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Two Weeks with Bread & Puppet Theater: Part IV 12/15/2003 5:39:08 PM
A more detailed account of playing the role of the high arm of the sleeper puppet. Feedback welcome.
In the very first rehearsal Peter Schumann asks who wants to play the body parts. Having seen these enigmatic collections of not quite unified parts eerily rolling and floating across the fields of Glover, Vermont in a documentary about the annual Domestic Resurrection Circuses I immediately volunteer. I am initially disappointed to be handed the role of "the high arm" which seems a less rewarding role than something something like the head or one of the hands, as my panel of brown paper mache is shapeless in comparison to the more representational crafted parts.
Two of the touring company, Justin and Vasilios hand us our body parts and give us a quick primer in technique: In that these puppets are essentially flat panels, having only the three dimensionality of a bas relief, we are instructed to keep the front facing the audience at all times-- to never turn our objects at an angle even if we turn our body. This makes perfect sense to me: many of the mime illusions I use are specifically conceived to be seen from the side and others from the front or back. It doesn't always seem obvious to others. I must keep this in mind when I perform in the chairs and wings dance as well.
This first act of the Oratorio is narrated by Vasilios who recounts a fable in which the parts of the body are at war against one another. It turns out that as the left arm, I am at war with the torso as to our respective jobs. The torso, as interpreted by Alan, a B&P veteran who now lives locally, speaks purely in onomatopoeias and gibberish. In contrast, I end up creating a more verbose character over the course of the two weeks:
"It is I, the talented talking arm! I deserve a greater role in this body. Digestion, respiration, the pumping of blood, I am bored of only lifting and if I cannot get what I want I am quitting and starting my own body!"
This is, of course, gibberish of an entirely different kind.
The body parts return in the final act of the Oratorio when we are seen as a single unitary body, and this is one scene that we end up rehearsing nearly every other day of the run as it requires the most team work. We are to arrange the parts in a reclining pose just feet away from the front of the stage. As puppeteers, our initial instinct is to arrange ourselves to emerge on the stage the order in which the the sleeper is posed. But Schumann rejects the idea after the second show and insists we float in disconnected and take our form in front of the audience.
It is difficult coordinating the efforts of ten puppeteers. Alan, as the trunk, leads us in the deep breathing of the puppet's slumber. We imitate his exagerated inhalations and exhalations and cause our parts to rise and fall with him. I stand in a never easy position over Trudi, who plays the lower arm in this scene (it seems that I have become the right arm) and whoever is playing the head that given night. My legs are spread for stability, my head and chest curving so not to be seen over the arm and at the same time to give room for the puppeteers below me while my right hand holds the rods on the back of my body part and my left hand grasps the rod of the hand so to ensure a clean elbow joint.
A problem of relying on volunteer performers in an extended run is that we don't have a consistent performer for the head. One fellow is excellent in the role, and thankfully he is our head on most nights, but one performer ends up attaching the head upside down and another alternately places the chin behind the chest of the sleeper or doesn't attach the head to the torso at all. This particularly frustrates me as this one doesn't always respond to attempts of the surrounding puppeteers to correct the mistake.
This is not to say that I don't make mistakes either, but my desire to learn the craft ensures that I learn from those mistakes.
One particularly difficult aspect of the high arm role is not only the posture, but the fact that I can neither be too high nor too low as the scene closes with a giant marionette of similar construction emerging from the rear curtains and flying out over us. A few evenings, either my "high arm", my head or my back is grazed by the giant hand of the marionette as it flies out over the audience. One night, Alan corrects me during this scene by silently pulling me downwards. I see it as team work; though he makes a point after the show to ensure I didn't take it personally. Alan is soft spoken and a great ensemble player: he is a team player who is good at encouraging new members of the company and noting their strengths.
While I am always too busy to take count, the marionette is operated by what appear to be seven puppeteers by means of a pulley system. Despite the squeaks of the pulley wheel, it always leaves the audience in awe as it flies above us. I only get to see the marionette from the front during rehearsals without the theatrical lighting and it is a awesome sight even then, though during the rest of the show it is nothing more than a pile of paper mache panels in the backstage area. The marionette pulls a sheet off of the sleeper puppet and we, the sleeper puppeteers, scatter with our body parts. From the wings, I get to see the marionette laying the sheet down before laying down to rest. Though I see the panels from the side with ropes and rods clearly visible it is still an impressive spectacle.
