Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater Author(s): Barry Goldensohn Reviewed work(s): Source: The Iowa Review,

Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring, 1977), pp. 71-82 Published by: University of Iowa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20158745 . Accessed: 30/09/2012 08:54
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With Flowed Was And

Knowing the blood which the poet said

the earthly rhythm of desire ... a river of disease really could no longer itself in the white flesh with

disgust

and contempt,

the moon

Discover Because

the body had gone Black in the crotch, And the mind itself a mere shadow He opened the book

of idea

...

Contemptuous, to hold the print, The pages, wanting His voice, to the ugly mirror,

again and again, to tear out wanting

Until the lyric and the rot

Became Became

And the singing and the dying

the same breath, under which He wished the poet the same fate, The same miserable fate.

indistinguishable,

CRITICISM

/ BARRY

GOLDENSOHN

Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater

involved with the civil rights and Puppet Theater was deeply and is marked by their political moralism and anti-war protest movements its concern with domestic in two important issues, the home respects: is This primitivism and morality. of technique front, and its primitivism are seated You one The earliest in their of clear pieces, very King Story. on either side. A is a which before by poles supported large red cloth a crown rises from behind and head with modeled small, roughly puppet a He announces that he is the King of a country threatened Dragon. by a horned helmet, in and with does not know what to do. A White Knight The King asks his an enormous fist and sword offers to kill the Dragon. all the Knight. The and counsel and People Advisers against using they The Bread 71

the to, in spite of them, and in a slow dream-like sequence then in the and the King, Advisers, and People order. Dragon, Knight As the Knight stands alone, seemingly from Death emerges triumphant, the screen in a mask that is half skull, half helmet, with a body of behind in a slow dance and the Knight rags. He wrestles finally kills him. In this and Uncle moral Sam is transformed context, drastically simple political into Uncle Fatso, an enormous puppet with a bloated face and a single fist that carries a cigar like a bomb, the emblem of greed and ruthless power. concerns these moral and political is a religious vision that Underlying are made resurrection chooses as its main and These symbols redemption. not and emblems of salvation. The Dead Man impersonal public, personal an a a Rises is small, dim spot loft, early example of this theme. In darkened of light appears before a gray painted fabric screen. An attendant, barely in black robes, kneels at the side. A tall white puppet, the Woman, visible the stage and enters circles the light. The attendant slowly whispers a a bell to and the rings through megaphone, distinguish "speakers." King decides kills

WHERE ARE YOU GOING? (Bell) IAM GOING TO THE RIVER. (Bell) WHY ARE YOU GOING? (Bell ) THE RIVER IS COLD. (Bell) WHERE ISTHE RIVER? (Bell) THE RIVER IS FAR AWAY.
into the megaphone while the woman walks breathes heavily the circle of light. in and actions, words With these few beginning stylized and abstracted The inwardness. of profound manner, we have been carried into a world of the artifice?disconnected speakers engaging power and the suddenness the absence of color, and the oversized in an interior dialogue, puppets, in a dream action the the puppet of figures?place helplessness physical another aspect features of the inner lives of children, realm that has many force of the Bread and one that is a clue to the dramatic of primitivism, resurrection the dead man as a the of and Puppet. The primitive morality, in the technique. is of the woman, reward for the devotion keeping with and Woman this play is not individualized, the of the inwardness, Despite is still on the public nature of the re work the the emphasis throughout for public morality. ligious issues, the implications and an in The use of Bread is a part of the public ritual of communion an Easter are at You theater. the of Play, you have been sitting tegral part for the a witness to the Passion and the puppets which grew enormous The attendant around great event lie collapsed in a heap before 72 the Cross. The puppeteers have

