The sound of a moaning, wailing wind rises in the pitch blackness. It cries of purest desolation. Then there is a sort of light, with mysterious projected images, thousands of them, enveloping the playing area, top to bottom, side to side.

        In a pool of half-light, a naked and vulnerable puppet man rides what might be a stormy sea.

        As the image takes hold, it's clear that he isn't riding — he's cast away and capsizing. He is abandoned and adrift in what is not a sea but perhaps a strange cloud bank that might separate heaven and hell: Struggle upward for redemption and salvation, or sink into eternal damnation.

        The opening imagery of Saw Theater's Account Me Puppet doesn't add up to more than two breathtaking minutes, but it's the beginning of 75 minutes of some of the best puppetry technique you're likely to see.

        New York, Philadelphia and Atlanta audiences loved Account Me Puppet when Saw toured this reverie on mortal failing inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost.

        The show is worth the price of admission just to swoon over the variety of puppetry styles and their exemplary execution. Visual choices are by Mark Fox; sound design by Anthony Luensman. Mr. Fox's lighting, a symphony of shadows, is dazzling.

        Since Account Me was presented in summer 1999, several of its most glaring problems have been cleverly solved. The tale of Adam and Eve, the serpent and the apple has been tweaked with a move to Eve's kitchen and an apple pie. A vignette about a collection of lost soul philosophers in hell also has found its reason for being.

        Saw signatures — the wind, the miniature town under seige, the co-habitation on stage of puppet and puppet artist — are all there. Longtime Saw fans will enjoy new uses for familiar devices.

        For all its extraordinary artistry, Account Me Puppet will leave you cold. Saw's greatest failing over the past few years is that Mr. Fox and Mr. Luensman don't worry much about why people tell stories.

        They've given their puppet hero a devastating emotional load and the agony of free will (Meryl Streep would kill for this role), but the telling is so clinical, so removed and, yes, so muddled, that you're more likely to feel admira tion than involvement.

        The best thing that could happen to Saw would be to collaborate with a company like Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, which could reacquaint them with focused dramatic trajectory.

        A bonus to seeing Account Me Puppet is that it's a great reminder of the urban-chic theater event that we don't often see here. Revel in Saw's funky old warehouse space (2823 Massachusetts Ave. off Colerain Avenue in Camp Washington) and the fashionably black-clad crowd.
       Account Me Puppet has been extended through Nov. 17. 541-0872.

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