Inside his home he sheds his coat to reveal a distorted figure with a bloated stomach and sunken chest. Next he's on his couch, a skeletal, ghostly shape watching television. He is the "modern man" in his misery, alone. The white noise of his television fills the room.

It's a chilly winter's day, but inside the light-filled gymnasium along the Haw River in Saxapahaw, N.C., things are anything but cold.

The Paperhand Puppet Intervention, in its 10th year, now happily owns a home to put on productions and store its larger-than-life puppets, masks and props.

Surrounded by scenery from a decade of productions, the cast is rehearsing the new play, "Hungry Ghost," by Donovan Zimmerman, co-founder of Paperhand, and Tori Ralston of the Theater of Performing Objects.

The play is running from now until Jan. 24 at Durham's Manbites Dog Theater.

Based on an ancient festival celebrated in Asia, the story of the hungry ghost has its origin in the Ullambana Sutra. The disciple Mahamaudgalyayana learns his mother has been reborn as a hungry ghost. He gives her food, but it becomes burning coals, and she is left to suffer. He goes to the Buddha to learn what he can do for her.

The hungry ghost festival, which is celebrated on the seventh moon of every year, is a time when relatives place food in basins for their deceased and recite mantras to free the hungry ghosts from their plight, following the instructions the Buddha first gave to Mahamaudgalyayana.

"The hungry ghosts in the Buddhist tradition are people who were greedy, miserly or ungenerous," said Zimmerman. "[In] the afterlife [they] suffer with insatiable thirst and hunger but can get no satisfaction."

As created by Zimmerman and Ralston, the ghosts have thin throats, small mouths and large bloated stomachs. The images are haunting.

Zimmerman and Ralston were drawn to the hungry ghost festival through personal experiences. Ralston is a member of the Kosala Buddhist Center in Carrboro, and one day started talking with Zimmerman about the hungry ghost concept. Zimmerman, who has traveled in Asia, immediately saw the possibility of a play based upon the festival. In their first collaborative effort, Ralston carved out a script and Zimmerman wrote the haikus (a type of poem) found in the play.

The stage, fashioned by Zimmerman of bamboo and crimson velvet, features three circular screens that tell the story through paper-cut images placed upon a projector behind the curtain and illuminated on the stage.

The story is depicted with life-like marionettes made by Ralston, and the Peace Pilgrim, a Bunraku-style puppet (Japanese puppetry in which puppets' heads are hand carved out of wood) made by Zimmerman. One of the ancient storytellers in the play, the "Madwoman," is a beautiful marionette with Chinese characters painted from forehead to chin.

"The Madwoman is a shadow archetype character who has suffered tragedy and consequently holds it close to her," said Ralston. She is a hungry ghost whose ancient story is told throughout the use of dreams. Wars, sorrow and sadness fill her thoughts, with only the love of her companion the Peace Pilgrim to lighten the heaviness.

The main character, the modern man, connects the story through threads of his past, present and future.

"The ancient story becomes either part of the modern man's imagination, or from a past life, or even something from inside him," said Ralston. The transformation of the modern man takes shape through ancient flashbacks that are rendered by Ralston, Zimmerman and their three cast mates: Tarish Pipkins, Candace Waken and Jimmy Magoo.

The Hungry Ghost will include the musical talent of Johnny Waken (strings, things and saw), Paul Ford (Upright bass, gongs, piano), and Chris Johnson ( computer, tablas, bells, frame drum).

For Ralston, the message of the hungry ghosts is that of being kind and generous to the world.

"It's up to us to transform, constantly, towards being in harmony with others," said Ralston.

For Zimmerman, the story of the hungry ghost is highly relevant to the human condition.

"The lines one can draw to our lives currently are there to be drawn," he said.