Sun. Feb. 1

Last call!

Danny McNamara is part of the nine-member troupe, Bread and Puppet Theatre. The organization – which dates back to 1963 - is one of he oldest, nonprofit, self-supporting theatrical companies in this country. It was founded in by the still-active Peter Schumann on New York City's Lower East Side, and took an active role protesting the Vietnam War. Now, they’ve got something they call “The Sourdough Philosophy Spectacle” – about the need for human fermentation (!) by taking a lesson from how apple cider is made – up at Cyclorama through Sunday Feb. 1. JSInk, painfully unaware of the need for human fermentation, had a chat with McNamara, asking, basically, what’s this all about?
 
“The apple cider this Spectacle is also related to a radical cheese manifesto that Peter wrote,” says McNamara. “It is about fermenting humans, a cultural revolution before any real revolution [takes place]. About fermenting our rotten civilization, or lovely civilization. We have a lot of chefs. Peter bakes a type of bread a dark chewy bread, not white fluff, meant to be tasted pleasantly and disappear in your mouth, leaving you with nothing, but it’s something of substance. You have to chew on it. It has a lot of nutrients. It’s something we serve to the audience.”

Ok, so that starts it … “It’s not a metaphor, it’s real,” says McNamara. “We also happen to be performing a puppet show that has something you have to chew up that supposed to ferment, you chew on it and it leaves you with something afterward.” Has it anything to do with our new president? No. “The show was made this summer,” says McNamara. “With the coming election, we decided to make it about possibilitarianism: Yes, it’s possible. As opposed to a this is the way things-are-and-there’s-nothing-you-can-really-do-about-it-ism.”

Bread and Puppet Theatre’s mission statement, so to speak is: “Although all Bread and Puppet events have a seriousness of purpose — a few laughs are always thrown in!” They recommend it for folks 12 and over. "The Sourdough Philosophy Circus"  - remember, about this human fermentation thing – has dancing zebras and turkeys and free-range cows. (Puppet zebras, turkeys and cows, that is.) The show is run by a bunch of cooks, specialists in cooking the various stews and pancakes of our everyday first world existence. Additional commentary is provided by the Rotten Idea Theater Company. Music is by the Sourdough Philosophy Brass Band, joined by local musicians. Performed by Peter Schumann and the Bread & Puppet Company, along with a large number of local volunteer puppeteers.

Here’s more from their release: Take note that some of the circus acts are politically puzzling to adults, but accompanying kids can usually explain them. "The Sourdough Philosophy Spectacle" … takes a lesson from how apple cider is made. Our republic teases us with the possibility of democracy, but citizens are raised like military apple orchards, pruned down to their predictable minimums, yielding controlled fruits that lack the ecstasy of nature.  However, human fermentation occurs in parts of the human body that are not governed by the government, like the guts and the gutsy parts of the brain. Fermented citizens are corrupted by the ecstasy of nature and from that corruption, derive strength to corrupt military-orchard citizens. Informal talk back with the artists follows each performance.

The Bread and Puppet touring company, for this residency at the Cyclorama, includes Schumann, along with McNamara, Maura Gahan, Greg Corbino, Diana Sette, Maryann Colella, Federica Collina, Cavan Meese, and Susie Perkins. For the performances, Bread and Puppet will be joined by over 35 local puppeteers and musicians, including the Somerville/Cambridge-based Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band (www.slsaps.org) and members of the Boston-based Activist Music for the People, the Jamaica Plain-based Debo band (www.myspace.com/deboband), and the Roxbury-based Goosepimp Orchestra (www.goosepimp.net).

More from McNamara on why he does what he does, that is carrying the lefty banner into theater (and probably not getting rich doing so): “I’ve been here three and a half years. I do this work because I really believe in it. It’s a chance to be a performer and, for an artist outside a miserable system for artists and performers, a rare chance to make art that’s not meant to make money. That’s not its primary concern. That’s very rare. Art willing to get its feet in the mud, with people struggling for justice all over the world.”

The last show of this run is Sun. Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. $12 general admission [students, seniors, & groups of 10 or more $10]

539 Tremont St., South End, 866-811-4111 www.theatermania.com