Asheville Fringe Arts Festival: Used Doorknob Salesmen
“I’d say I’m a pretty good salesman,” said Keith Shubert with a chuckle, addressing a capacity Asheville Fringe Arts Festival crowd at Citizen Vinyl on Saturday night.
“After all, y’all bought what I’m selling,” he continued in character with “Saley the Salesman’s” exaggerated Southern drawl. “And you don’t even know what the fuck it is!”
In one way, that was true: Used Doorknob Salesmen, Shubert’s Fringe show, was a world debut. But I’d guess most of the audience knew his long-running alter ego, Toybox Theatre, as a proven purveyor of funny, foul-mouthed puppetry. A nationally touring performer and host of the LEAF Festival’s annual Puppet Slam, Shubert has earned a devoted local following.
His latest Fringe offering was yet another solid entry in Toybox’s hilarious canon. Described as “absurdist clown sci-fi fantasy action comedy,” the shambolic plot took a scheming goblin and a poncey youth with impossible orange hair on a quest to procure magical glass doorknobs — the fragments of a monster’s heart, slain long ago by a wizard wielding the enchanted sword “Fuckslayer.”
Honestly, the plot was beside the point. A Toybox show is an excuse to showcase Shubert’s homemade puppets, an inimitable blend of the charming and grotesque, and his bone-dry comedic delivery. It’s a collection of moments you make references to for months to come: “Shoesanne” the suicidally sentient shoe; the crossroads leading to “YRFCKD” or “AWSMTWN;” and a paper cutout of a monster truck named “Demolishtrator.” (No, none of this makes particularly more sense in context.)
The theme of salesmanship is a natural fit for Shubert, who through sheer force of will and repeated messaging has positioned his Toybox character as “America’s Favorite Cartoon Witch.” So much of his aesthetic draws from marketing tie-in toys, whether Happy Meal giveaways or Saturday morning merchandise shows like Transformers and G.I. Joe. His own website leads not with a bio or performance details, but with links to purchase T-shirts and stickers.
But at the heart of Shubert’s art, as summarized by Saley at the end of the performance, is the sheer childlike joy of play. “What I’m selling is imagination,” he explained. And if attending a Toybox show makes you a little zanier, a little wilder, a little more likely to see the world in an off-kilter way, it’s money well spent.
(Photo by Jennifer Bennett)
