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Two Weeks with Bread & Puppet Theater: Part XV 1/23/2004 1:55:51 PM
Bread & Puppet Participates in a demonstration against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA.)
On the afternoon of November 21st Bread & Puppet took part in a march and rally against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) a pact that aims to create a free trade zone for North, South and Central America and the Caribbean (excluding Cuba.) While the European Economic Community came together through a very deliberate and slow process that allowed for input and influence from all segments of the societies that would later join, the FTAA has been rushed through by autocrats with little interest in standards and protections for workers' rights, the environment, wages, safety, and quality control that the EEC insists upon for its member nations.
The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band took up the front of our contingent, followed by puppeteers and various demonstrators who have decided to join up with us. Though many of the performers are present many of the puppets have been taken up by local activists who are not part of the performing troupe. The link between populist theater and protest is evident as so much of the iconography we use in the Oratorio of the Possibilitarians fits into the demonstration very well.
Peter, capped by his pork pie hat, waved a B&P flag with which he danced every time we come to a stop as we traveled the route from Boylston past the Boston Common into the shopping district around Downtown Crossing, past the boutiques and galleries of Newbury street, past the Boston Public Library, past the shops around the Prudential Center and finally to Copley Square. He seems to enjoy performing-- perhaps something he has little time for given that he is so busy directing.
Uncle Fatso followed behind Peter and the band, while the corporate beggar characters mill about the edges of our contingent and the remaining puppeteers took up the rear, staring at the crowd from the eye slits of our Enemy of Nature masks and holding aloft the F-16 models that protect our technologies and interests throughout the world. We F-16 pilots developed a routine where at the sound of a whistle we break formation and fly our cardboard planes into the crowd on the left side of the street and then to the right side before returning to formation right behind Uncle Fatso. With my vision limited to the eyes lit, everything became larger as I zoomed around making engine noises for my own amusement. Uncle Fatso, already a very tall puppet, was transformed into a lumbering skyscraper of a titan as I would swoop around him. It was more invigorating than any flight simulator video game that I had ever played.
The band played many of the songs used in the show: When the Saints go Marching in, You are my Sunshine, Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag, and Down by the Riverside. I would dance but the asphalt was really too hard and left my feet sore by show time.
Talking to an activist named Matt, whom I have seen about for years due to a few mutual acquaintances, I comment it is nice to have a marching band that can drown out the sloganeering that we generally hear at these things. Matt responds that "The people united/will never be defeated" sounds much better in Spanish where it actually rhymes. I get a bit bolder and mention how I'm just happy not to have to listen to International ANSWER, noting that they are very inconsistent with Acting Now to Stop War and End Racism-- as they supported genocides in Tibet and the former Yugoslavia. Matt smiles and agrees, noting that ANSWER had raised money for a Slobadon Milosovic legal defense fund. We share a chuckle from behind our enemy of nature masks, when an activist dressed as one of the corporate beggars, completely anonymous under the mask breaks into the conversation and starts taking Matt’s comments out of context and questioning Matt's commitment to "the cause".
Matt expresses outrage at being spied upon by anonymous beggar and demands to know the identity of his accuser as she seems knows him from the same activist circles. There is something vaguely Stalinist about the verbal altercation that caused me to drop out of activist circles years ago. As an artist, I don't appreciate the way the unknown activist has hijacked a mask and costume meant to satirize and subvert authority and coopted it as a means to engage in authoritarian behavior. Despite anger that might cause some to go on the defensive, Matt refuses to be bullied into giving details as to what he meant or to allow his commitment to social justice to be called into question. Afterwards he discovers the identity of accuser and restates his outrage at her star chamber like behavior. Oddly enough, I felt I said far more outrageous things like “the left should have used the revolutions of 1989 as an opportunity to get rid of the Stalinists among us,” but my face is not known in activist circles and so I was not confronted.
In between songs I look at my watch and remind Mary of the time since she is producing the shows. Once at Copley, we pack much of our props and puppets onto a truck and take part in the rally for a few minutes. Strawberry teaches a lesson in flight, using the cardboard wings from the chairs and wings segment. She demonstrates the movements as she gives instructions in Tagalog-- which since there are very few people from the Philippines in the crowd, it serves as a sort of grammalot for the Bostonians, Cantabridgeans, and others present. After packing the wings, Emily, Vasilios and I take the the subway back to the theater and set up a simple meal in the lobby as everyone else starts to arrive and get ready for the show.
We don't have time for our usual preshow talk through but it ends up being one of the best performances of the entire run.