to their normal size. They after the event out, shrunken pass out is the not the usual audience chunks It of bread. through handing mush but a dark, heavy bread, made of hand not flour, and it ground rye, a in sit at it teeth. You there ritual communal strong requires tearing one Is there only who hands murderously. myth and ritual? The puppeteer me the bread is a friend. I a nice is what whisper: "Mayra, Jewish girl like you doing here?" "What are you doing here?" am I From what defending myself with bad tasting jokes? This event is at different the to the from audience role Riverside Church, quite listening or we B Minor Mass, are at the Camaldoli vespers hearing Hermitage: a chaw of the seasonal a In is this theater the bread direct sharing god. assault on aesthetic distance. as an echo of the is offered In the setting of the Easter Play, bread Eucharist and one is thrust into the role of the surprised communicant, but os in other pieces is more modest. is an its function The bread offering, an unavoidable it therefore has and ceremonial flavor. so, tentatiously is is shared, and the audience Something jarred out of passivity by the act intends the bread to be a reminder that you of eating together. Schumann come to the theater not just for entertainment, is for the skin, but which is for the stomach. That he should assign also for vital sustenance, which reveals the habits of mind of a confirmed this meaning since it allegorist, crawled Since he leaves out sustenance for the head and all, gratuitous. and an anti-sentimentalist. heart, it also suggests that he is a primitive are all created like almost The puppets else in by Schumann, everything them of celastic over clay molds, and they vary in the theater. He makes size from six inches to over 20 feet. The torso and limbs are cloth, and the is in the molded of the puppets heads and hands. Schumann expressiveness an are is extension theater of that says sculpture," and his masks "Puppet and suggest African, the means. They use the past boldly, pre-Columbian and Asiatic masks, Easter Island Heads, Chinese Temple sculpture, Lehm set but the most wonderful bruck, Grosz; the dragons are mostly Oriental, seem monsters in heads with small of monsters, their mouths, large yellow right out of Bosch. create the first and most The puppets striking impression of this theater, sense of the static mask in motion, where the few words the miraculous a come inwardness of with the great force?through possession by through of the dream. But Schu the face of the sleeper into the inner movement are mann's puppets quite unlike the masks of Attic drama. The voice that are. One is not individual: to them only the masks rings through responds are since the words the puppet, not to a person revealed words, through seldom spoken by the puppets, but by a narrator off to the side. is, after 73

The puppets move with a dream-like to their Tightness that is adapted ones move size. The the pace with large slowly, occasionally breaking are not and often suddenness. We with pompous terrifying startling dealing a sense of motion with but that the subconscious recognizes. solemnity, can condense it is similar to film, which time and action, alternate Visually (Think the scramble experience simultaneously desperate of flight and implacable pursuit. ) Likewise, the puppets move with a sense not of proper to an inward sense of reality, unreality but of those distortions for their size and motion have the air of dream. Thus this theater can deal with the fabulous: utterly unselfconsciously scenes, of how freedom chase and shift focus with scenes let us the subjective of the dream.1

THERE ISA DEAD MAN LYING IN THE RIVER. (Bell) WHAT WILL WE DO WITH THE DEAD MAN? (Bell) I WILL TIE THE MAN TO THE BACK OF THE RIVER AND TAKE HIM TO MY HOUSE. (Bell) (From The Dead Man Rises)

seems more natural than the resurrection that fol nothing a to In out tries lows. resurrection of the fabulous force Ordet, Carl Dreyer of plots and motives and into the casual world where we explain magic a of confidence, away as a violation power it sleight of hand, and whatever on its has in Ordet depends the whereas power of outrageousness, entirely on our initial The Dead Man Rises depends the of moony acceptance is normal. The normalcy world where resurrection indi of the miraculous cates that we are a primitive to with conventions of similar system dealing those of folk tales, and the of of childhood, thought processes preconceptual our earliest the world. attempts to understand The basic elements of the medium of allegorical theater corre puppet to of the of spond closely patterns Piaget's description thought in childhood. For example, is nature of causation like the hoc allegorical post syncretic on its for the early sense of thought. Psychomachia persuasiveness depends use of imminent sounds (twitter justice. Schumann's expressive primitive has emotive the for ar of pre-verbal etc.) ing, moaning, weight struggles seems ticulation the dissociation in of speaker and figure and, similarly, itself to be an emblem of the separation of the child from the verbal world of adults. The very enterprise of is rooted in ani with puppets allegorizing are basic modes mism and of both which of concretizing, thought of child hood. is not to say that it is a theater for children, but rather that the This In this context medium has its roots in the inner lives we 74 carry with us from childhood:

