Dada and Circus: "Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theatre"Author(s): Franoise KourilskySource: The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 18, No. 1, Popular Entertainments (Mar., 1974), pp. 104-109Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1144868 .Accessed: 18/07/2011 10:28

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Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theatre

Dada and Circus

Puppeteers are Carnival people, conceived at country fairs, born in gar-

bage cans, married to dancing bears. . .-Peter Schumann1

The Bread and Puppet Theatre2 has often been described as a street theatre whose desire is to reach a popular audience. Often this has meant performing in streets, parks, and city ghettos, doing anti-war parades, setting up workshops in poor neighborhoods, or building puppets with children and getting them involved in the preparation of a show. However, along with these outdoor performances, they have always done indoor shows. There are obvious differences between a "chamber play" such as Fire, played in a specific area before a limited number of spectators, and a street piece like A Man Says Good-bye to His Mother: Although both plays have the same "subject" (the war in Vietnam), the first one conveys the story by the form it- self-movements, sounds, colors, volumes, etc.-and it is, in a way, the spectator's job to "read" it through all the assembled elements. In the second, the story is directly

'Poland, May 1972, p. 3. Unless otherwise indicated, all Schumann quotes are from personal in- terviews, particularly my interview with him in September 1973. 2For background material on the Bread and Puppet Theatre, see: Francoise Kourilsky's book Le Bread and Puppet Theatre (Lausanne: Editions La Cite, 1971), as well as the following issues of The Drama Review: T38, T47, and T55. The title photograph by Oleg Kalinowski and Jim Hoffman is of Our Domestic Resurrection Circus, October 1970.

DADA AND CIRCUS

told to the audience by a narrator. Does that mean there is a polarity between the denser indoor shows and the simpler outdoor shows? Are the indoor shows more "avant-garde," attracting those connoisseurs who are fond of "experimental" art, while the outdoor shows-borrowing from such forms as carnivals, circus, and pageants-appeal to a "popular" audience? Schumann comments:

Yes, we are doing stuff that is as concentrated as Simple Light3 or Fire and stuff as bulky and as minimal in content as Trouble or Hallelujah. But it wouldn't be fair to say that we are doing two kinds of shows. We certainly try for one thing, and it's just very hard to marry these contrasts, to get them into a piece. There are shows like Simple Light that probably also want to be as simple or as good as a street show and don't quite succeed. The material used is too com- plicated, the forms are too abstract and too pure to lend themselves easily to the streets, even though I would like very much to perform Simple Light outside as a street show. We are trying to stay pure in our vision and in the forms we are using, but on the other hand we want to be sure that we don't get stuck in a cold, abstract art at- mosphere that doesn't convey anything to anybody but a good in- tellectual friend. Certainly we want to be broader. So we try for simplification, or you might call it open-heartedness. Story is some- thing we are very much searching for, but we don't start with it. We are starting from forms-pure muscial and movement ideas-and then we proceed slowly to something that, we feel, becomes under- standable, becomes communicable. That contradicts the idea of those two ways of theatre.

In fact, there is no fundamental difference between the way Peter Schumann worked in Germany during the mid-fifties with his New Dance Group and the way he works with the Bread and Puppet Theatre. There is no hiatus between the first abstract shows he put on, (which started from stage elements that were assembled, regrouped, and amplified, and gradually grew into something like a play) and what he is doing now. Schumann agrees that he was influenced by Oskar Schlemmer and the Bauhaus people. If one reads The Theatre of the Bauhaus,4 this relationship becomes clearer (theatre as an art form; the man being employed on an equal footing with the other formative media; the use of masks, the automaton, and the marionette, etc.). And, of course, Schlemmer "had some wishful thinking about popular enter- tainment. He made definitions of what could be done on the stage, and popular entertainment played a part in his system." Schumann adds that he also feels very close to Kurt Schwitters and his concept of the Merz Stage Piece,5 a relationship that is

3That Simple Light May Rise Out of Complicated Darkness was first performed in the Haybarn at Goddard College in November 1972, and then at St. Clement's Church in New York City in December 1972. It has since been toured in New England and Europe. 4O. Schlemmer, L. Moholy-Nagy, F. Molnar. The Theatre of the Bauhaus. Introduction by Walter Gropius. Wesleyan University Press, 1961. "I"n contrast to the drama or the opera, all parts of the Merz Stage Piece are inseparably bound up together; it cannot be written, read or listened to, it can only be produced in the theatre. Up until now, a distinction was made between stage-set, text, and score in theatrical performances. Each factor was separately prepared and could also be separately enjoyed. The Merz stage knows only the fusing of all factors into a composite work. Materials for the stage-set are all solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies, such as white wall, man, barbed wire entanglement, blue distance, light cone.... Materials for the score are all tones and noises capable of being produced by violin,

