Contagious Theaters from Modernism to the Digital Age
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Viral Performance Viral Performance Contagious Theaters from Modernism to the Digital Age Miriam Felton- Dansky northwestern university press evanston, illinois Northwestern University Press www .nupress .northwestern .edu Copyright © 2018 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2018. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Felton-Dansky, Miriam, author. Title: Viral performance : contagious theaters from modernism to the digital age / Miriam Felton-Dansky. Description: Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017057481| ISBN 9780810137165 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780810137158 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780810137172 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Experimental theater—20th century. | Experimental theater— 21st century. | Theater and society. | Theater and social media. Classification: LCC PN2193.E86 F45 2018 | DDC 792.022—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017057481 Except where otherwise noted, this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. In all cases attribution should include the following information: Felton-Dansky, Miriam. Viral Performance: Contagious Theaters from Modern- ism to the Digital Age. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2018. The following material is excluded from the license: Images and archival material. For permissions beyond the scope of this license, visit http://www.nupress. northwestern.edu/. An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative de- signed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. More informa- tion about the initiative and links to the open-access version can be found at www. knowledgeunlatched.org. Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: A History of Contagion 3 Chapter 1 Performing Plague: The Living Theatre and Antonin Artaud 37 Chapter 2 Towards an Audience Vocabulary: Marc Estrin, Augusto Boal, and General Idea 69 Chapter 3 Germ Theater: Critical Art Ensemble, Eva and Franco Mattes, and Christoph Schlingensief 109 Chapter 4 “Everything Is Everywhere”: Viral Performance Networks 149 Conclusion Virus in the Theater 191 Notes 203 Bibliography 225 Index 235 Acknowledgments This book would not be— and I would not be where I am—without the gener- osity and guidance of Tom Sellar. He championed the idea of this book from its earliest stages and provided trenchant, challenging editorial suggestions as it grew. In “Crit” classes at the Yale School of Drama, he taught clarity of thought and expression, and in the offices at Theater magazine, he taught editing as well as editorial vision. It was because of him that I attended my first scholarly conference, published my first scholarly essay, began reviewing theater professionally, and gained exposure to more pathbreaking contempo- rary performances than I can name. I will always be grateful. Having Elinor Fuchs as a mentor, professor, and role model has likewise been nothing short of transformative. She taught me to search for the deep structures underpinning drama and performance— to always look, and look again— and provided critical feedback as I researched and wrote this book. Her influence is on every page, as well as in every critical review I write and in every classroom where I teach. I am also deeply grateful to the entire faculty of Dramaturgy & Dramatic Criticism at Yale—James Leverett, Gordon Rog- off, Catherine Sheehy, and James Magruder— who have shaped my writing and teaching since my first year of graduate school, and particularly to Marc Robinson, who taught me (again) how to read plays. Much of this book was written while I was teaching at Bard College under the inspiring leadership of Gideon Lester, who created the ideal setting for thinking— and rethinking— contemporary performance. I am also grateful to my colleagues in the Theater & Performance Program—Jorge Cortiñas, Jack Ferver, Chiori Miyagawa, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Jean Wagner— and to Jennifer Lown, our program administrator, without whom nothing could happen. Upon arriving at Bard, I was lucky to join a cohort of welcoming, highly collaborative junior faculty. I am grateful to Marisa Libbon, Christian Crouch, Erika Switzer, Lauren Curtis, Maria Cecire, Ben Coonley, and every- one involved with the Experimental Humanities concentration, which has supported my research in numerous ways. I am also grateful to my students at Bard, whose intelligence and inquisitiveness has inspired me to think harder about my own work, and who have proven among the best companions for viewing contemporary performance. My critical prose has benefited from the work of many rigorous editors during my years at the Village Voice. I’m particularly grateful to Brian Parks, vii viii Acknowledgments my first editor there; as well as to Jane Kim, Angela Ashman, Zoe Beery, and Danny King. This book has benefited from the work of excellent editors at Northwest- ern University Press. Thanks to Mike Levine for encouraging the project, and for perceptive edits; and to Gianna Mosser for her sensitive and insight- ful guidance, as well as to Maggie Grossman, Anne Gendler, and the entire production team. My peer reviewers—whose insights and suggestions chal- lenged me to push my ideas, research, and writing in new directions—also deserve deep thanks. Many archivists, librarians, and artists have provided invaluable support to me as I researched this book. I’m particularly grateful to the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library at Yale, which provided a summer research fellowship in 2010, so that I could begin my research on the Living Theatre. Susan Brady of the Beinecke, and Tom Walker, the Living Theatre’s archi- vist, provided knowledgeable assistance as I continued this research. Nancy Goldman and Mona Nagai of the Pacific Film Archive arranged for the reproduction of an image of the Dilexi Broadcast, and Jim Newman granted permission to publish it. I am grateful to Philip Dombowski at Canada’s National Gallery, who provided assistance as I researched General Idea, and to AA Bronson of General Idea for generous permission to quote and to publish images. Library staff at the New York Library for the Performing Arts and at New York University’s Fales Library & Special Collections were immensely helpful, as was Bronwen Bitetti at Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies library. I am grateful to Steve Kurtz of Critical Art Ensemble, Marc Estrin, Franco Mattes, Kathryn Blume, Joanna Warsza, Joanne Pottlitzer, Sheila Cohen Tissot, Robert Neblett, and Iman Aoun for their generosity in speaking with me about their work and for allowing me to publish images of it. I’m grateful to Matthew Cornish, Ryan Davis, and Lauren Dubowski for assistance with translation. Early research for this book developed with the support and insight of numerous editors. I’m grateful to Tom Sellar at Theater magazine, which published an early version of portions of chapter 3; Nadine George- Graves, editor of The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater, which published my previous research about the Living Theatre; T. Nikki Cesare- Schotzko and Mariellen Sanford at TDR, which published an early version of my discus- sion of Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children; Bonnie Marranca and Joseph Cermatori at PAJ, which published a book review of Gregg Bordowitz’s Imagevirus; and Anna Gallagher- Ross at aCCeSsions, who commissioned a short essay about General Idea’s Going Thru the Motions, and who provided insightful copy- edits to many sections of this manuscript. This project has benefited from the insights of colleagues in many work- ing conference working sessions and panels. These included many American Society for Theatre Research groups— those dedicated to Theater & Trans- media; Sustainable Tools for Precarious Subjects; Afterlives of the Sixties; Acknowledgments ix Contaminating Bodies, Infectious Displays; and Massed Subjects, Massed Power— as well as the Theatre History Focus Group at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the Mapping Theaters of Exile seminar at the American Comparative Literature Association, the writing workshop at the Mellon Summer School for Theater and Performance Research at Harvard, and Yale’s Performance Studies Working Group. This project, and my development as a scholar, have been strengthened by the examples and the generous mentorship of many senior colleagues, including Cindy Rosenthal, whose work on the Living Theatre has deeply influenced my own, and Paige McGinley. I also count myself lucky to be part of a cohort of young scholars— classmates, then colleagues— whose adven- turousness, insight, and dedication to mutual support have been invaluable to me: John Muse, Julia Fawcett, Christopher Grobe, Matthew Cornish, Joseph Cermatori, Ryan Hatch, Julia Jarcho, Alex Ripp, and Jennifer Buckley. Shonni Enelow provided moral and editorial encouragement when I needed it most. And Kate Bredeson has been the most stalwart of support- ers, in challenges professional and beyond, from our earliest conversations at Harvard’s Mellon School. She offered editorial insight about several sections of this book, particularly its Living Theatre chapter. More than ten years ago, Jacob Gallagher-Ross edited a class