‘Sex Lives of Puppets’ explores candidly carnal conversations about sex, no strings attached

Nothing ruins a Las Vegas sex party like a phone call from your spouse in which she explains that she’s just discovered a lump in her breast.

Sex is messy, complicated; it is true for humans and, it turns out, for puppets too.

They have hang-ups. They’ve got saggy bits. They enjoy kinks.

“I suppose the message is: penises are OK; we should talk about [sex] more; and everyone’s doing it and it’s all weird,” said Mark Down, the co-writer and co-director of “The Sex Lives of Puppets,” part of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival (Jan. 21-Feb. 1 at various locations across the city). “Sex Lives” runs Jan. 26-31 at The Biograph’s Začek-McVay Mainstage, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.

This year’s festival brings 80 or so performers to Chicago from across the United States and around the globe.

“The ‘Sex Lives’ is very fun, very accessible. … I would challenge anyone who has hesitations to come to any of our shows, and they will see something they have never seen in their lives,” said festival founder, Blair Thomas.

What makes “Sex Lives” different than, say, the bawdy puppet sex scene in Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s 2004 film “Team America: World Police,” is that the show is loosely based on the lives of real, ordinary people.

It is improvised, but many of the candidly carnal conversations between the puppets originated with a survey of modern-day British attitudes about sex, done by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, including one participant who attended an orgy in Sin City without his spouse.

“It’s amazing how rare the sort of husband and wife and three kids is in the survey …,” said Down, chatting with the Chicago Sun-Times from a flat in Vilnius, Lithuania, where his partner is a diplomat on a six-month assignment. “When you go straight in on sex, what comes out really quickly is that [many] people are living with second husbands, second partners. It’s a massively complicated sort of web.”

There isn’t actually that much sex in the 1 1/2 -hour show. Much of it is puppet couples talking about sex — like the old-married-couple interludes in the 1989 romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally,” leading to sweet, often tender moments, Down said.

“There is a couple that have sex, but they are kind of in the middle of an interview when they do it. So it’s like a couple’s therapy that turns into a sex scene,” he said.

The puppets aren’t “anatomically complete,” except those in the shadow porno sequence of the show, which Down described as “absolutely juvenile.”

Down, who is in his late 50s, has had a long and distinguished career in the puppet world. The artistic director of the London-based Blind Summit Theatre company, Down conceived puppets for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, for the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Opera, among other venues.

It's an unusual life journey for someone who originally completed training to become a medical doctor and worked in an emergency room.

“Then I went to drama school,” he said.

But why puppets having and talking about sex?

It was an idea Blind Summit developed not long after the pandemic ended. The company was working on other shows and during breaks in rehearsals: “The puppets were all talking about sex, and we were all laughing. Then we’d go back to the rehearsals and it was really boring,” Down said.

“Sex Lives” debuted at London’s Southwark Playhouse in January 2024.

“The first day we did it, I left the house like a condemned man, thinking I was going to be canceled,” Down said of the premiere. “I was beyond terrified. I was sort of doomed. I thought, whatever else happens, I can do 10 days. And then people loved it. It was an extraordinary reaction.”

The show has also played in Scotland and Denmark.

“Their English is incredible and their minds are filthy. So it’s perfect,” Down says of the Danish.

With a show that includes shadow pornography, it’s obviously not intended for children.

Is there anything he and his cast won’t touch?

Down has to think about that, before answering, “I’m not aware of anything.”

How about shadow oral sex?

“I’m afraid — or I promise — there is.”

For tickets and the festival schedule, go to chicagopuppetfest.org.