Review: FINISHED WAITING by Bread And Puppet Theater tours Eastern US

It begins with a painted door labeled "Here," and a giant groaning ear spitting out the names of current conflict hotspots: Ukraine, Afghanistan, Palestine, Yemen. For the next hour and a half, the iconic Bread and Puppet Theater combines spoken word, movement, music, banners -- and, of course, puppets -- in an evening of powerful, engaging, thought-provoking theater.

Finished Waiting is Bread & Puppet's latest touring show, which made a stop this week at the Contemporary Theater Company in Wakefield, RI. Founded in the 1960s and still led by Peter Schumann, the Vermont-based Bread & Puppet has developed a unique form of experimental theatre with a deep focus on social issues.

The current show is no exception, addressing our time and Covid directly, as members of the company recite phrases about "waiting" and the "essentialism" of "doctor, gas station, highway, and truck" and the "non-essentialism" that "picks essentialism's garbage and transforms it into both Sense and Nonsense." Finished Waiting explores that dichotomy, with pointed pokes at the "sense" of culture (an overstuffed papier-mâché oligarch, a screaming cardboard head carrying a plane that threatens a group of babies/soldiers) and the "nonsense" that is not dealt with by the dominant culture (audible winds of change and enormous puppet legs marching toward the door of the pandemic's Great Resignation).

Along the way there are striking visual stage compositions, as the company, dressed in white outfits, take up various puppet incarnations -- blocky face masks, painted muslin shrouds, larger-than-life cardboard cutouts -- all painted in an severe expressionist black and white. There are giant wings and tiny figurative scenes, a complex cranked "clock" on a pole (designed by Peter Hamburger) that could have come from a Duchamp box, and a series of tableaux with banners and crisp, zine-art-style letterpress posters (printed by Hillary Savage.)

There is no dialog, but rather the repetition of several paragraphs of oblique commentary, like "I wait for a long time & when I am finished waiting I go" and "Then I stop & I see." These phrases are frequently intoned against chaotic musical counterpoint and vocalizations by the company. One particularly moving passage features Elsa Saade accompanying the action with a free-form wordless lamentation.

Peter Schumann's direction keeps the stage bubbling with activity and eye-catching interaction. The company members are uniformly excellent, bringing total commitment and physicality to every moment, and are all deserving of mention: Tanja Höhne, Joshua Krugman, Erika Martinez Landaverde, Chaekyung Lee, Siena Mayers, Urial Najera, Caitlin Ross, Elsa Said, and Denise Rogers Valenzuela.

If you're a fan of avant-garde theatre in the style of futurism and the happenings of the Sixties, you will find this a most engaging evening. It assembles punchy, poignant moments with the hallucinatory logic of a lucid dream. Be sure to stick around after the performance to check out the selection of printed cards and posters and sample some of the troupe's famous bread and aioli.

Finished Waiting, directed by Peter Schumann. On tour March 24-April 3, details and ticket info at https://breadandpuppet.org/tour-schedule
3/24 Ithaca, NY; 3/26 Lewisburg, PA; 3/27 Charles Town, WV ; 3/29 Baltimore, MD; 3/30 New York, New York; 3/31 Harrison, NY; 4/2 Newmarket, NH; 4/3 Portland, ME

Photo credit: Ea Maples, Stageleft Photography

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