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Blogs by Ian Thal
Another Two Weeks with Bread & Puppet Theater: Part VII 1/3/2005 10:36:34 AM
World on Fire: The Clouds
The clouds, like the hands and feet that precede them, are cardboard flats, painted blue and white. They vary a great deal in size, the smaller ones operated two to a puppeteer, one in each hand; the larger ones one to one. Some have snippets of sheet music glued to the back of them. Another has the tag of "Fluffmaster 2004" written on the back. We arrange ourselves in a tableau, with our clouds at various depths but as close to the floor as the audience's line of sight allows. I am curled up in the front row behind a large cloud, the puppeteer behind me is in a bent knee crouching position, arms extended with two small clouds in front of the top edges of my large cloud. Another puppeteer stands behind us with yet another large cloud.
The curtain opens after the skit about the President ordering an investigation. As the junk metal is lifted by pulley, we slowly raise the clouds. I stick with the directions I remember being given during the rehearsals and make small circular movements as I uncurl my spine and straighten my knees until the junk metal crashes down again as which point we fall from the red sky. Sometimes I am surprised about the strange shapes I take when I fall to the floor with my knees and forehead on the floor in some strange tripod behind my cloud. It surprises one of the other puppeteers too, who says "You're flexible!" but I cannot tell who says that as I am too busy letting the other puppeteers exit backstage while holding this ridiculous posture.
