December wouldn't be complete without Bread & Puppet Theater's annual show at Theater for the New City. Inevitably this year's themes are war and global capitalism. How To Turn Distress Into Success also highlights the role of spin in transforming the worst of man-made disasters, like the war on Iraq, into triumphs of human intellect.
Unabashedly political, Peter Schumann and company tell their story with humor, sarcasm and plenty of puppets, mainly the body variety. Ideas come thick and fast, but the audience is never hit over the head a-la-Brecht. But this is not to say Schumann sugarcoats reality -- only that the segments are of digestible length even though a few should get stuck in the craw. Take the "collateral damage dance" (a euphemism for civilian casualties), which makes its chilling point just as effectively as a more linear exposition. Or the twice-life-size Innocent Bystanders shuffling about in semi-darkness to match the consciousness level of most of the people in the world.
Most of us won't be able to see the company perform in the ideal setting of its Vermont center. TNC doesn't match the woodsy backdrop of the outdoor playing area in Glover, and we can only see a small selection of Schumann's puppets that are collected at the Bread & Puppet museum on the grounds. The permanent company members that came for these New York shows plus local volunteer extras came to approximately fifteen, much smaller that on home turf. Even so, the cumulative effect of Schumann's vision after 90 minutes is compelling.
You can count on two things at any Bread & Puppet show. First is the band. What appears at first hearing to be a rather motley assemblage nicely underlines the crass sales job for ideas like lopsided free trade agreements whose time ought never come. The band is at full complement for section introductions until most of the members disappear to don costumes and masks or body puppet attire. During some scenes, contrapuntal choral themes give a rather unsettling quasi-religions veneer to the proceedings. The other given is the after-show gift to the audience of pieces of bread, fresh-baked of course. And with garlicky aioli sauce, the quintessential Mediterranean spread popular from Barcelona to Genoa.
