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Two Weeks with Bread & Puppet Theater: Part XVI 1/23/2004 1:57:56 PM
The final show. Comments are welcome.
Come Sunday, November 23rd, the final day of our run, I feel many things: a certain lack of tension with regards to the performance, a desire to savor every moment, a certain sadness that this venture is coming to an end for me, that the eight members of the touring company will soon be off to Vermont before heading to New York for a three week run, but also an excitement as I consider what I might do next.
During the lull in between the breakdown of the Victory Over Everything Circus and set up for Oratorio of the Possibilitarians, we have a little get together. Peter thanks those of us who volunteered, explaining that in Bread & Puppet's early years it was possible to tour with twenty or thirty performers but given the economics of live theater-- and a counter cultural theater at that-- larger productions must rely on volunteer support, not just on stage, but in places for the puppeteers to sleep and do laundry. As a token of appreciation he gives each of us a loaf of bread that he baked into the shape of a fish, a calendar, a poster, a postcard of the sleeper puppet, and a little comic book that he drew himself...
...Then we prepare for the final Oratorio.
I go through the show conscious that this is possibly the last time I will ever perform these routines. It feels very good though. This last night, like most evenings, there is a contingent of friends in the audience. Somehow, knowing these people are there always gives me a boost.
Afterwards, we have to do tear down and pack the entire show. The YMCA needs Bread & Puppet out of the theater by the next morning so everything has to be packed to go. There are several large wooden crates on wheels that hold all the costumes, puppets, props, and flats. As I climb into one so to make room, I discover that there are puppets that were never unpacked-- a whole flock of crows, and other birds. I carry Kaspar after Kaspar (discovering that there are a total of eight) and stack them in their crate, I herd zebras of consumer confidence to their box, bundle flags with rope, search behind curtains for the flats that made up the Immigration and De-Naturalization Service and generally search the backstage area for anything anyone else forgot as they conduct their own search missions. We stack the chairs on rollers stored under the stage. I check the wooden balcony that arcs over the floor below that I had never stopped to appreciate before this moment, as I had always been running through with a flag hoisted over my shoulder as the band played "When the Saints Go Marching in..." I find one of Peter's hats and his jacket by the chair he sits in as she straps on his stilts.
By 11:30 I find myself too exhausted to continue with the work of break down, put on my coat and start saying my good byes. Hugs, thank yous, and jokes are exchanged. I don't really want to go, but two weeks of performing, rehearsing, working my day job, and reducing my sleep schedule to an average of five hours a day is finally catches with me as my body realizes that there are no demands beyond those of my modern urban humdrum life.
In the following days, I am bleary eyed. My night vision is greatly reduced, unable to recognize friends on Mass Ave in Central Square unless they posses the most iconic of faces. Marjorie Morgan and Tom Plsek have to be practically on top of me before I recognize them even though I had just done a small amount of production assistance on their show a week before during one of my two days off from the run with Bread & Puppet. I give them postcards that I designed during my other day off for a show I am producing the following week with John Brendt and Nicole Bindler. Thankfully I am only days away from Thanksgiving and some much needed rest.
