{"id":184470,"date":"2022-04-21T07:01:01","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T11:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=184470"},"modified":"2022-04-20T15:15:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T19:15:58","slug":"weekend-performances-of-the-persians-bring-puppets-back-to-life-on-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2022\/04\/weekend-performances-of-the-persians-bring-puppets-back-to-life-on-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Performances of \u2018The Persians\u2019 Bring Puppets Back to Life on Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like a cooped-up marionette stretching its body for the first time in two years, UConn\u2019s Puppet Arts Program emerged from hibernation this week to welcome the Bread and Puppet Theater<\/a> for a series of events that mark a return to public performances after a pandemic put them to rest.<\/p>\n

Sure, there have been small-scale outdoor programs on the town square in Downtown Storrs, but Wednesday\u2019s street show on Fairfield Way and this weekend\u2019s portrayal of \u201cThe Persians\u201d on the South Campus Lawn will be among the first spectacles since 2020.<\/p>\n

This has been a long time coming, says Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry<\/a> Director John Bell, and it\u2019s unique for UConn to host such a large event in \u201cThe Persians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Members
Members of The Bread and Puppet Theater from Vermont performing a play on Fairfield Way. April 20, 2022. (Sean Flynn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNormally when we host performances, it\u2019s a one-, two-, or maybe four-person company that performs in our intimate theater in front of an audience of 50, on a small stage, and with a hand puppet or marionette show,\u201d says Bell, an associate puppetry professor, of the Ballard theater. \u201cBread and Puppet is coming with a company of 16 and they\u2019re working with 15 to 20 community volunteers.\u201d<\/p>\n

And for this show, the puppets, masks, and props are life-sized – giant to some degree \u2013 and built for outdoor viewing.<\/p>\n

Bread and Puppet \u2013 a touring group that calls a converted hay barn in Glover, Vermont, home base \u2013 took up residency at UConn on Monday to begin working with show volunteers and set the stage for a week of events that began with the noontime street performance Wednesday on Fairfield Way. It\u2019s an American tradition, Bell says, rooted when circus performers used to travel the country for street shows.<\/p>\n

The week of activities continued Thursday with a noontime in-person and online Ballard Institute Puppet Forum at the Dramatic Arts Department\u2019s<\/a> Mobius Space. But performances of \u201cThe Persians\u201d on Saturday and Sunday are expected to draw the most attention.<\/p>\n

Bell says he approached Bread and Puppet\u2019s founder and director Peter Schumann in 2018 about bringing a show to UConn, using an outdoor space. Schumann settled on the Greek tragedy \u201cThe Persians,\u201d given the amphitheater-like setting of the South Campus Lawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Athens commissioned Aeschylus to write the official celebration piece for the Greeks\u2019 miraculous victory over the vastly superior Persian Empire invasion force, they must have expected just that: a glorification of national prowess and skill,\u201d Schumann says. \u201cWhat they got instead is the opposite: heartrending compassion for the slain enemy, lamentation for the despairing mothers and widows of the slain warriors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very sympathetic view of the enemy,\u201d Bell says of the story. \u201cUnlike a classic Greek tragedy where there\u2019s an introduction, complication, climax, and denouement, this one starts out bad and gets worse. It shows what\u2019s left of the Persians when they come home. People have died in the war and it\u2019s a big defeat for this empire.\u201d<\/p>\n

War and its resulting destruction have been a recurrent theme for Schumann, who grew up in Germany during World War II and witnessed the horrors first-hand: \u201cLike a lot of people who have experienced war, it\u2019s sort of with you all the time and it emerges in different aspects of Bread and Puppet\u2019s work,\u201d Bell says.<\/p>\n

While planning for \u201cThe Persians\u201d \u2013 and certainly its writing in 472 BC<\/a> – began long before the invasion of Ukraine in February, Bells says the war theme is particularly relevant today for both general audiences and Schumann.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all thinking about Ukraine, being a refugee and being forced from your home, dealing with the violence of war, its bombings and invasions. That trauma, which is so hard to understand and to think about, is something Schumann has thought about a lot, and it shows up in his work,\u201d Bell says.<\/p>\n

\"Members
Members of The Bread and Puppet Theater from Vermont performing a play on Fairfield Way. April 20, 2022. (Sean Flynn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Schumann adds of the play\u2019s empathetic view of the enemy, \u201cCan our own permanently warring military industrial empire learn from this?\u201d<\/p>\n

While the play\u2019s subject matter might not evoke the pleasantries of spring renewal, Bell notes that \u201cpeople go see \u2018Hamlet\u2019 or \u2018MacBeth\u2019 or action films and they have a very positive experience. This will be no different particularly because you have community engagement in the 20 volunteers on stage. Some of them are your friends or neighbors performing with these very colorful puppets, giant puppets, with masks and with huge paintings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audience will be sitting outside, in what Bell hopes will be a beautiful spring afternoon, and it will be a time to bring people together after having hibernated for too long.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an outdoor community event, it\u2019s a wonderful way to make theater,\u201d Bell says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Persians\u201d will be performed<\/a> Saturday and Sunday, April 23-24, at 4 p.m. on the South Campus Lawn, 626 Gilbert Road, Storrs. Ticket are $15 for adults and $10 for students and can be purchased online<\/a>. Parking<\/a> will be available in the S lot. Audience members should bring blankets or chairs for the outdoor performance. In the event of inclement weather, the show will move to the E.O. Smith High School auditorium.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Presenting an ancient Greek tragedy with new resonance in light of the war in Ukraine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":184680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1711,1914,2235,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2368],"class_list":["post-184470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-sfa","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 01:42:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184470"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184685,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184470\/revisions\/184685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/184680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184470"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=184470"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=184470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}