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n a hilltop grove at Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, a painting of an evergreen on a piece of tin is nailed to a pine tree. Nearby hangs an image of a barn, rusted by time. On yet another trunk is a painting of a horse against a blue background. Each of these, made by artist and Bread and Puppet founder Peter Schumann, is a kind of trail blaze: a splotch of color on a tree that leads you deeper into the woods. To follow his artwork into the pines — above the grassy amphitheater where the puppet troupe performs — is to discover the history of the company. The story is presented in a series of handmade art installations that memorialize puppeteers and activists, musicians and teachers, writers, family and friends who have a connection to the company Peter founded 56 years ago. Among the trees, a work that honors a Holocaust survivor was reconfigured when weather took down the original structure. Paintings of a cloud and a horn, a bird and a candle have faded or fallen to the ground. Small buildings made of scrap wood have been buffeted by the wind or worn down by the rain. “They weren’t built for lasting forever,” Peter told Seven Days one day last month on a tour of the installation. The impermanence of the memorial pieces echoes Peter’s idea of eternity itself. “There’s not much of it,” he said. “It’s ephemeral, even eternity.” The memorial village, as the puppeteers call it, is the work not only of Peter but also of his kids and collaborators and of family members of the deceased. Though the buildings and other installations have been in the woods for decades, the site has fewer visitors than the puppet-filled museum across the road or the pageants in the field. Small human figures placed near the entrance to the forest a few years ago — among the scores or maybe hundreds of such sculptures in the pines — will most likely attract more people to the “village” within. The advent of weekly gatherings there, a time to commemorate loved ones, has done so already. The memorial sessions take place on Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. throughout the summer. The pine forest is a place of wonder and sanctuary. The wonder originates 30
SEVEN DAYS JULY 10-17, 2019
with the artwork — its breadth, variety and heartfelt connection to its subjects. The sense of sanctuary derives from the woods itself: the slant of sunlight through the trees, the spread of greenery poking through the pine needles, and sometimes the metronomic tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker. (One afternoon, a bird pecked away on scrap metal. Perhaps the reincarnation of a snare drummer?) For people with a deep connection to Bread and Puppet, the village is a kind of “living memorial,” said Michael Romanyshyn, a longtime puppeteer who
The value of this place has become the fact that it’s a weekly meeting place where people can come and think of people who died. P E TE R S C H UMANN
built a number of the installations. His parents are memorialized there by a lovely painted birdhouse. “The village is a place we can affirm and renew the presence the people remembered there have in our lives,” Romanyshyn wrote in an email. For visitors, the pine forest offers a further sense of the theater and the people who built it. Each visit yields a new discovery; a piece that’s whole one week might be fallen or broken the next. Installations merge into one another; their number is fluid. Peter, 85, is a native of Germany who moved to Vermont from New York City with his wife, Elka, 83, and their five children in 1970. The family lived in Plainfield for four years, during which
Peter was a resident artist at Goddard College. In 1974, the Schumanns relocated to a roughly 250-acre former dairy farm in Glover, making a home for their family and establishing a base for Bread and Puppet. The world-renowned company, which Peter had founded in 1963 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, is known for its larger-than-life papier-mâché puppets, political activism and rollicking, good-humored shows that embrace performers of all levels. Inclusivity is central to Bread and Puppet’s art. The company’s biggest performance, Peter said, happened on June 12, 1982, in New York City as part of a No Nukes demonstration. More than 1,500 puppet street performers, cast as the World, the End of the World and the Fight Against the End of the World, paraded through the streets of Manhattan. Each configuration was more than a block long. “Peter’s influence with Bread and Puppet Theater has been worldwide,” said John Bell in a telephone call, “especially in terms of thinking about contemporary puppet theater community, political and ritual performance.” President of the board and former member of the troupe, Bell is a professor of theater at the University of Connecticut and director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. His in-laws are memorialized in the pine forest. Peter’s arrival in Glover, an Orleans County village of about 1,000 residents, was hard to miss. “People found me because I was a big show-off on 10-foot stilts,” he said. The founder remains at Bread and Puppet’s artistic helm, leading new and returning puppeteers each summer in art making, show creation and performance. The weekly summer pageants, held on Sunday afternoons, started this year on July 7. Peter doesn’t just make puppets. By his own estimation, he’s made about 200,000 paintings. He paints on rafters, sheets, cardboard, school buses, tin cans and other surfaces. “I paint fast,” he said. “Fast and furious and bad. As bad as I’d like to. I have no respect for end result or completion.” A NATURAL KIND OF ENDING
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GLENN RUSSELL
A Natural Kind of