Visiting troupe portrays activist's '03 death in Gaza

Muslin sheep graze quietly in the desert. Gnarled, disembodied hands rise up from a long conference table to rule the world. Out-sized, odd-shaped pieces of mud-colored papier-mâché assemble in the air, into a floating earth-mother angel.

Welcome to the universe of Bread and Puppet Theater, an enduring, Vermont-based troupe making a rare visit to Seattle this weekend, to perform the new 80-minute piece "Daughter Courage" at Consolidated Works.

The subject of "Daughter Courage" is plenty controversial. The show and an adjacent art exhibit were inspired by Rachel Corrie, a young Olympia activist who was killed in Gaza in 2003 while trying to prevent the Israeli bulldozing of a Palestinian home.

A different play in London about the same person, "My Name is Rachel Corrie," caused a flap recently when a New York theater postponed importing the piece out of fear it might ignite a polarizing political debate. (The New York Times reported this week that other theaters are now vying to present the play in New York this spring.)

"Daughter Courage" will add little to any sophisticated dissection of Corrie's political sympathies and actions, or to any wider debate of Mideast politics or policies.

With such simplistic, agitprop effects as giant cardboard feet slamming down on Arab peasants as they farm, eat and tend sheep, and a toy bulldozer revving toward a tiny cardboard house, the show boils the controversy down to images of powerless rural people being crushed by unseen forces designated only as "politicians."

And though an actress recites Corrie's impassioned concerns, as expressed in e-mails written to her parents, "Daughter Courage" views her primarily as a symbolic heroine, who after her death is resurrected and celebrated by a dancing, flower-tossing throng.

Politically naive? Indeed. But at any time, a visit here by the influential Bread and Puppet Theater would be of interest to Seattle's puppet and experimental theater aficionados.

Founded in 1962 by German-born theater artist Peter Schumann, Bread and Puppet has been handcrafting its own folksy, rustic and compelling works for anti-war street demonstrations and theater runs ever since.

The style of "Daughter Courage" is trademark Bread and Puppet. Most compelling are the tableaus that employ vividly expressive, rough-hewn puppets and masks, home-grown music (made with various horns, violins, accordion), and colorful backdrops and ponchos, painted on plain white sheets.

The broad repeated effects of stomping feet and the like, the deadpan spoken sequences and the ragged group dances to banish fear (with volunteers joining the eight-member troupe) are much less arresting.

Bread and Puppet's name refers to the troupe's practice of sharing homemade loaves of bread with its audience after every performance. Feel free to stay, munch and, if moved to do so, argue.