Generations of peacenik Americans first saw Bread and Puppet Theater during anti-war protests. Giant white birds on rods soared high over marchers against U.S. military actions in Vietnam, Central America, Iraq and Gaza. Performers milled on the street with bobbing paper mache heads of Uncle Sam and other caricatures.
First founded in 1963, Bread and Puppet has been a mainstay of radical political performance, with its annual Fall Circus touring the country for more than fifty years. Human performers hand out freshly baked sourdough bread to audience members after each show.
"The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible," says Abril Barajas, with a big smile. The puppeteer, who recently turned 30, is among 15 in the troupe traveling to 33 U.S. cities with this year's show, entitled "Our Domestic Resurrection Revolution In Progress."
It's a wordy title, Barajas admits, but Bread and Puppet's founder, 91-year-old Peter Schumann, loves wordplay. "Peter is all about the revolution and so are we," Barajas says, with reverence. "It's still his show. He's still directing every single show. And he's prolific as ever. I actually would say a lot of what lends to our longevity is the fact that we have a director that we all really trust."
Rooted in 14th century traditions of traveling plays, Bread and Puppet gives a contemporary glowup to medieval mystery cycles, with a tongue-in-cheek version of the Biblical story of creation, as well as pointed political sketches that lampoon greedy billionaires, support American labor unions and criticize Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The 2025 show is staunchly pro-Palestinian, with a mourning puppet in a black abaya carrying a child-shaped shroud and performers waving flags bearing red poppies, a symbol of Palestinian loyalty to the land.
"We see people walk out," Barajas acknowledged. "We see people like, realize what we're talking about and walk away."
Damien Mars did not walk out. He, along with his partner and teenage daughter, was among hundreds of people applauding a recent performance at an outdoor park in Ypsilanti, Mich.
"I really needed this," he said. "Because I've just been so stressed about everything I see on TV. It's kind of cathartic just to be here and experience it."
The puppeteers hope such catharsis will lead to action. However, Abril Barajas said she and her circle of radical Bread and Puppet artists increasingly worry about their own free expression.
"We're all trying to figure out how to walk that line so that we can keep doing our work, because the work is important" she said. "And also preserve the ethos of what we believe in."
That ethos includes anti-capitalism, pointed criticism of U.S. foreign policy and old-school 1960s style talk of revolution. All of this at a moment when the White House has released a memo linking domestic terrorism to "anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality."
"Yeah, there's fear, for us," Barajas acknowledged. "We're nervous. We're being careful, in the ways we know how. But it's like that whole thing where bravery is being afraid and still doing it."
After all, she added, puppets persist and tell stories, even when their stages disappear.
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