This photo is from the French book Le Bread and Puppet Theater, by Francoise Kourilsky, 1971. The photo shows Peter Schumann (with the pointer) and Bob Ernstthal performing The Rat Movie. Photo by Karl Bissinger.
Peter: One of my first was called The Rat Movie, about life on the Lower East Side. In 1962 we (family) lived in Vermont, worked at the Putney School, and I made a vertical cranky called The
Battle, basically about the brutality of Western Civilization (made into a short black and white film by Lowell Naeve). These early crankies were done on scrolls of paper backed with plastic (for lining shelves?), found in the garage. I performed
them on the lower East Side, with Spanish translation done by Byrd (Burt?) Aponte (very proper man in a suit and tie), a Puerto Rican club leader. We stood there with flag and an American flag, and performed. There was a review in the National Guardian, (a
left wing tabloid) about The Rat Movie. Another cranky was Rinaldini the Robber, and a cranky was used in the Bread and Puppet Christmas Story (performed 1962 until the early 1980s) to show Joseph and Mary's
journey to Bethlehem.