Bread+and+Puppet+Theater


 * Bread & Puppet ~ [Political/Radical Puppetry]**

“We sometimes give you a piece of bread along with a puppet show because our bread and theater belong together. We want you to understand that theater is not yet an established form, not the place for commerce you think it is, where you pay to get something. Theater is different. It is more like bread, more like a necessity…” – Peter Schumann (1)

Bread and Puppet Theater connects the world of art with the natural world. Peter Schumann and many members of the group present theater that is as primal and as basic as the free bread given out at Our Domestic Resurrection Circus each summer. Bread and Puppet’s performances directly confront world crisis and different social causes.


 * Peter Schumann**

Peter Schumann was born on June 11th, 1934. Schumann was the second youngest of five children, residing in Lueben, Silesia until the Great war of ’39-‘45 (2; 5). Schumann’s family fled to Hanover, Germany: essence destroyed by the bombers of the West, something which became Schumann’s dominant theme as an artist—the eruption of fire in a peaceful village (2; 6). Schumann received his Abitur in 1953 from Hanover Gymnasium. During his Gymnasium career, Schumann made masks for an arts class project, and carved stone on his own (2;9).

Between 1953-4, Schumann studied plaster casting at a Hannover academy of arts, the Werkkunstschule, however upon returning from a trip to Greece in ’54 he found himself unwilling to attend class, concluding his formal education by quitting (2;24). At age 21, Schumann put his mind to dreams of dance performance; while continuing to spend a good deal of time on art-craft (2;44). Besides sculpting, Schumann was also turning out drawings, prints, and paintings, chiefly on textiles: scarves, hangings, and robes for possible use in performances. He also crafted paper maché masks and stick puppets (2;47). Yet Schumann hated the idea of making objects just so they would be standing or hanging somewhere; divorced from the making of them, from the maker’s life and intent (2; 44). By the spring of 1961, penniless, hippie Schumann age 27, accepted an invitation to visit in-laws in Ridgefield, Connecticut, from which frequently traveling to New York for the art scene.

Four things in particular jolted Schumann’s artistic communication in New York: (1)Avant garde performance art presenting a live relationship between artist and public as achievable, (2) through the dancing and music of R. O. Tyler and his Uranian Alchemy Players that art is a part of the living, and independent of artistic training or skills, (3) the impact of spontaneous community efforts (such as the rent strikes of Lower East Side), (4) the pacifist Peace Movement (2; 59).


 * Schumann Artistic Timeline**


 * 1956-’60** Schumann, in Germany, as an artist, utilizes the medium of paper maché, focusing on proving its adequacy for making beautiful objects. He utilizes the lost plaster cast technique, special paper, and special glue to create objects with little meaning, yet incidentally used in performance.


 * 1961-’62** In New York, Schumann finds value in public performance, yet views performance itself as the ‘thing’, not obscured by ‘Things’. He creates new masks over previous creations, as well as making life casts over performers’ faces. His performances are similar to previous pieces, however these incorporate Things: masked dance; masks substituted for skill.


 * 1962-’63** Schumann expands upon his substitution of masks, exploring the power of substitutes more directly for performance. Puppets are crafted in the lost plaster cast technique with wire-levers inside specially designed for one type of gesture; puppets similar to the masked dancers. Puppet bodies were constructed of painted carton-boxes.


 * 1964-’69** Schuman simplifies his construction methods, aggressively exploits the size of the puppets, incorporates puppet operators into performance, develops the gestural potentials of big puppets to be effectively used in front of a curtain or without one. Schumann’s performances are enriched by combinations of big puppets, face-masked performers, and by mime. Communication is the guiding aim of performance.


 * 1970-’74** Schumann’s experiments in puppet-making become playful and liberating: puppets are constructed not focusing on the enhancement of performance modes. Puppets are created to increase gestural scope and explore the freedom in construction mediums. Schumann’s staging of performances are developed into two spaces: a marionette puppet stage-like box theatre and an outdoor large-area performance.


 * 1974-’78** Schumann utilizes four puppet types designed for movement as part of a picture in a setting: stilt puppets, kite-like puppets, puppets with cutout heads and cutout puppets, and animal puppets with wooden framework. Schumann conceives performance as utterance of feelings that should be shared rather than addressed as from-to; puppets and masks being styled accordingly for embodiment instead of transmission.

(2;152-4)
 * 1979-’83** Schumann’s work is characterized by an exposition of the means of the puppet integrated into performance through elaborate puppet handling. Schumann’s focus is on the medium itself, incorporating individual representation into masks and costuming. Puppets are styled as social figures in interaction.


 * Bread & Puppet**

Bread and Puppet Theater was founded in New York City by Peter Schumann in 1963. From then until 1968, Bread and Puppet’s residence swapped from the Delancy Street loft, to the Old Astor Library, and the Old Courthouse on 2nd St. and 2nd Ave. Street show performances highlighted anti-Vietnam War themes through parades and pageants, voter registrations, rent-strike parades, and children’s shows based on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter themes. In 1968, B&P ensued a two month tour to France, Holland, and England, followed by nine months touring to France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, England, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, and Holland, receiving critical acclaim at international theater festivals in Nancy, Belgrade, and Rome (1;78-82).

Bread and Puppet Theater molded and birthed a liberating theater filled with poignant pastoralism, expanding upon their organic vision upon placing roots in Vermont in 1970. During this period in B&P history, learning how to move within a landscape in order to become part of it became paramount. Schumann and company produced a cyclic event representing life and the distinct political environment of this world, called the Domestic Resurrection Circus. The Domestic Resurrection Circus included tree-sized puppets and herds of wild and domesticated paper maché beasts performed by volunteers from different towns within Vermont as well as members of many states within the Union (1;12).

Bread and Puppet became visible to the world in 1982 when huge puppet figures, livened by more than one thousand people, led the June Peace March in New York City. The band was followed by thousands of Vermonters carrying signs exclaiming in celebration of the state’s Town Meeting endorsement of a nuclear weapons freeze. On August 11-12th of 1984, more than twelve thousand people came to the Domestic Resurrection Circus, though whose story changes yet the theme is constant and universal. Portrayals of suffering and strength of the Centeral American people were the focus of the year’s event, inspired by the massive violence against the indigenous peoples El Salvador, being a time of war, and the militarization region-wide backed by the American Government. Many attending the event left shocked, sad, and even angry, though for some people the experience was mentally expanding, realizing through art that actions must be taken in order for change to occur (1;20-22).


 * Media:**



1 – Paley, Grace, Peter Schumann, and Susan Green. __Bread & Puppet – Stories of Struggle & Faith From Central America.__ Burlington, Vermont: Green Valley Film and Art, Inc., 1985. 2 – Brecht, Stefan, __Peter Shumann’s Bread And Puppet Theatre.__ New York City, New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall Inc., 1988.
 * Sources:**


 * Author: Peter Cairns**

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