comedic way, said Lauren Warhol Caldwell, the show’s director. Warhol Caldwell said the show’s raunchy humor appeals to students.
“‘Hand to God’ really fits like a glove, no pun intended, with this demographic,” she said.
When he wasn’t trying to rile up students or yelling at his own master, Tyrone asked passersby for hugs and to play a game, eventually drawing the attention of Kevin Cooley, a 24-year-old UF English literature doctoral student. Cooley teaches a course on animation and puppetry, and after seeing the Turlington display, he said he plans to encourage his students to attend the show. He said he was pleased to see puppet theory in action.
“The puppet asks us to believe he’s not human, which subverts the idea of a puppet as an object to be controlled,” he said.
Kovach said he didn’t hesitate to scream at students as he was acting.
“Tyrone believes what he’s doing is for the better,” Kovach said. “As long as I relate to that, I don’t have any guilt or bad feelings.”
Though the foul-mouthed puppet surprised some, Aziz Nefzi, an 18-year-old UF biology freshman, felt the performance was just another day on Turlington, where vocal evangelists and other performers are commonplace.
“Every time I walk through Turlington I expect to see something a little bizarre,” Nefzi said.
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Tyrone, a foul-mouthed puppet controlled by Hippodrome State Theatre actor Jon Kovach, hugs Sammy Dahan, a 21-year-old UF biology senior, on Turlington Plaza on Wednesday.