com of primitive cognitive styles; explosive psychic material fantasies of and of of forces, power helplessness, incomprehensible posed of magical of wishes; of human animals and animal humans; of fulfillment sense of the puppet giants and dolls; and above all the disparity between and its human role. One is seized by one's childhood. This is apparent in the structure alternates absolutism with Schumann simple moral perceptual uses satiric ingenues with a child's vision of moral issues, and ambiguity, and in characterizes and gestures, stylized exaggerated general by the free dom with which enter and the mysterious this world. The first time playful I saw the Bread and New in in I felt that I York the mid-sixties, Puppet was in the presence of remarkable artistic power, and it has taken me years to an this kind of fascination. I found myself begin to understand resisting use of the materials reasons: of the two of childhood for understanding the seriousness is vulner of the theater, which first, it seems to minimize to any association with childhood the use of puppets because merely it is entertainment that and for of children; second, the process suggests seems to one out of touch with childhood. put maturity acutely uses to deal with that Schumann The theatrical means this material of It is a theater of pageants, is childhood and tableaux, proces pre-dramatic. or dances. The art of drama sions where sculpture walks, parades, begins a some with texts, whereas Schumann is "pushes for place where language ... we find from we He what achieved want."2 with works language really is very remote but which, from which stylized expressive gestures language unlike mime, never seek to substitute themselves for languages. As he works, words are "achieved" with great difficulty, and are usually of great simplic As the to pre company ity. pieces evolve, struggles through its bafflement sent the actions out. that Schumann sessions with After lays late-night home brew, and strong cof friends, full of questions, criticism, exhortation, or words may appear in the next rehearsal as fee, a few hand-painted signs seems to enter to the work takes shape. Language organize and clarify work is that initially conceived visually. able in There are a few unusual works that begin with texts. The Birdcatcher in the Noh is adapted with from a Kyogin Hell Nixon additions cycle, by refers to as the "religious and Homer. What Schumann sarcasm" of the the way

Kyogin (which deals with a pardon for the Birdcatcher by the King of Hell

is here to Nixon's for his very un-Buddhist treatment occupation) applied a text for and of Calley. Jephte provides the biblical music of Caris setting simi's Oratorio, does the same for Tallis' Lam and Gray Lady Cantata #5 and Bach's Jesu Meine entations Freude. of Jeremiah pag They present eants that derive from the texts and are translated into characteristically with its Christian of White Schumann's Humanism,3 pantheon Knights on stilts, for love of us), Mother-Christs (who slay dragons deftly, sadly, 75

(who suffer and sacrifice for us), or the comic-irreverant-sarcastic figure of like the Gentleman melodramas of sentimental (out of the world Angel these pieces attempt to context Camille ). In Schumann's words, "a provide and a setting for musical works taken out of their historical setting." (Con 1974 ). versation, November are the means and dance these of providing and Sculpture settings, are re movements in words The for only marginal. phrases describing was a in hearsal I at Cantata in win Goddard the ( #5 Gray Lady College are a beautiful or "that ter of 1974) "that makes consistently sculpture" makes a beautiful dance."4 I never once, in six years of friendly association as the with the group, heard the phrase "that is very dramatic," though can mean or word this theater is.full of "dramatic" engrossing expressive, of ( Some of the "what does it mean" puzzlement gestures and movements. stems from the fact that we ask that naive viewers about the question verbal arts in a very different way than about music or dance, and it seems that no matter how few words there are, people insist on "reading" theater. ) to leave Goddard In the summer of 1974, when Schumann decided and free himself called of the burden of a communal Fair the Domestic Resurrection he set up a weekend company, and Circus as both a retrospective the Circus itself. of a massive work, Man Rises,

and as the occasion for the creation were in the afternoons: shown The Dead old pieces Many to A Man His Mother, Says Goodbye Hallelujah, Mississippi, Theater of Uncle

