For the Media
April 29, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information contact
Erin Hanrahan, Publcity
802-295-6300, Ext. 106
hanrahan@chelseagreen.com
"The Bread & Puppet Theater has been so long a part of America's conscious
struggle for our better selves that it has become, paradoxically, a fixture
of our subconscious. Marc's Prose and Ron's photographs perform the magic of
resurfacing this giant and breathing new faith into our sense of justice, art,
and action." --Andrei Codrescu, author of Cassanova
in Bohemia
New book documents political and celebratory themes of Bread &
Puppet Theater. For the first time, Peter Schumann’s momentous pageantry
is explored through photographs and essays in Rehearsing with Gods.
Peter Schumann and his Bread & Puppet Theater are likely the most important
contributors to modern American drama. Since the early sixties, Schumann and
his puppeteers have been pouring out work after work on every scale: political
shows, mysterious shows, grand shows and modest shows, shows on the street and
shows in the fields, shows to be played in every size theater on four continents,
books, prints, and banners that live as show-and-tell in tens of thousands of
homes.
Now Ronald T. Simon, a remarkable photographer, and Marc Estrin, a novelist
and long-time puppeteer, have put the magnificent Bread & Puppet Theater
in perspective, recording and reflecting on its performances. Out of their experiences
they have created Rehearsing with Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread
& Puppet Theater.
Moving far beyond history or documentation, Simon and Estrin identify eight
archetypes engaged repeatedly by Peter Schumann and his crew. The eight chapters
of Rehearsing with Gods--Death, Fiend, Beast, Human, World, Gift, Bread
and Hope--follow these archetypes through their use in the theater, where Peter
Schumann describes his puppets' roles as culturally embedded sculpture.
Ron Simon's stunning photography distills the emotion and power in Schumann's
puppets, which often take on the presence of gods. Simon and Estrin have combined
their sixty-odd man years of personal experience with the Bread & Puppet
Theater to finally narrate its other-worldly culture of enormous, larger-than-life
emotions--from the striking image of an Uncle Sam on stilts to playful photos
of children in the pageants. Rehearsing with Gods shares the legacy
of a revolutionary performing group. It is an astounding eye-opener into a world
where puppets are divine and theater reigns supreme.
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