2006-07-13
bread and puppets
Standing on the deck by Lake Champlain, I stare at the camel-like humps across the shimmering water. It has a pulse like the ocean, churning up foam and oyster shells, but the rocks are smooth as buttons beneath my bare feet.
Today we took a long drive north of Stowe to the rural town of Glover--about an hour away. The ride reminded me of Tolkien's craggy forests, the pines as tall as Ents, the farms where hobbits might live in their peaceful shire. For miles we twisted and turned through roads without passing a single car. Sometimes I didn't see a house...maybe just a barn, half-carved, or a pasture of pure white horses. Maybe unicorns in disguise.
I spotted a few shabby trailers that--despite their decrepit exterior--always seemed to have a pool in the backyard...one of those northern above-ground numbers.
What better place to find the Bread and Puppet Theatre...where Julie Taymor studied in the '60s before Lion King fame. An enormous old dairy barn rose between the trees--all painted psychedelic colors like the bus by the dirt road. "Cheap Art" said a sign in sloppy handwriting...the mark of a crazy person...or a genius.
Mama started to park behind the barn but a scruffy bearded man slowly marched toward us, waving his arms. He didn't look so scary up close. In fact, he was smiling at us, as if we were old friends. He said the puppeteers were practicing back there--a rehearsal for an anti-war protest of absurdist glee (their deranged chanting reminded me of a Beckett monologue).
We left the car by a storage shed. Another sign nailed to a tree said, "outhouse." Beside the colossal barn was an adorable farmhouse that seemed to sprout windows from every angle. A few long-haired kids in tuxedos and wedding dresses were rolling bikes behind it. Others wore bright blue jumpsuits like an army of Smurfs.
I bet there was a reason for the color...maybe to blend in with the 12-foot gauzy puppets that I found by the truckload upstairs in the dairy barn. Where cows once stood in the stalls, now angels, demons, and devils performed their passion play...stacked to the ceiling (which was plastered like the Sistine Chapel in paper-mache). So many pairs of eyes watching me!
They had names like Wiggletree (wire hoops and leaves sewn into cloth) cardboard boots, a Fathead Fish, a flying Mylar angel hot-glued star banners, backpack skeletons. Elastic hinges, wooden crosspieces screwed and glued to magnify the movement of the puppeteer.
Snapping mouths jiggled on wagon wheels. Samba dancers and African kings towered on farm equipment. Mr. Punch's head hung from poles like a hoop skirt. Forty years of performances in one place--a living museum of the past.
The plaster faces glowed eerie in the windows. Only the slightest suggestion of a mouth, slotted eyes, a bump of a nose. The air smelled thick with glue and dust. I flipped the light switch by the stairs and the shadows grew longer. Peering through the slats, I could barely make out the puppeteers in the backyard--their voices thin and reedy. They were banging on something metallic like an evil drum roll and shouting, "Cheney Dick!" as if the vice president's name was an insult or four letter word.
Downstairs I found more wispy puppet women, old hags with shriveled faces like apple cores, and heaps of pamphlets, flyers, posters and cards. Nobody was there to pay...I just slipped my wadded-up dollars in a wooden box like the poor collection in church. And since the process had a holy feel to it, I said a prayer and signed my name in their book.
"Long Live B & P!"
f-i-n at 10:30 a.m.