President Abraham Lincoln has been represented plenty of times in film, but Monday may be the first time he is played by a stuffed hedgehog. Likewise, in his more orthodox appearances, Constantine the Great is typically depicted as a man, and not a wolf puppet. You’ll just have to trust puppeteer Sam Gusfield: history is more entertaining this way.

Gusfield, a senior in FAA, is putting on his rendition of “History! A Puppet Show!” from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, culminating with Monday night’s show on the Quad side of Gregory Hall. Each day, the show and its stable of puppets, stuffed animals, and eccentric narrator travel to a different location to put on one-third of its six total hours of puppetry. Taking only around 10 minutes to actually perform, the show constantly loops, beginning again every 10 minutes with the formation of the Roman Republic in 510 BC and continuing all the way to the present day. Gusfield, under the guise of his narrator character, “Dr. Professor Historypants,” admits that in telling the story 36 times in three days, the tellings will not remain the same.

“It will probably be different every time I tell it,” Gusfield said. “I think that represents the way that history has really evolved over the years. In an oral history, as its telling changes, perception of the past changes as well.”

The obvious question when one hears about such an event, as well as among audience members, is a resounding “Why?” As it turns out, the show serves a purpose beyond entertainment’s sake. Gusfield is putting on the public shows as part of his senior exhibition, a required senior project for sculpture majors. Unlike most sculpture students, however, instead of “making things,” Gusfield has focused on performance pieces.

“It’s a little weird to be a sculpture student and not really, you know, sculpt,” Gusfield said. “The program promotes creating meaning through what you do, though. I think these puppets give a unique view of history that you could only get in this medium.”

The show itself is a blend of melodrama and humor, with most of the “major players” being portrayed by the same small collection of puppets and stuffed animals. The crowd at Saturday night’s performance at the outdoor amphitheatre of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts laughed uproariously at the historical and pop culture references, though there were occasional looks of ambivalence on the faces of the audience as they watched Gusfield skewer figures like Jesus and topics like the attacks of September 11, 2001 with reckless abandon. Some of the crowd members were friends of Gusfield’s who knew what they were getting into in going to see the show.

“Sam is eccentric in his own right,” said Mike Braun, Gusfield’s roommate and senior in LAS. “You can’t help but be incredibly entertained, though. It’s an unorthodox show.”

Unorthodox is probably a good word for a show portraying Hitler as a giant snake and the Civil War as a conflict between marching lines of stuffed animals. According to Gusfield and his friends, however, this is not the first uniquely odd performance piece he has presented.

“I did something the other year where I shaved my whole body and hot-glued cardboard squares onto it,” Gusfield said. “I was playing this character called Cardboard Man who espoused the importance of costumes in forming identity.”

A tip on hot glue application from Gusfield: “Wait about 10 seconds for it to firm up a little bit before putting it on your skin, and it will burn less.”

Gusfield decided on a puppet show because he wanted his performance piece to be short and entertaining, something from students’ childhoods that a passerby could stop and enjoy for a few minutes without knowing what was going on. He jokingly called the show the “culmination of four years of work,” and expressed his interest in joining an experimental theatre troupe in Chicago, where he could do more eccentric performances.

Despite the oddity, Gusfield’s version of history seemed to be well received by his audience, who drew deeper meaning from puppet interpretations of events like the black death and crusades.

“In the end the coolest part is when you realize these old wars and conflicts apply very closely to today’s world,” said Chris Hampson, a junior in FAA who was intrigued by the show. “You laugh at the puppets, but when you realize it’s still going on, you can’t laugh anymore. I think that’s the point of the show.”