Ian Thal, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen!
Blogs by Ian Thal
Two Weeks With Bread & Puppet Theater: Part III 12/14/2003 8:11:04 AM
More to follow. Again, comments from other performers in this or other B&P productions are welcome.
Circus of the Possibilitarians:
The Circus, as mentioned before, is a mostly comic prelude to the Oratorio that introduces some of the basic concepts through the spectacle that is circus performance. The opening scene features the Homeland Security Marching Band led by Lydia, one of the touring company. Their theme song is based on the melody of the Bonanza theme: "We've got the might to pick a little fight bonanza/ if anyone picks a fight with anyone of us, he's got a fight with me!" Over the course of the production this always has us marching and strutting back stage. Soon, they arrest a big headed Thomas Jefferson puppet played by Strawberry during their security check. Note that he isn't searched for his race, religion, sexual preference, or political affiliation. He just looks funny being that his head is made of paper mache and his clothing is from the 18th century. Turns out he is carrying a subversive document called "The Declaration of Independence."
[Just a note: I really don't like treating Jefferson as a hero. To me, he is a slave owner, and a neo-feudalist whose talk of liberty was really a front for making his neo-aristocratic privilege seem acceptable in the new Republic. Alas, the victors are the ones who select the high school history books and the largest school district in the country is Texas which is run by the sort of states-rights elitists who find comfort in Jeffersonism. Gary Wills, the historian and Jefferson scholar, takes a position only slightly more charitable than mine.]
As the band starts up again and Jefferson is carted off. We get into the Dragon of Maximum Consumer Confidence and dance onto stage with much fanfare. While the traditional Chinese dragon is part of a ritual ceremony, our dragon is comical. Underneath the body, we wear what we call "fancy dragon pants" though really they are red fringes and tasseled chaps that are safety pinned to the belt loops of the white pants that are the Bread & Puppet uniform. At the end Eddie, leaps off the stage, taking the head of Maximus with him and leaving the remaining four of us dragon dancers with our chaps, B&P whites and Possibilitarian capes. Other Possibilitarians appear on stage in capes and newspaper hats, some with trombones, accordians, and drums. All sorts of clownish antics ensue and the slapstick aspects of my mime work come into play before we collectively announce our intents and exit again.
There's a break and I get out of my cape and chaps. Next time I'm on stage it's for the Chairs & Wings dance.
The shifts from one scene to another, from one costume or prop to another is breakneck. One evening during costume changes I mention to Trudi Cohen, co-founder of Great Small Works, and a veteran B&P member that this must be what it was like to work in the commedia, she smiles and corrects me by noting that we don't live or sleep in the theater as commedia players would. There are acts that go on in between the ones I am in. Some I get to see by peeking through the curtains on stage left or right others I only hear. Strawberry leads some blue horse puppets onto the stage-- from what few glances I can see over the two weeks, it is a beautiful interlude followed by a clean up by the masked figures of the Garbage Man and the Washer Woman played by Alan and Eleanor.
The Kaspars are giant masked characters who grunt and beat each other up. I never see the Kaspar acts, but I hear them shout and growl as the narrator turns the slapstick into morality plays like "How to Beat a Recession" or "The Five Faces of Justice" the sounds of the Kaspars and the sound effects created by crashing cymbals have me grinning the whole time and wishing I could be either in those acts or at least see them.
We reappear as Possibilitarians again with capes and newspaper hats. I come onto stage right behind Isaac, a seventh grader who was raised in Bread & Puppet as a result of being the son of Trudi and her husband John Bell. Together the three of them perform in Great Small Works (I had been admiring their work for while.) Isaac swings around a column and flies onto the stage. Night after night I crash into the column as I follow. This is the Possibilitarian Stunt Act in which Thomas Jefferson escapes from his chains and proceeds to break dance before we lead him off.
The Circus finale involves us running about with flags as the band plays "When the Saints Go Marching In." On the second chorus, my group sprint through the balcony with flags of red, green, blue, and yellow while another group parades through the audience down below. We rendezvous in front of the stage as Peter Schumann emerges dancing on twenty foot stilts dressed as Uncle Sam and announcing an intermission. The red and white striped pants wave around the thin stilts and give the illusion of bending knees in my peripheral vision. We return backstage as the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band kicks into "Down by the Riverside."