King Story, The Circus itself Fatso, Life and Death of Prisonman. earlier of the central of contained Uranus, circuses, parricide parts notably the keynote insurrection?a here appropriately comic of domestic enough a version of the archaic revolution. This insurrection is resurrection, primal validation Where

of death, the circus, the big show. of life by Love, the conquest is the structure of The Dead Man Rises (and other short pieces) is expansive the Circus and inclu and exclusion, based on concentration November "The circus sive: as Schumann 1974), says (in conversation, sense. It is the it its own and makes doesn't make opposite?show-offy, a collection." This is not to say that the work rules. It is more amateurish, its frame is enormous, is without structure, but rather that it is episodic, is movements The and of broad. the range of type puppets large puppets move and robed puppeteers, small puppets, costumed among masked clowns, and tumblers. The title has been used for two previous pieces. The first was an evan the group first moved to God circus in the summer of 1970 when gelical the first and only use of audience dard. It involved participation by the of the Circus an ark was formed around the audi theater. At the conclusion around the meadow "The storm is here," ence, and they walked chanting In retrospect this gesture seems dated, and the ropes and banners. between 76

a blind friend, I moved into the ark to guide I could not chant and merely throat painfully. in another at the felt awkward willing refuge of the self-elect and burned ness of so. my friends to be on was called The A street theater piece done in Washington April 24,1971, Domestic Resurrection A section Richard Last. this piece was the of of King called "Domestic and the verbal echo suggests the basic re Insurrection," in fact seemed the words but stuck in my the Passion and resurrec ligious role of protest in Schumann's work, where tion are the culmination of a determined and loving insurrection. The resur rection is domestic because its moral urgency is se If-transforming and aimed at internal at and To social it others be ag direct would reform. political is It also the domestic because chief gression, political aggression. images of evil authority are drawn from the family: Uncle Fatso, and Uranus the Father. The images of peace and salvation are the sorrowing mother and the sacrifice of the son. The basic "political" process suggested throughout is transformation in the name of love. Resurrection Circus is that of a The general pattern of the 1974 Domestic and of the dance of life. It begins with birth, the birth of "the people" is followed by a circus with life on show, and con Circus Director, which is solemn, with the en cluded by the triumph over death. The beginning trance of the God mask from the Easter Show, an enormous face supported on and vaguely Asian. "The peo poles, that is sorrowful and transcendental are born out from under a tarp and his by being hauled by the Devil ple" Helpers. They emerge with signs that read War and Peace, Law and Order, Sun and Rain. The po Rags and Riches, Guns and Butter, Day and Night, is larities are all ridiculed with slapstick as each set emerges. The playing so broad that it crowds attention from the Devil's and the away Helpers on the sidelines who are intended a framework to of Gray Lady provide a kind of remain and but who regeneration, passive suffering iconography the fun. alongside a dance is followed of giant puppets, Uranus and This sequence by seem a and Mother Earth. They are about 20 feet high, grotesquely ugly, out of control. Mother Earth com of drunken parents careening nightmare and a doctor drives up, climbs a ill after a short waltz, plains of feeling who moves ladder to treat her and delivers her of Zeus-the-Circus-Director, over to his his knocks off and the skip the ladder father, head, completes The cheerful then of the Theogony. rope version parricide is dead and we the circus acts that follow. Daddy conduct tumblers who fun, so we have jugglers who drop everything, lifters who die trying (Hubert Heaver), acts, magic dancing and Butane), with a group of Two Penny Circus clowns who audience with a polished style that is in sharp contrast to the 77 to proceeds can all have fall, weight bears (Ethyl egg on the ineptitude of

so at the time.

that are all show and bluster. In this primal revolu forth and the new Daddy remains a child. a convoluted the finale begins, alle After the Circus retreats, proper a stations where the series life of that dance of figures go through gorical on the values of civilization, and initiation, death, suggest growth, taking en some kind of resurrection. in the role of "the Each puppeteer, people" ters through a door set up in the middle of the field, and goes through a series of stations that signify the process of a complete life. Each is given a from the end face mask, climbs a ladder to look at a star (which dangles an a a at to works of little house ironing board, pays homage telescope), with a family of tiny puppets by placing a stone on it (a funeral gesture?), visits the Gentleman shows him his face in a mirror, gets his Angel who the parody circus acts tion, life simply bursts Dance death and disappears through the door he entered. The none of the of expressionistic exaggeration peaceful, the triumph of death. When the medieval the last pup form that celebrates door they all knock it down, and carry off, stand peteer is through Death's a a robe on the the words "All People." door, ing figure wearing bearing tune This is done to a wildly Charlotte's called ( see Appen rollicking Wag dix II ) that is the appropriate music for this easy triumph over Death. The is clearly some notion of a order born from such transcendental mayhem a and not is an elaborate human community, The Circus pious mystagogy. of life with a nod to death and the evil, a divine celebration low comedy in Kafka's that displays, "a careless great phrase, prodigality." dance of Death is costume, with

