Puppet theater has come a long way from Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop, or even the fabled Salzburg Marionettes, who specialize in the operas of Mozart. They are now making appearances on the great opera stages (as in the Met’s William Kentridge production of Wozzeck), and they can communicate existential subtleties that go beyond flesh and blood. No film has ever captured the white whale’s spectral travels in a dark-blue cosmos the way Plexus Polaire, a Norwegian theater company, does in its puppet adaptation of Melville’s Moby Dick. The International Puppet Fringe Festival—the only international festival dedicated to puppetry—comes to the Lower East Side with a diverse roster of puppet performance from all over the world. Prepare to be transported. —Laura Jacobs