{"id":7860,"date":"2018-06-27T08:36:11","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T12:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=7860"},"modified":"2018-06-27T22:09:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T02:09:52","slug":"bread-puppet-hamlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2018\/06\/27\/bread-puppet-hamlet\/","title":{"rendered":"Bread & Puppet\u2019s \u2018Out-Of-Joint Hamlet\u2019 Unearths The Play\u2019s Strongmen To Reframe Shakespeare For The Trump Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d<\/a>\u2014which the legendary experimental, activist puppet and mask troupe is performing in their Paper Mache Cathedral in Glover, Vermont, on Friday nights at 7:30 through July 6\u2014reframes Shakespeare\u2019s most celebrated play for our Trump-ian moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cHamlet,\u201d which dates back to around 1600, has most frequently been presented in the past couple hundred years as a psychological study of the young prince of Denmark wracked by grief over the murder of his father and inflamed with a desire for revenge. Contemporary performances seem to ask whether Hamlet was too thoughtful, too lacking in action, especially in comparison to the other young men in the play whose fathers have been killed\u2014Prince Fortinbras of Norway, who threatens war on Denmark after his father is killed by Hamlet\u2019s father, and Laertes, who threatens to overthrow King Claudius after Hamlet kills his father, Polonius.<\/p>\n

Instead, Bread And Puppet Founder and Director Peter Schumann has edited and condensed \u201cHamlet\u201d down to an impressionistic retelling performed with giant cardboard kings, tiny hand-puppets and masked performers. He highlights Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cbest poetry and the funniest lines\u201d (as pointed out by my friend, James Cook, who taught the play to students at Gloucester High School for many years), and endeavors to foreground the politics that are just background scenery in many productions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t try to make psychiatry by doing the whole thing psychologically correct. Too much work. But the fascist moment,\u201d Schumann tells me, \u201cmakes it similar to this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bread<\/a>
Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cHamlet\u201d is about fascism?<\/p>\n

In Shakespeare\u2019s script, Hamlet\u2019s father, the king of Denmark, has killed the king of Norway and won his lands. Norwegian Prince Fortinbras seeks to win his territory back by making war on Denmark. But Claudius, who has killed Hamlet\u2019s father to seize the throne of Denmark, cuts a deal with Fortinbras\u2019s uncle, who has become king of Norway, to offer him Poland instead.<\/p>\n

In Act Four, Scene Four, of the script, Hamlet bumps into Fortinbras\u2019s troops as they cut across Denmark\u2014with Claudius\u2019s permission\u2014on the way to attack Poland. A Captain tells him: \u201cWe go to gain a little patch of ground \/ That hath in it no profit but the name.\u201d Hamlet replies, \u201cWhy, then the Polack never will defend it.\u201d To which the Captain says, \u201cIt is already garrison’d.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is what Schumann is identifying as the fascism in the play\u2014various scheming strongmen carving up the world. This is the fascism that he believes rhymes with Trump\u2019s America. \u201cThe whole issue of Denmark in cahoots with Norway devastating Poland,\u201d he says. \u201cThey call the Polish the \u2018Polacks,\u2019 like the Nazis did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now we are in that situation and Americans don\u2019t go into the streets and protest it,\u201d Schumann laments.<\/p>\n

\u201cTotal brutality,\u201d Schumann says of the way the U.S. government is handling immigration, separating children from their parents. \u201cThey help making this war and then no asylum.\u201d Schumann says, \u201cTrump has his imitators in Hungary, in Poland, all over Europe, all over the place. All this neo-fascism. It\u2019s fascism. We live in a Hamlet moment\u2014totally out of joint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bread<\/a>
Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bread And Puppet\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d debuted at the Highland Center for the Arts<\/a> in Greensboro, Vermont (about a half hour\u2019s drive southwest of Glover), on April 7 and 8. (It\u2019s been revised somewhat for this incarnation.)<\/p>\n

