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Another Two Weeks with Bread & Puppet Theater: Part VIII 1/3/2005 10:39:18 AM
Anthems and Ironies World on Fire: Sleepers of the World Unite
Our final appearance in the dumb show is as sleepers in bed. This is the first time since being thrown through the proscenium by the Fire Chief that our faces are seen. Our puppets are painted flats of beds and we lean our heads on the pillow and drape our left arms over the side. Some of us have bed mates, and in my case my head is resting on Catalina's shoulder and my arm is draped over hers as we slowly rock our hips back and forth to the chimes being played by the Asymmetric Prisoners of War Orchestra. The junk metal is again hoisted upwards and then dropped. The crash of metal against metal causes the sleepers to awaken suddenly, eyes open, standing at full height. We toss the beds to the side and begin singing the "Internationale" as the Asymmetric Prisoners begin a bucket brigade to put out the fire with which the media, science, the military, congress, the president, and industry were unable to trifle. The junk metal is repeatedly hoisted and dropped, one evening crashing down very close to me leaving me surprised by the fact that I am left me unfazed.
Arise ye prisoners of starvation
Arise ye wretched of the Earth
For justice thunder's condemnation
A better world's in birth
No more tradition's chains shall bind us
Arise ye poor no more in thrall
The Earth shall rise from new foundations
We have been naught - we shall be all.
It's the final conflict
Let each stand in their place
The International Union
Will be the human race
The International Union
Will be the human race
We take our bows, and "World on Fire" is over.
In rehearsals, Schumann had feigned surprise that no one knew the Internationale. "Everyone knows the Internationale except Americans! They know it in Hungry, China, France, all over! It was sung every May Day, but you don't have May Day anymore by act of Congress, instead they give you Labor Day..."
I imagine that Schumann gives this speech to every new group of volunteers when he is touring the States as or to American performers at the pageant in Glover, Vermont, which I have yet to attend, though my fate will draw me there sooner or later.
I am more surprised that I did not learn the Internationale in my family. My maternal grandparents were communists who had fled Europe and emigrated to Montreal. My mother and her older sister had attended Socialist summer camps in Canada. My Aunt Gerry seems to recall more of this though, and I suspect that much had to do with my grandparents growing disaffection with Moscow, but she tells me of growing up with a photo of Joseph Stalin on the mantelpiece and of wearing "Young Pioneer" uniforms and always posing for photographs with a fist in the air.
My aunt has better retained her proficiency with Yiddishkayt to a point of being able to use her Yiddish in conversation when visiting Germany and the Germans, no longer having familiarity with spoken Yiddish, taking her for somebody from the provinces speaking a regional dialect. I wonder if Aunt Gerry knows the Internationale.
Singing the Internationale is ironic not merely for the family connection but for the very fact that one of the last performances I had done prior to joining up with Bread & Puppet was "Waltzing to War" with Cosmic Spelunker in which I sang "The Star Spangled Banner" as part of the scene I refer to as "Wartime Mash-Up." I am amused to have sung both anthems in performances in less than a week of one another.