Base of the Theater Bread Alone or The Economic out of the resources If one begins with some notion of the artist working of the self, then collaborative art, having to work with and around the needs to review boards, of others, having and most decency please politicians, mass involves unthinkable the loss of con audience, paying tyrannically comes to theater via trol of the artistic product. But Peter Schumann sculp is now beginning ture and his Bread and Puppet Theater the fourth phase to control the economic necessities that shape his art. For of his attempt in to 1961 from the late 1969 (with a summer of com eight years, beginning ran in 1968), the theater in Maine with munal temporary volunteer living a scattered crew who "In I Schumann N.Y. for had says, performances. help came to rehearsals and then disbanded I worked solo with again. Basically, a short to the summer of 1970 For from the winter of 1969 help."5 period, there was a group of 11 salaried puppeteers which, (at $35 per week), a severe financial demand. of the the ludicrousness wage, posed despite to Cate Farm at Goddard In the summer of 1970 Schumann moved Col a a in the free and of theater Island. The company opened part lege, Coney ran a on a for Island the about from group year money Coney European 78

tour in 1969, and for another year on a on grant from the New York Council the Arts, with some help from Nathan's Famous, Inc. Schumann has always tried to operate without for two reasons: he rejects the ab grant money for protest, and he never shows grant money surdity of receiving budgets some money He makes beforehand. and then builds a show with what is it leaves him freer to of the (A member experiment. for the Island must and Schumann he company grant says applied Coney have signed the application himself but he doesn't remember it. It was sure an aberration.) ly For its first year Schumann Island venture: kept control of the Coney at Cate Farm and moved to the shows would down be developed city. to this New York the control shifted folded group itself, which Gradually a at the end of the second year. In Vermont, Goddard provided large house, a barn for a theater and care of the and took and workshop, remodelling utilities. refused any further financial support from Goddard: he Schumann to the college to increase his responsibilities did not want the by joining available?he students who made the faculty. He simply worked with the few committed Bread and Puppet the major part of their curriculum. tour in the winter of 1973 Schumann an In the middle of the European disband the company nounced that he would the following be summer, cause the communal too, had begun to impose its financial neces company, sities and was of the professional theater shoving him into the pattern was world which he to avoid. trying situation of theater that one gets oneself like the general into . . . and then re a one becomes theater recognised professional . . . that ask for that sponds to the channels which respond to that type of theater. In other words, when we go to perform both in this country and in Europe, we would very much like to perform for people cheaply, . . . but we in our in the halls of fame of theater places rather than ... for bored in a lot of professional end up playing places high-ticket that we don't agree with, but we do it people. A lot of things happen in this and loses control this is our contact. One gets involved because as of the creation of that place where one performs. Theater production we understand one as is creates that You that oneself. don't it, place sume that because one pays $3 what see is theater. You want to be they that you create for them . . . not one that able to create a surrounding is "just there." And that is not possible when you are part of an organi zation travelling and performing wherever you are invited.6 I don't when The search of a poor theater goes on as success in the previous for a model its deprivations. In the case of the Bread and Puppet, 79 insists

forms has brought

the model of the poor theater is one that allows uncompromising control by in fact the entire ambience, of the conditions, Schumann of his art. Al a communal have created the conditions for a though living style might it in has the fact created the conditions reverse, collaboration, profound for a solitary artist to shape a company his work for a while that performed with the fewest possible to financial need, that is, to concessions popular success and the tastes of the theater circuit. in upsetting Stefan Brecht succeeded the members of the company with a program credit on The the he that Meat for of Cry People for composed his TDR article, not because it was untrue but because it violated the gen eral decorum of modesty and anonymity. The credit reads: Conceived, directed and narrated by Peter produced, his Bread and Puppet Theater. by Schumann

performed Masks, costumes, lighting and music by Peter Schumann, with much help and a little inspiration from the company. It is his Bread and Puppet the credits with precision. This, in fact, allocates is a modest man and Theater. This is worthy of mention because Schumann His name does not appear for bows at the end of performances. rarely ap seldom do more than give the name of the pears on program credits, which
company.