The center opened in 2017. \u201cThe building design blends a bow to Shakespeare\u2019s Globe Theater in London with a nod to Greensboro\u2019s rural character. The faux roof mimics the thatched roof of the Globe,\u201d management wrote<\/a> as construction was wrapping up. They originally planned to call it the Mirror Theatre, in reference to a line in “Hamlet” in which the prince suggest actors \u201chold as ’twere, the mirror up to nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey built an imitation of the Globe Theatre in Greensboro,\u201d Schumann says, funded by millionaire donor Andrew C. Brown<\/a>, a part-time resident of the town. \u201cWhen I stepped in there I saw that imitation Globe Theatre. It had catwalks 30 feet in the air. So I decided this needs a 30-foot-tall Hamlet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bread<\/a>
Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hamlet himself ended up being played by a forlorn-looking hand-puppet. But the ghost of his dead father, a skeleton, and his murderer uncle, King Claudius, are portrayed by giant cardboard puppets, multiple-stories-tall, operated by rigging of ropes and pulleys.<\/p>\n

Why choose \u201cHamlet\u201d from all of Shakespeare\u2019s plays? \u201cWe want the most intense and decrepit and whatever you can get. And \u2018Hamlet\u2019 lives right up to that,\u201d Schumann says. Also, \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to have a ghost represent your inner ghost\u2014like a puppet. It deserves a puppet show.\u201d<\/p>\n

The title of Bread And Puppet\u2019s \u201cOut-Of-Joint Hamlet\u201d comes from lines in Shakespeare\u2019s script. In Act One, Scene Two, King Claudius assesses that Fortinbras is threatening Denmark because, amid the change of kings, the Norwegian prince suspects a weakness: \u201cOur state to be disjoint and out of frame.\u201d The theme reoccurs at the end of Act One, Scene Four, when Hamlet meets the ghost of his murdered father and decides, \u201cThe time is out of joint: O cursed spite, \/ That ever I was born to set it right!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bread<\/a>
Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bread and Puppet\u2019s version is edited down and condensed. \u201cI had to reread it because I hadn\u2019t read it since high school times,\u201d Schumann says. \u201cAs you read through it, the beauty is so fascinating, the intensity of the poetry, the riddles … the totally crooked way of putting things together that don\u2019t belong together.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Schumann says, \u201cI\u2019m not sure of the action. \u2026 It\u2019s very ill conceived.\u201d He adds, \u201cI have a lot of problems with Claudius. Why did Shakespeare leave this self-confessed pounding his chest confession in there? Why didn\u2019t he leave it out for us to figure out?\u201d Schumann jettisons much of Claudius overboard.<\/p>\n

Also, Schumann is bothered by the way Shakespeare makes Hamlet angry at his mother for remarrying\u2014to his uncle\u2014after his father\u2019s death. \u201cThe outrageousness of her marrying the brother was common sense all over the middle ages,\u201d Schumann says. It was a way of maintaining family stability and providing for widows and their children. \u201cIt\u2019s totally meaningless to interpret that into meaningfulness.\u201d Schumann makes Hamlet more of a crazed misogynist.<\/p>\n

Schmann still touches on many of the play\u2019s key points and famous lines, but if you\u2019re not quite familiar with the play, it can be easy to get confused. Familiar pieces appear seemingly without context. Often four hours long if performed in full, Schumann whittles the play down to about an hour.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The ghost of Hamlet’s father in Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The show opens with Hamlet\u2019s \u201cTo be or not to be\u201d soliloquy read by a pair of narrators: \u201cTo be, or not to be: that is the question: \/ Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer \/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, \/ Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, \/ And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; \/ No more; and by a sleep to say we end \/ The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks \/ That flesh is heir to.\u201d The cast, dressed in white, lays on the dirt floor as if collapsed, stands about in seeming random formation, sits in chairs.<\/p>\n