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evident in the role given to chance in the composition of a piece. So Schumann did not suddenly move from abstract forms to a more literary and traditional theatre. In fact, he does not see them as opposites, as his views on puppetry make clear. Al- though he was impressed by the Sicilian puppets, he feels closer to the Bunraku; the Sicilian puppet show, he feels, "is really story theatre, not compositional work," as in Bunraku. What makes the Japanese puppet theatre so attractive to Schumann is "the incredibly contrasted, completely unmarried ideas that are put forward to create the communication: namely the interference of narration and musician with what hap- pens visually, the order of separateness and coming together of these different stages. It creates such a broad spectrum. That same kind of ambition is very much in the Bread and Puppet Theatre: to try to use the most possible unmarried and un- combined means-any garbage can, any music, anything we can find, any smallness or bigness-and get a communication out of it, not by creating atmosphere and moods and dialogues and tales, but by leaving these things as pure as they can be and eventually touching them together, bringing them really together." What attracts him to the Sicilian puppets is the way that they are involved with language:

In the Sicilian puppet show, when the Pope is sick, the sickness comes flying down from the ceiling in the form of dots of blood and lands on him. When the sickness is taken away by the doctor, these spots are painted a different color and taken away in a bag. The translation of the language is so detailed, so real. We don't have that anymore. We call it symbolism nowadays when somebody does that, but that isn't symbolism. It's the nature of real language to do that, to make something understandable, to detail something to the point that it is very clear. But we don't dare to use real language. Our language is only a destroyed small portion of language. We are inhibited by all the implications that we have learned in school, by all the sciences. But we are looking for it, for a real communicable language.

It is wrong to think of Schumann's work in terms of two different "lines," such as the movements of the Dadaist Theatre of Surprises, the abstract theatre of Schlemmer, Happenings, and the New Dance on the one hand, and the traditional forms of folk art and popular entertainment on the other. In fact, it has been pointed out that Hap- penings, fairs, pageants, and circus have a common "nondiegetic (from the Greek diegesis, a story told) structuring of time and space."6 And Michael Kirby has shown that Happenings and circus appear to be particularly close to each other (nonma- trixed performing, nonacting, noninformational structure, strong environmental as- pects).7 Schumann, in describing the structure of the new version of Our Domestic Resurrection Circus that he is planning for this year, calls to mind the compart- mentalized structure of Happenings, based on the arrangement and continuity of

drum, trombone, sewing machine, grandfather clock, stream of water, etc. Materials for the text are all experiences that provoke the intelligence and emotions. The materials are not to be used logically in their objective relationships, but only within the logic of the work of art. The more intensively the work of art destroys rational objective logic, the greater become the possibilities of artistic building.... Take in short everything from the hair net of the high class lady to the propeller of the S. S. Leviathan, always bearing in mind the dimensions required by the work." Kurt Schwitters in an article on the Merz Stage Piece in Strumbuhne, Berlin, 8, Folgo, 1918. 'See Darko Suvin, "Reflections on Happenings," in The Drama Review, vol. 14, N. 3 (T 47), p. 134. 7Michael Kirby, The Art of Time, Dutton, 1969, p. 84.

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separate theatrical units. He spoke of a "cycle type of thing," where instead of a single theatre piece, the members of the troupe will work on "pieces on problems, pieces on no problems, pieces on simple facts of life, pieces on politics, pieces that have to do with birth or death, or people's affairs and jobs, etc., and all these single pieces could then be placed inside a larger framework: at the beginning, a big piece on Be- ginning, then pieces in the middle, and in the end, a piece about End."

Actually, there is a constant feedback in Schumann's work between all these forms. They are part of his background, of his interior, imaginary world. For him, circus and Dada are on a level beyond esthetics. As a child, he was fascinated by the circus: "The circus was a way of life that, compared to the life of the bourgeoisie, was almost as outside the-civilized world as the world of the Gypsies-and it was a com- plete other world. That was the attraction of the circus... ." This idea of a marginal world outside "normal" social life can be found in Dada as well: For instance, Schwit- ters' famous Merzbau in Germany, which the Nazis destroyed, was in its own way a "complete other world." The papier-mache cathedral that Peter Schumann is building in Vermont, covering the walls of the Cate Farm barn with a variety of masks and sculptures, recalls Schwitters' Merzbau.