I do not wish
do?a puppeteer

to overstate
will perform

this issue. Schumann

a gesture a certain

controls
way or

as most
introduce

directors
a varia

tion and Schumann will accept or reject it. It is, of course, within the frame instructions. work of his scenarios and very detailed There are other aspects of this theater that both keep down expenses and allow his control. The decor and music are distinctively and the homemade, are of Schumann's theater course, masks, sculpture. That he has described as an extension to which of sculpture the model of the suggests the degree autonomous artist still motivates and individual him. And this is a basic as is without given. The Bread and Puppet are instead and their expensive and There personalities. demanding or bodies and voices that are trained without puppeteers glamor, virtuosity, can to impersonate. In their masks they personify. "play" the King Anyone of Hell. After the company broke up in the summer of 1974, the Schumann family It now seems like a time of retrench to a farm in Glover, Vermont. moved are still vague. Between the summer of 1974 and 1976 ment. Future plans small companies and has conducted has toured Europe with Schumann one a variety of universities at The and colleges. piece that I workshops in the summer of 1976, seems more static have seen since 1974, the Circus denial actors of the form of the theater 80

in the past. There is a lot of repetition, and the retreat (with the times) from moral and political protest has left it a little churchy. Allegory fast. Political protest has always been at the center of Schumann's petrifies even from the sixties and religious vision, and pieces early seventies had their didactic and propagandistic elements into a vision of suf subsumed that was never simply partisan. The image of the fering and compassion was not the convenient Christ as a revolutionary young Marx sloganeering on man was The but the of of revolution ist, suffering. taking suffering is to where difficult tell will It Schumann from this go enough. point. in Glover, While it is unclear to me where he will he is hardly in retirement engage next. than

NOTES

norm,

the way, that on film, where by and Puppet Theater that depends time is and subjective of neutralized. Because irregularity entirely are too detached of film we from the perspective of the viewer is interesting the power of to note, the Bread to experience the necessary some work with done disparity. Bread and Recently the innovative be it will and Puppet, a washout. film was with Margarita Barab,

1 It

distortion on

is

the

visual of size

exaggeration of the visual

fixed filmmaker, interesting

plasticity in a human scale Chris to see Marker, how he

has

deals with 2 Peter

The PBS this problem. in an interview Schumann

Country

Journal,

Plainfield, direc it

Vermont, July 18, 1974, p.6.

3 Stefan discusses Vol. Schumanns 14, No. # Brecht, TDR, (T47), tions in his essay on Sacral Theatre. 4 Schumann use of the word to his own "beautiful" and objects for the decorative. is not striving clear that he 5 Barab interview. 6 Barab interview.

theological wishes

to make

Appendix I
The Famous Bread Recipe

in a hand instead of milled. Mix 6 rye, ground grinder water to with sit for lukewarm of Let grain consistency. pudding pounds a warm starter dough or three or four two in without with it, spot. days days it smells strong enough, add another 6 pounds Add water as needed. When Begin with fresh 81

with more water and 3 of fresh ground rye, knead for about 20 minutes small handfuls of salt. Flour hands and board and shape loaves. This should make 6 loaves of 4-5 pounds. Bake at about 275? for one to one-and-a-half
hours.

Appendix II CHARLOTTE'SWAG

Sid Blum

CRITICISM

/ JAMES

BRESLIN

Allen Ginsberg: The Origins of "Howl" and "Kaddish"

aware of Allen Ginsberg first become literary people have probably role as public figure in and self-elected controversial his the media, through over has changed and prophet of a new age. Ginsberg's public personality man to the fifties of the defiant and histrionic the years?from angry young activist of the sixties and and political and benign patriarch the bearded one that most has remained the personality seventies?but literary people with that of find hard to take seriously. Compare reception Ginsberg's Most 82