A giant naked cardboard ghost of the dead king, Hamlet’s father, appears to two hand-puppets in a small puppet theater at the back of the stage. Then a giant cardboard skeleton emerges from back door of stage with a tiny hand-puppet that plays Hamlet. A narrator reads text (in Shakespeare, a Hamlet speech) scrawled across the skeleton\u2019s face and ribs: \u201cO, that this too too solid flesh would melt \/ Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!… How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, \/ Seem to me all the uses of this world!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bread<\/a>
Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Young girls dance in front of a giant cardboard king in red robes\u2014Claudius, I presume. Then the girls play violins as masked fools dance and perform a \u201cdumb show\u201d reenacting the murder of Hamlet\u2019s father.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Out-of-Joint Orchestra\u201d plays an \u201cinterlude,” in which Schumann conducts the horns and strings and drum players and one narrator who recites, \u201cWhat a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! \/ how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how \/ express and admirable! in action how like an angel.\u201d It\u2019s another Hamlet speech, though as is often the case here, the source is not identified.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/a>
Peter Schumann conducts in Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hamlet and his (hand-puppet) mother talk. \u201cHamlet, thou hast thy father much offended,\u201d she says. \u201cMother, you have my father much offended,\u201d he replies. Hamlet realizes someone is spying on them and stabs the person dead\u2014who turns out to be Polonius. Hamlet defends his action by attacking his mother: \u201cA bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother, \/ As kill a king, and marry with his brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon the cast sits before the small puppet theater at the back of the stage to hear Hamlet and a chicken puppet trade off speeches. Hamlet: \u201cWhat is a man, \/ If his chief good and market of his time \/ Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.\u201d The chicken spouts Donald Trump statements<\/a>: \u201cMy I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicken\/Trump<\/a>: “We’re rounding ’em up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they’re going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn’t sound nice. But not everything is nice.” Chicken\/Trump<\/a>: \u201cI could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn\u2019t lose any voters, okay? It\u2019s, like, incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scene ends with hand-puppet Hamlet declaring, \u201cO, from this time forth, \/ My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!\u201d<\/p>\n

A cardboard Ophelia appears for the first time\u2014and dies. Cast members run around the giant red cardboard king as a narrator declares: \u201cSave yourself, my lord: \/ The ocean, overpeering of his list, \/ Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste \u2026 The rabble call him lord.\u201d Schumann doesn\u2019t spell it out, but this is from Act Four, Scene Five, when a crowd with Laertes bursts in on King Claudius threatening to overthrow him as Laertes demands to know who killed his father.<\/p>\n

\"Bread<\/a>
Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Schumann announces, \u201cNow the Out of Joint Dance Company will perform for you the U.S. Congress\u2019s favorite incompetence dance.\u201d Masked goons try to drag the giant red cardboard king down. The puppet king laughs at them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re trying to pull him down and he says, \u2018Ha Ha Ha!\u2019 And they can\u2019t pull him down. That\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening now,\u201d Schumann tells me, referring to Trump. \u201cIf they were to pull him down we\u2019d be worse off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bread<\/a>
Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two clowns come out in front of the giant red king and repeatedly fall to the ground as the puppet king finally lowers to floor. The cast kneels at the front of the stage as cardboard people descend from ceiling and all fall to floor as if dead. Then the play concludes with a choir\u2019s song.<\/p>\n

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Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Bread<\/a>
Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A choir sings at the end of Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d performed in Glover, Vermont, June 22, 2018. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bread And Puppet Theater\u2019s \u201cOut-of-Joint Hamlet\u201d\u2014which the legendary experimental, activist puppet and mask troupe is performing in their Paper Mache Cathedral in Glover, Vermont, on Friday nights at 7:30 through July 6\u2014reframes Shakespeare\u2019s most celebrated play for our Trump-ian moment. \u201cHamlet,\u201d which dates back to around 1600, has most frequently been presented in the past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7818,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,110],"tags":[13,403,221,196],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7860"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7881,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7860\/revisions\/7881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}