Although there is no real dichotomy in Schumann's work, there is an evolution from a show that is meant to be a "creation in itself" to a theatre that makes sense to people. Schumann states that "Now we constantly verify our plays: Are they under- standable? To what point? And we try to make them simple and clear." That is the reason why Schumann says that he does not feel related to "Happenings people," even if he still refers to his work with Yvonne Rainer at Merce Cunningham's studio shortly after he arrived from Germany in 1961.8 "Their [Happenings people] work is a work of intensity, and for me there is a difference between a work like theirs that constantly intensifies itself in itself, and a work that deliberately gives up that intensity for the sake of a communal act, for the sake of doing it with others for others."

The concept of theatre as a communal act separates Schumann from some avant- garde artists and brings him closer to circus people. The circus is-or rather was-a kind of traveling, self-supporting commune that embodied an alternate mode of exis- tence. The Bread and Puppet Theatre is based on a communal spirit-making things, baking bread, building puppets, and putting on shows. The group is trying to live off what it produces with little outside financial aid. Their theatre style is inseparable from their lifestyle; they have established an alternative way of existing today in the United States.

For Schumann, today's commercial circus is very unsatisfying: It's a very empty business of superlatives that are added to each other to create some kind of tickle that people don't need for their lives. It says something that is not very useful anymore. It is proven that the mass media, TV, movies, Hollywood and the big magazines in this country do a much better job on superlatives than any circus can.

Schumann feels that theatre can do better than "Ringling Brothers with its three rings and dozens of acrobats all doing the same thing at the same time":

Our Domestic Resurrection Circus9 will be an effort to find a new way of doing circus that is more human, that is not merely a

"Schumann attended a concert by John Cage in Germany in 1960. He discovered many ideas that he himself had tried to put into practice-free use of sounds, acrobatics, jokes, etc. This "meeting" with Cage prompted him to plan to leave for the United States. O9ur Domestic Resurrection Circus was first performed by The Bread and Puppet Theatre on Cate Farm Meadow in September 1970. In February and March of 1971, they took the piece to Boston, Rhode Island, and Ohio.

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collection of superlatives, of extraordinary feats arbitrarily mixed together, but something that becomes a story of the world circus. We don't use circus techniques: the heaviest acrobatics done in our circus is a somersault. Or the horse is done by somebody putting on a horse mask. In that respect, it's only a parody of a circus. In the first version, there was clowning and some slapstick stuff; we had mo- torcycles and cars and whatever was around. I guess that the circus we do is a little bit like the gigantic pageants performed all over the United States on pieces of American history, although I haven't seen them. It has to do with just creating a big outside attraction for the people in the area. It's a piece that shouldn't be traveled, something we want to perform where we can integrate the landscape, that we can do with real time and real rivers and mountains and animals. It's something that is seen in the woods, up there in the hills, back here in the river. I guess it would be called an "environment!"

The first version of Our Domestic Resurrection Circus was like a history of America, ending with the war in Vietnam. Schumann does not know if they will keep it in the new version, but it will certainly have to do with "demonstrating the whole world: for the whole world has to be demonstrated anew; men and women are stuck in the one- way development of our century."10

"People are not tied up by religious symbols or by any existing mythology any- more, so they have no real language. What we are looking for finally is a language, a mythology that is to everybody's understanding."

Is this search for a fundamental, unified language a desperate and hopeless business in our divided society? Can "organ-grinders, circus directors, poets, lutists, magicians, tightrope walkers, dramatists, conductors, prophets, hobby-horse inven- tors, and all the folks that help produce big eternal nonsense"1' really win? In Simple Light, when circus people, clowns, acrobats, and musicians enter at the end of the show, their cheerfulness does not sound real. They bring with them the image of a world which is dead or dying. The impression is the same at the end of Grey Lady Can- tata No. 2: Suddenly, after the death of the Grey Lady, a group of "rejoicing" ladies and gentlemen in fancy dress enter and blast out a song; then, the Grey Lady gets up and dances with the Black Angel. At the end of Grey Lady Cantata No. 3, just after the Grey Lady has "lost" her baby, she claps her hands, and the snow starts falling. It is like saying to the audience: "We theatre people, or circus people, bring you joy and music and white and snow and light, but it's a trick, look at how we do it, it's only a show, it's not real."

"Something is demonstrated in the show," agrees Schumann, "and then at the end, instead of staying with the demonstration, we say-obviously we are just actors. It's like pouring water on what was done, it's like taking away the impression that people may have collected and saying, okay, this is the end of the theatre piece. That is also what the narrator is used for in Simple Light, to constantly step into that de- velopment and to say 'the spectacle' so that the person doesn't get too involved with it and has a chance to step out of it. I think what Brecht tries to do with his manner of speech in theatre would be what people call 'Verfremdungseffekt.' But in this case, it is done with simple means, with more directness."

