Send in the clown

Published June 6, 2007 4:00am ET



“Worldwide Origami Phenomenon” — that’s how he’s billed. But popular Venetian clown Ennio Marchetto is also known as the “human paper doll,” a title that more or less defines the one-man performance shtick he has trotted around the globe in “ENNIO,” earning Olivier and Drama Desk Award nominations for his papery panache.

In 70 exhausting minutes, Marchetto prances around the stage spoofing a boatload of pop-culture icons in an eclectic mix of mostly American singers with the kind of campy lip-synching fodder covered by any dragstress worth her wig stick. But the gimmick here is that all of Marchetto’s outrageous costumes are made from paper, and unfold in a variety of unusual and unpredictable ways. From Doris Day to Dolly Parton and even Donkey (from “Shrek”), Marchetto marches out one absurd character after another, in a parade of paper cutouts that fall wayside in large, cluttered heaps. In short, it’s a paper doll’s makeover dream.

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