A MAN SAYS GOODBYE TO HIS MOTHER
A Street Theater show by Bread and Puppet Theater

While the war in Vietnam of the 1960s and 70s lead to a resurgence of political theater in the United States, the most dramatic and potent examples of that theater appeared in American streets, not in playhouses. Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater produced the most striking images and performances of the Vietnam War years, reinventing puppet and mask theater as a modern means of ritual performance with strong cultural power. A Man Says Goodbye to His Mother was a central element of Bread and Puppet's antiwar dramaturgy, "a small masterpiece,” as Stefan Brecht put it, "lasting about a quarter of an hour.” Another theater historian, Ron Argelander, described the show as "narrated in presentational style by a symbolic figure (Death) and then translated into a series of symbolic actions performed in a slow and deliberate manner by masked puppet-like figures. There are no wasted movements, no superfluous dialogue, and no extraneous political rhetoric.”

According to Peter Schumann, A Man Says Goodbye to His Mother was created rapidly in 1967, in response to an invitation from a community group of mothers from New York City's East Harlem whose sons were serving in Vietnam, and for whom the arrival of a letter beginning "We regret to inform you” was a commonplace notification that one more of those sons had died in combat. The show, incorporating masks and such simple objects as a puppet airplane, a pair of scissors, a flat cut-out house ("the village”) and a gas mask, could be performed almost anywhere, in any situation by a narrator and two puppeteers. The Narrator, the Woman, and the Musicians wore black hooded costumes modeled after the Japanese bunraku tradition, while the Man wore some semblance of an army uniform. In 1968, Bread and Puppet performed the show as Reiteration, in which the piece was played again and again, without stopping.

The script is interesting and innovative as a method of documenting puppet theater because it sees the performance as the combination of three equal elements: action, voice, and music. – John Bell

Action: The woman gives an army bag to the man. He puts it on and they embrace.
Voice: A man says goodbye to his mother.
Music: Melody on drum and trumpet.
Voice: He goes to a country far away.
Action: The man begins walking in place.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: It’s a dangerous country, the man needs a gun.
Action: The narrator gives a wooden rifle to the man.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: It’s a dangerous country, the man needs a gas mask.
Action: The narrator gives a gas mask to the man.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: It’s a very dangerous country, the man needs an airplane.
Action: The narrator gives the man a small wooden airplane.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: While the man is marching... he gets shot in the arm.
Action: The man grabs his arm and the woman wraps a bandage around it.
Music: A cymbal crash, then the melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: He gets a medal.
Action: The narrator gives the man a medal.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: The man comes to a village. This is the village.
Action: The narrator shows a white Vietnamese face mask. The woman removes the mother’s mask and puts on the village mask.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: The women are cooking soup.
Action: The narrator gives a pot to the woman who mimes stirring soup.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: The man takes his airplane and looks for his enemy.
Acion: The man flies the small airplane around and above the woman. The woman slowly lowers the pot to the ground.
Music: The man makes an "ahhhhhh” sound.
Voice: The village is afraid.
Action: The woman moves her body in a slow expression of fear and holds a final pose of fear.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: The man is afraid.
The Man: I am afraid.
Action: The woman returns to standing pose.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: The people go into the fields to gather their crops.
Action: The narrator gives some grasses or leaves to the woman.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: The man poisons the crops.
Action: The narrator gives a grey cloth to the man. The man throws the cloth over the crops. She drops the crops.
Music: Ratchet sound of the length of the action.
Voice: The people are afraid, they hide in their houses.
Action: The narrator gives a piece of paper painted like a house to the woman. She hides her head behind it.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: The man burns the houses.
Action: The man tears the paper house into pieces.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: The children are afraid, they hide with their mothers.
Action: The narrator gives either a doll painted white, or a white sheet rolled up like a bundle, to the woman who holds it like a baby.
Music: Melody on trumpet and drum.
Voice: The man takes his airplane and looks for his enemy.
Action: The man flies the small plane around and over the baby in the woman’s arms. The woman has been rocking the baby and stops as the man stops.
Music: The man makes an "ahhhhhhh” sound.
Voice: He bombs the children.
Music: Single drum beat.
Voice: The children die.
Action: The woman very slowly lowers the baby to the ground.
Music: Very slow melody on trumpet only.
Voice: The woman takes her scissors to attack the man, and Death leads her hand, and she stabs him.
Action: The woman picks up a pair of scissors, raises them like a weapon, the narrator puts on a skull mask, grabs the woman’s hand and stabs the man in the back. The man and the scissors fall to the ground.
Music: Building drum beat, starting slow and soft and building to fast and loud.
Voice: And the man dies.
Action: The woman returns to standing and removes the village mask, and puts on the mother mask.
Music: Three slow drum beats.
Voice: And a letter is sent to his mother.
Action: The narrator gives a folded piece of cardboard to the woman. It is black on the outside. She opens it and reads, then shows it to the audience. It says: "We regret to inform you.”
Voice: And his body is brought to her.
Action: The woman walks over to the body.
Voice: And she takes a white sheet...
Action: The narrator gives the white sheet to the woman, who opens it and lays it over the body of the man.
Voice: And she covers him with the sheet.
Action: Everyone is still.

END