Matthew F Amati

Loompaland Matthew F Amati

Madcap, postmodern, and chockablock with puns, wordplay and gross candies, LOOMPALAND turns Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory inside-out and sets it on fire. Two-foot-tall orange Bill P has been working the Hards & Suckables line in Wonka's factory his whole adult life without thinking much about it. A case of mistaken identity gets Bill promoted, then tortured, imprisoned, and finally cast down to the toxic underworld where the Tapioactive Pudding Wastes are processed, and where a "Revoloomption" might be brewing. Not for the kids, this acidly ironic inversion of Roald Dahl's classic tale brings in themes of workers' rights, industrial food production, environmental disasters, and corporate power. More DeLillo than Dahl, more Barthelme than Warner Brothers, LOOMPALAND is shot through with trenchant commentary and images of hilarity and terror.