Bread and Puppet Still Shines

What joy I felt when I read the New York Times article a few days ago on an old favorite of mine – the Bread and Puppet Theater. Back in the day, when my children were growing up, we hopped in the Oldsmobile in Germantown (TN) and headed north for a summer fun time, me and my three - two girls and my young son. We had Oldsmobiles in those days that had big backends, which we made into a play area, and I could drive in peace as we wove through Virginia, up the coast, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts (where on Cape Cod I had spent many summers as a little girl because my grandmother had a house right on its bay) and eventually we reached a new stop in Vermont. There I was able to show my children what creativity really entailed.

The theater began in relation to the protest about Vietnam and social injustice and all that was rebelling out loud in those days. Remember John Cage, Claes Oldenburg, Red Grooms and Allan Kaprow among others  Whatever the current political jump and horror was, he would leap in with something from his brilliant mind and conversation with God so that we all learn a bit more than the normal people who, for example, read newspapers daily. You gotta go there to be surrounded in the ambient that gives this amazing German a spirit far beyond ours, as he waits, I assume, to meet his wife, his longtime partner driving that wild and crazy bus, and baking bread day after day no matter where they went. Will she have a loaf waiting for him in the heavens?

Nowadays, Peter Schumann does all the work himself at the Bread and Puppet Theater - from baking enough bread for visitors, to putting together another parade or fixing up the bus (which you can’t miss if you see it on any street) - to haul across country and give delight to old and young kids about how easy creativity and fun can be along with a big chunk of sour dough rye bread for anyone within reach. Schumann carries starter for the dough wherever he goes. Sigh. How I wish I could do that. For years, it has flown all over the world along with puppets and the bread too with no limit to settings or when one arrives.  We pulled into Peter Schumann’s environment, his specific heaven where anyone with a creative bent would realize that here was the godfather of such creativity. The kids were worn out from car length, and they were immediately scared of all those enormous, tall monsters made of paper and fabric and used in his shows and parades. And I’m trying to remember if Mr. Schumann had not brought his theater of joy and delight to Memphis back in the day. That was how I found out about them.

I remember that fourth of July the children and I were made useful in their Vermont parade, waving things, carrying things that held giant faces and maybe a bit monster-like (it scared my young children) while making noises, hiding under things but being sure the object was walking or flying or maybe one was tossing something into the Vermont crowd. I’m sure many regulars were accustomed to such a joyful celebration. And we knew, later on, there would be a nice slab of homemade bread - they never fail to take starter dough with them on a trip- and a skip through their amazing museum of all the giants of paper - not just paper but Papier-mâché which can put character into anything floating in the sky, be it a thug or a smile or a cloud or a goddess or a wild soldier moved somehow into a gigantic creation - blowing part of itself in the wind, as someone hides under it to carry an appointed part in the parade. Oh, those parades. They were so creative, simple, giant, verbal, primitive, sort of thrown together by reconstructing so many of the actors that had been in the previous year’s parade. Now this is usually a Fourth of July event in Vermont, but the Bread and Puppet can peek in and give joy all over the place, if invited, whether a spring folly or in a blowing tent or they load up their creative bus painted with sounds and signs of life that make children (and their parents sort of hippies like I was) laugh and laugh and laugh. We are going to ride in that? Wow.

I wished in those days that there was more sort of free-thinking entertainment - it is theater of a sort, but one is not confined into seats, and order, and time limits, and having one seat better than another. If you are there, you are there, and something will pick at your soul and make you smile when you see Peter Schumann do his stuff. And don’t be insulted if he points to you out in the audience or in the prep moment and give you a role to help with something - might be stage stand or swinging enormous  things made out of white sheets and other gear, and the music that marches with us or we march with it - I don’t know which is which - puts a smile on our faces and we just keep it there until the end of the road where one has to help take things back down and put back in the amazing museum that houses all of Mr. Schumann’s inventions and creations over the years. He stopped using so many political words and solved things puppetry-wise.

It’s what you do, not what you say. It’s puppetry not preaching, although my road, my waving hands, and heads, are big on the preaching as God permitted me to bring His Ministry, His bread and version of puppet, into the most difficult of tough prisons. You do the art, the parade, Schumann does the critique. It’s like going to a museum and seeing a work of art that speaks to you and changes your heart and spirit for the rest of one’s life. It’s what museums and theaters and puppets are for. Taking charge of our souls.

There are few things in life that are so amazingly creative, in a world where maybe there is too much creativity or it just doesn’t have much “umph” as so many want to be seen, heard, tik-tok-ed or whatever it’s called. Meanwhile Mr. Schumann, I’m sure mourning the loss of his wife, is not only creating as he always has, with all kinds of spirits, but he is also trying to enter which has become in the world of art and fame and puppets. Isn’t it more fascinating to make or partake in homemade bread than going to a grocery and buying one of those things in a sack and knowing it’s almost artificial?

I wish Mr. Schumann had the solution for all the nightmares, the crimes, the violence, the assassinations, the murders in schools, in dance places, in walking through tourist favorite spots, and restaurants. Nothing is safe these days, nor easily funny anymore. You might be able to go into something, but there are doubts if you will be in there at the wrong time and never come out again. I see all kinds and breeds of humanity and maybe some dogs can continue to hope for and help Mr. Schumann keep creating his outside giant monsters (please don’t flatter Trump with one) and the smiles and inventions of new people all his life, and that someone will carry on his kind of creativity and joy that, so few people ever experience. I thank you Mr. Schumann for giving us life and love and always a smile that means everything is gonna be alright.

~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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