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Two Pageants |
Gates of Hell |
Men with Teeth |
Convention of the Gods |
Broken Off Letter |
Columbus and the New World Order
or more than two decades, Bread and Puppet Theater has astonished
audiences around the world with massive theatrical productions evoking
the human tragedy of war and the hope of resurrection. Every summer
through 1998, Bread and Puppet produced "our Domestic Resurrection
Circus", and a breathtaking Pageant, across the rolling hills and in the
pine forest of their farm in Glover, Vermont. These videos and DVD document
the Pageants and various 'side shows'. Some contain commentary by director
Peter Schumann.
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| Two Pageants: Gates of Hell & Men With Teeth |
wo pageants are offered together on one DVD.
See descriptions below for more information about each pageant.
Gates of Hell
(only available in the Two Pageants Compilation.) |
ates of Hell is a magnificent virtuoso performance by the Bread
and Puppet Theater troupe on the grassy amphitheater and hills of their
farm in Glover, Vermont. Involving several hundred performers, this last
Pageant (1998) portrays the corrupting force of capitalism on humanity,
told through fragments of a poem by Bertolt Brecht, which are assembled
and crucified on a burning pyre.
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Produced by Robin Lloyd
Audience Level:
Elementary through adult
Institutions:
DVD $29.95
Individual/Low Income Groups:
DVD $19.95
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"This pageant is about the citizenry who get attacked and sacrificed and
resurrected. Out of this population comes the butcher who is professional
and obedient, himself a sheep or calf, and also the slaughterer of the
calf - the real Nazi and also the proper citizen doing what he is told."
Peter Schumann, Director of Bread and Puppet
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| Men with Teeth (only available in the Two Pageants Compilation.) |
his video documents the 1994 Bread and Puppet Pageant held in
Glover, Vermont. The impact of the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund on Third World agriculture is the theme of the pageant.
Comments with Bread and Puppet founder Peter Schumann are intertwined with
singularly beautiful images of the "Men with Teeth" learning to march and
fly in order to dominate moving sheaves of wheat. A modern-day story of
death and resurrection.
"The arts are political, whether they like it or not. If they stay in
their own realm, preoccupied with their proper problems, the arts support
the status quo, which in itself is highly political. Or they scream and
kick and participate in our century's struggle for liberation in whatever
haphazard way they can." Peter Schumann, Founder of Bread and Puppet
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he gods - Wind, Progress, Hope, Phobia, and Terminator - convene
to preside over the sacrifice of the people of Sarajevo, Bosnia, in this
morality play on the struggle of humanity against fascism.
Images from the Bread and Puppet Pageant of 1993 are interwoven
with comments by Peter Schumann, director, who suggests that the
population in this city represents the plight of modern man. He says,
"The god Terminator is terminating us. We are in the grasp of capitalism
in the most terrible way. It is the ones who suffer the most who realize
it the most."
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29-minute video
Institutions:
VHS $69.95
Individual/Low Income Groups:
VHS $29.95
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Broken Off Letter:
A Yugoslav Journal |
ased on letters by Croatian journalist Slavenka Drakulic to her
daughter, this Bread and Puppet performance in a Vermont pine forest
depicts the horror of rape and war. Vermont composer Eric Nielson
provides a score combining the modal styles of Eastern European folk and
dissonant classical music, a fitting background for Bread and Puppet
Director Peter Schumann's meditation on themes of separation, rape and
flight.
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30-minute video
Taped by Robin Lloyd
and Dee Dee Halleck
Audience Level:
High school/adult
Institutions:
VHS $49.95
Individual/Low Income Groups:
VHS $19.95
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| Columbus and the New World Order |
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n response to the Columbus Quincentennial (1992), Bread and
Puppet Theater produced plays that deconstructed the mythical life of the
man who "discovered" America. First performed in Vermont, the plays -
called the Inside and Outside Story -later toured internationally. The
Outside Story turns Christopher Columbus into "Uncle Fatso," who conquers
the indigenous inhabitants, leading to a terrifying New World Order. The
Inside Story explores his life through the lens of history, linking his
biography with contemporary issues such as racism and the Gulf War.
