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The Living Theatre: Its Use of the Stage Author(S): Norman James Source: the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol

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The Living Theatre: Its Use of the Stage Author(S): Norman James Source: the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol The Living Theatre: Its Use of the Stage Author(s): Norman James Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Summer, 1971), pp. 475- 483 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/429192 . Accessed: 24/10/2011 12:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Blackwell Publishing and The American Society for Aesthetics are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. http://www.jstor.org NORMAN JAMES The Living Theatre: Its Use of the Stage WHEN JULIAN BECK and Judith Malina Living Theatre now seeks to awaken the brought their Living Theatre to Yale in spectators from the "passive slumber" of September, 1968, they were returning to the their everyday lives, it is through using the United States, after an absence of several active, spontaneous, and improvised partici- years, with four productions they had devel- pation of spectators in parts of Mysteries oped abroad. These were Mysteries and and in most of Paradise Now that the Smaller Pieces, Antigone, Frankenstein, and group reaches the outer limits of its attempts Paradise Now,l works that carry further the to fulfill the purposes Beck described. I will experiments of the Living Theatre's pro- therefore examine these two productions ductions in New York between December, first. 1951, and October, 1963,2 and challenge us Of the two Paradise Now depends most to expand our conception of the theatre it- on participation by spectators in its partly self. They raise questions as well about pos- improvised rituals of physical communion sible limitations of the Living Theatre, and and political protest. Like other forms of these questions also contribute to our reval- communion ritual, improvised or not, the uation of theatre. physical contact in which players and spec- The experiments of the Living Theatre tators spontaneously engage is meant to still grow out of the mission Beck described draw the individual out of the passive, un- in 1964 as being "to involve or touch or creative, and even uncommunicating isola- engage the audience, not just show them tion that the role of spectator usually im- something," "to reach the audience, to plies, whether at the theatre, in church, or awaken them from their passive slumber, to in life outside. And, like other forms of provoke them into attention, shock them if communion ritual, this physical contact is necessary," and to "aid the audience to be- meant to transform what is being acted out come once more what it was destined to be into a reality that is no longer pretended. when the first dramas formed themselves on With the new awareness of others that is the threshing floor: a congregation led by supposed to come from this physical attack a choral of and re- priests, ecstasy reading on inhibitions and prejudices that divide a sponse, dance, seeking transcendence, way people from each other, the spectators are out and the vertical thrust, a up, seeking now ready to join the players in improvis- state of awareness that surpasses mere con- various the social and scious and closer to ing protests against being brings you forces that make for such division God." 3 Of the various in which the political ways and its attendant indifference to the suffer- of others. These from NORMAN JAMES is professor of English at Washington ing protests range College, Maryland. chanted slogans to such acts as disrobing 476 NORMAN JAMES and/or going out into the streets. Again and any distinction between their roles. But there is an attempt to turn theatre into ac- if pretense and reality were fused in this tuality-actuality in terms of the world out- improvised, aimless milling punctuated by side. empty threats, one could wonder not only Depending as it does upon action and what the fusion signified but even which reaction between player and spectator, with ingredient was which. improvisation, albeit partly guided, on the There was no apparent significance in part of the spectators, and some improvisa- what wearily extended itself. As Peter tion on the part of the players, Paradise Now Brook has said, "The sadness of a bad hap- varies more than any other Living Theatre pening must be seen to be believed. Give a production from performance to perform- child a paintbox, and if he mixes all the ance. It can reach the climax of its opening colours together the result is always the night in New Haven, when players and same muddy browny grey." 9 The very ele- spectators marched out into the streets and ments that were fused had lost all signifi- some were arrested for indecent exposure.4 cance. What were pretense and reality to According to Dean Robert Brustein of the begin with? Were the players pretending to Yale School of Drama, this confrontation dare others what they were only pretending with the police occurred because the police to dare themselves? Were the spectators misinterpreted the cheerful mood of a who were piling onto the stage bringing it crowd about to dissolve.5 At any rate it pro- reality, or more reality, or more pretense? duced a farcical denouement, for eventually One might shout with Pirandello's Manager, everyone was acquitted of nudity (there "Pretense?Reality? To hell with it alll" 10 being no clear evidence that anyone had In Paradise Now the Living Theatre has been totally nude), but Judith Malina was of course gone beyond the ambiguities that fined one hundred dollars for resisting ar- are only seemingly unrehearsed in Pirandel- rest,6 a charge that she may have incurred lo's Six Characters in Search of an Author when she insisted on accompanying her ar- (1921), To Each His Own (1924), and To- rested husband in the police wagon.7 night We Improvise (1930). But it is not sim- But if there was climax and confronta- ply the audience's spontaneous and impro- tion the first night of Paradise Now, lead- vised participation that leaves Paradise Now ing later to judicial farce, there was only vulnerable to the aimless disintegration of sluggish anticlimax the second night. Play- its second performance at Yale. As Brook ers threatened to strip, but again none says: stripped entirely; they were ready with bi- kinis A Happening is always the brainchild of some- and loin cloths they had put on under one and unavoidably it reflects the level of its in- the clothes they would remove. They also ventor: if it is the work of a group, it reflects the threatened to repeat their first-night sortie inner resources of the group. This free form is from the theatre, but without the audi- all too often imprisoned in the same obsessional ence's had not to do symbols; flour, custard pies, rolls of paper, dress- knowledge they agreed ing, undressing, dressing-up, undressing again, so. This agreement was in fact the condi- changing clothes, making water, throwing water, tion on which they were being permitted blowing water, hugging, rolling, writhing-you further performances of Paradise Now at feel that if a Happening became a way of life Yale.8 Since the players were also challeng- then by contrast the most humdrum life would seem a fantastic happening.1 ing spectators to strip entirely and to go out into the street (where an expectant crowd If the Living Theatre does not resort to all was waiting), and since these challenges of these "obsessional symbols" in Paradise produced only a thorough scrambling of Now, it nevertheless can lock itself in its players and spectators in the theatre, any own patterns and merely pretend spontane- potential direction or shape to the perform- ity. Indeed an early sequence in Paradise ance had dissolved in post-Pirandellian am- Now merely pretends communion with the biguity. The Living Theatre had succeeded audience. The players go among the specta- almost entirely in obliterating any visual tors, fixing upon certain ones and repeating distinction between player and spectator various protests that soon betray inflexibil- The Living Theatre 477 ity. If an actress looks intently into one's spectators to join in a ritual or improvise eyes solemnly intoning, "I'm not allowed to contributions. take my clothes off," and one finally replies, The performance began with one player "Break the law," there is neither commun- facing the spectators while standing rigidly ion nor dialogue when she continues to re- silent. As, in the course of time, this came peat, in the same tone of voice, "I'm not to seem increasingly uneventful, it began to allowed to take my clothes off." evoke questions and comments that in turn Even when, later in Paradise Now, the produced further discussion.l4 Some wanted audience is encouraged to participate and to know what the man thought he was thus to affect at least the texture of a given doing, some offered unflattering theories on performance, the players are not actually this point, and some asked if those who giving the spectators the opportunities they were complaining actually came to the the- seem to be offering. Robert Brustein has atre seeking comfort and entertainment.
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