By insisting on the alienation effect, Schumann shows to what extent the desire for demonstration is inherent in his theatre: there is always a "narrator" or a "barker" in the indoor shows as well as the outdoor shows. But, on the other hand, it should be

"'Poland, March 1970, p. 4. ""Poisons, Worries, Screams" in Poland, May 1972, p. 18.

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pointed out that although the framework of "popular entertainment" is still present in the indoor shows the "techniques" are used in a much more sophisticated manner. The narrator is no longer a person who just tells the story. He becomes a "character," such as the "Ritz-Carlton" in Simple Light, who just "barks"-literally speaking-to announce a new section. He yells without pronouncing any word, and turns pages from The New York Times. He does not really display a comprehensible sign to the audience. There is a sort of "de-construction," or reversal, of the techniques bor- rowed from popular spectacles: one might talk in terms of a parody on a fair barker's style. And this, in turn, might be related to the more pessimistic "meaning" of certain indoor shows.

This is the point of view of a critic looking at a show without being involved in the creative process. Schumann himself insists that he is not a person who analyzes be- forehand which form is the most useful and then uses it. He is not a manager of styles: "It is the doing that interests me and not the achieving of something." He adds that he finds the very term "popular entertainment" suspicious. "It suggests we are trying to appeal to mass audiences. It is not true, even if I would like to be attractive to people who live around here [Vermont] and not only to Goddard students." He does not agree with the terms popular and unpopular. "In fact it is the same thing that a piece of drama, a piece of Beckett, a piece of Shakespeare, or a piece of an Oldenburg Hap- pening, or circus or carnival wants to do to people. It is uncritical to define that as something as flat as the word entertainment means. 'Entertainment' has a bias inside it, it is sort of the dress-up of it, and the appeal, and the success of that appeal.... It is hard to find the word for it, to say what makes people do these things. I don't know. I think people need to be attached to each other."

And the mass media today cannot do that. Even an amusement park such as Coney Island cannot do it. When the Bread and Puppet Theatre was working at Coney Island12their theatre was part of the amusement park. It was open to all the people. The troupe ran workshops with children and old folks and performed pageants throughout the park with their big dragon. From the small bandstand in front of the theatre, they called to the passing crowds in barker style: "Come on in! Free puppet show in ten minutes."

"Free" ... Today's forms of popular entertainment have become just as com- mercial as the mass media and serve as a means of manipulating the audience in the direction useful to the moneymakers. Thus, even though the Bread and Puppet Theatre was part of the amusement park and the puppeteers had relations with other Coney Island showmen, their goal and their work were radically different:

Some showmen came, they wanted stuff from us, painting, etc., and they taught us some tricks-fire spitting and sword swallowing. But they were pretty corrupt moneymakers, not very nice to deal with. They were certainly better at their things because they were out for commercialism, so their attraction was well defined to the point where people would come and buy this. We don't have that goal. If you don't have that goal, you end up with volunteers. It's very different. The audience is not the same. People came to us because they wanted to relax from the other things.

One has to have attended a performance of Mississippi and heard the silence at the end of the play, which contrasted so violently with the brouhaha outside, to realize the impact the Bread and Puppet shows can have on a "popular" audience, and by the same token understand why Peter Schumann dislikes the term "enter- tainment," which implies a kind of superficial pleasure, "meant for the skin." Theatre is more like bread, "meant for the stomach." It is more like a necessity.

21n 1970, the Bread and Puppet Theatre played in Coney Island in an old theatre on Surf Avenue.

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Article Contentsp.[104]p.105p.106p.107p.108p.109

Issue Table of ContentsThe Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 18, No. 1, Popular Entertainments (Mar., 1974), pp. 1-160Front Matter [pp.1-2]Popular Entertainments Issue: An Introduction [pp.3-4]The Shamanistic Origins of Popular Entertainments [pp.5-15]Scenography of Popular Entertainment [pp.16-24]The Golden Age of the Boulevard [pp.25-33]Thtre du Grand Guignol [pp.34-43]The System of Doctor Goudron and Professor Plume [pp.44-52]The Popular PerformerThe Actor and the Magician [pp.53-58]Commedia and the Actor [pp.59-64]The Classification of Circus Techniques [pp.65-70]

Popular Entertainments and the Avant-GardeEisenstein's "Wiseman" [pp.71-76]Montage of Attractions: For "Enough Stupidity in Every Wiseman" [pp.77-85]Karl Valentin and Bertolt Brecht [pp.86-98]Bim-Bom and the Afanasjew Family Circus [pp.99-103]Dada and Circus: "Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theatre" [pp.104-109]Political Theatre as Popular Entertainment: The San Fransico Mime Troupe [pp.110-117]

Sources in Popular Entertainment [pp.118-122]New Books [p.123]List of Books Received [pp.123-124]Back Matter [pp.125-160]