{"id":14533,"date":"2019-12-10T13:10:07","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T18:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=14533"},"modified":"2019-12-10T22:40:22","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T03:40:22","slug":"bread-puppet-honey-lets-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/12\/10\/bread-puppet-honey-lets-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Bread & Puppet\u2019s \u2018Honey Let\u2019s Go Home! Opera\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

When people think of Bread and Puppet Theater, they naturally tend to think of the giant puppets and the garlic-slathered sourdough bread that the company serves after performances. But it can be helpful to think of Bread and Puppet as an experimental dance and music troupe.<\/p>\n

This is especially so for their \u201cHoney Let\u2019s Go Home! Opera,\u201d<\/a> which they performed at Theater for the New City in New York from Dec. 5 to 8, 2019. (The company performs its Circus<\/a> at the New York theater from Dec. 12 to 15.) At the heart of the show is operatic singing and curious dancing to classical music of Europe\u2014Schubert, Brahms, Bach, Mozart.<\/p>\n

\"Bread<\/a>
Bread and Puppet Theater performs the \u201cHoney Let\u2019s Go Home! Opera\u201d at Theater for the New City, New York, Dec. 6, 2019. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The show begins with a squeak from a horn that announces a giant puppet. The cast pulleys it up to the rafters of a black curtained stage framed by hanging chains of papier-mache reliefs (birds, trees, squabbling people). The puppet has a body made from blue tarp that connects cardboard hands and a cardboard face resembling some sort of bearded, three-eyed prophet. Around its face are the words: \u201cThe Throne of the Anonymous.\u201d<\/p>\n

A band, dressed in primary colors (red, blue, yellow), arrives from behind the audience singing a Brahms requiem and walks into the outstretched arms of the puppet. Then the arms open wide and Bread and Puppet founder and director Peter Schumann\u2014gray bearded, a bit stooped, dressed in charcoal sweater and green courdory trousers\u2014stands to conduct. As a pianist plays a luscious, straight rendition of Schubert\u2019s \u201cWander Fantasy in C Major Adagio,\u201d Schumann directs a man to sweep the floor, violinists to pluck at their strings, a rumbling drum, shouting horns. They are all swept off the stage by performers swinging loud clacking ratchets.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/a>
Peter Schumann (right) demonstrates a yell during a rehearsal of Bread and Puppet Theater’s \u201cHoney Let\u2019s Go Home! Opera\u201d at Theater for the New City, New York, Dec. 6, 2019. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The \u201cHoney Let\u2019s Go Home! Opera\u201d is not a narrative, but a string of dances or actions, punctuated by spoken declarations. The events sometimes echo or build on each other, and sometimes stand alone. In reaction to the depredations of capitalism the show imagines a world of \u201ctrue cardboard spirit\u2014which is garbage.\u201d The show says \u201cthe never mind time is over\u201d as the \u201cunthinkable\u201d becomes normalized.<\/p>\n

The \u201cHoney Let\u2019s Go Home! Opera\u201d was created in September 2017 with music at its center\u2014a collaboration between tenor Gregory Corbino, soprano Susie Perkins, pianist Idith Korman (also director of New York\u2019s Ensemble Pi), sound-contraption maker Peter Hamburger, the Bread and Puppet company, and a chorus of volunteer performers, under the direction of Peter Schumann. Schumann loves to tinker with his productions. For example, the version they performed in New York last week differed in parts from a version performed at the company\u2019s home in Glover, Vermont, in July. Below I describe impressions of some of the scenes.<\/p>\n