The development of participatory theatre

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Authors Muchmore, Gilbert Leslie, 1937-

Publisher The University of Arizona.

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Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/317873 THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARTICIPATORY THEATRE

■ by . Gilbert Leslie Muchmore

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of

. MASTER OF. ARTS \

In the Graduate College . THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA STATEMENT BY AUTHOR

This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfill­ ment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in The University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission3 provided that accurate acknowl­ edgment of source is made* Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College, when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the inter­ ests of scholarshipo In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author„

SIGNEDu

APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR

This thesis has been approved on the date shown below:

~7, / ‘3 '7 d ROBEpS^f^OTORTH "7D^e™™^™~™" Associate Professor of Drama ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This writer wishes to express appreciation.to Mr. Peter R„ Marroney, Head of the Department of Drama, and to Mr. Robert A. Keyworth, Associate Professor of Drama, for their assistance in the preparation of this thesis. Also, the writer is indebted to Mrs. Rosemary

Gipson, Instructor of Drama, for her inspiration and many suggestions relative to the pursuit of this subject. TABLE: OF CONTENTS

> Page

ABS T a o o o o o o -o o ,o o o o o _o a a a a a a aa -' XZ Chapter

la HISTORICAL BACKGROUND a a a , . „ V » a « „ 1 The Spiritual Theatre « . a » a 0 e a = » 5

The Popular Theatre = , » = » a » a 0 15

The Traditional Theatre a » a a « ® 0 ® ® 21 The German Anti-Illusionistic Theatre « . 25

The French Anti-Illusionistic Theatre e 37

2. CURRENT SOCIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL PHENOMENA a a a a a a a . a ■ a a a a a a a a 52

3a CONTEMPORARY PARTICIPATORY THEATRE 9 . » » , . . 71

The New Participatory Theatre Scene » . 72

New Participatory Theatre: A Page in

HlStOry a & a & a a a a a a a a a a a 3 A *

LIST OF REFERENCES a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a 89 ABSTRACT

The theatre is under pressure to find new direc­ tions in an age characterized by super-technology. But the established theatre is too helplessly ensnared in the economic structure to take the bold steps required. Thus, the revolutionary theatre directors and writers are look­ ing for a vital place for theatre in a dynamic culture and a violently changing society. They are aware at once of the mass-media sensibilities of today’s audience, the technological advances at the disposal of the theatre, and the essence of the theatrical experience which has not changed through the ages. Finding in history that theatre succeeds when the spectator takes a direct and creative part in the performance, the new theatre is seeking a re­ sponsive and integrated role for the electronic-age spectator.

v CHAPTER 1

. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

It must be assumed that Shakespeare, not to men­ tion other great dramatists of the Elizabethan theatre, wrote with his one. eye. on the theatre and its potential, while the other eye was on the audience and its needs =

What Shakespeare formulated, as he sat down to invent a play, was the performance--the occasion with all its ele­ ments: actor, words, poetry, dance, song, theatre, and audience. To deny as much would be to deny Shakespeare the intelligence to be sensitive to the functioning of his artistic medium. However, what history has passed down to us consists almost exclusively of his words, which, re­ markable as they are, have been assimilated into the tradition of literature, where they have been called either poetry or drama. The effect has been to isolate the con­ tent of theatre- from its form, a phenomenon which, until lately has pervaded the study, of theatre. Although our century has seen the emergence of academic theatre disci­ plines , these subjects were still treated independently of dramatic texts, until some of the most effective contem­ porary playwrights correctly consider themselves total- theatre artists and refuse to have their works analyzed

' .'1 . , . ' '. ' except in performance. Carried to its purest expression, this thinking would prohibit the unrolling of the texts of theatre except in performance; an extreme view that is, nonetheless, intrinsic to the contention that theatre is an art in its own right. Is theatre an art in its own right? If so, how does it function? What are its purposes? How does it relate to other arts and to cultural activities in general?

These are questions which constantly demand new.answers.

Today, as periodically throughout history, we are seeking l ' - to reestablish the theatre as an essential and vital human activity. In America, there is wide-spread worry that the profession of theatre is doomed, while a multitude of un-, conventional theatre directors and experimenters struggle to show that they hold the key to salvation.. It is the time to stop and ask some very basic questions, to define theatre, and to examine this definition from every possi­ ble perspective. Only by doing so can we infer that theatre has somehow gone astray, and that the visions of a future theatre are valid.

This paper is essentially an historical inquiry about a specific present day concept of theatre: partici­ patory theatre. To facilitate the relating of historical developments to this concept, it will be necessary to begin with a tentative answer to the question "What is theatre?" Theatre historian Richard Southern discusses the . - • V ' 3 definition of theatre in terms appropriate to the purposes of this paper. Working toward a simplistic definition, as free as possible from overly repeated qualifications, he concludes that "Theatre is an act." Actually, Southern does not intend this to be an autonomous and inclusive definition; he is stressing that theatre is essentially . doing rather than creating, as distinguished from other arts. "Drama may be the thing done, but theatre is doing.D r a m a becomes a contribution, to literature, but theatre is the single, ephemeral occasion which is gone forever once the "act" is completed. Southern’s discussion also establishes the basic components of actor and audi­ ence, and he distinguishes theatre from ordinary "acts."

The essence of theatre, he concludes, "does not lie in what is performed. It does not even lie in the way it is performed. The essence of theatre lies in the impression made on the audience by the manner in which you perform.

Theatre is essentially a reactive art."^ Thus far, theatre is comprised of an act and the reaction to that act by an audience. But, while this definition points to the importance of audience response, it fails to specify the nature of either the act or the

1. The Seven Ages of the Theatre (London, 1964), p. 22,

2. ' Ibid. 3. Ibid., p. 26. - ' occasion. Does the occasion of a man In everyday life acting out a story or joke, before a friend constitute theatre? Peter Brook writes that "a man walks across [anJ empty space and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,*'^ On the other hand, Eric Bentley believes that the act must be mimetic at least. The theatrical situation, reduced to a minimum, is that A im- personates B while C looks on.’ As regards the occasion Ken Dewey, a theatre experimenter, tells Richard

Kostelanetz: "The root of the theatrical experience.is, in addition to the integration of the elements involved, the bringing together of people for the purpose of articu- lating a mutual.concern." The focus here is on the participatory aspect of the theatre experience. It implies that there is artistic activity on the part of the specta­ tor as well as the actor. With all modifications considered, theatre may now be defined an occasion for group activity in which there

2.S a mimetic act and the reaction to that act by an audi­ ence . Participatory may be thought of as emphasis upon the occasion and the reaction, which are closely interrelated,.

Occasion informs the purpose of the theatre, which varies;

4. The Empty Space (New York, 1968), p. 9. .

5. The Life of the Drama (New York, 1964), p> 150.

6. The Theatre of Mixed Means (New York, 1968), p. 182. . ; : . the purpose may be to entertain, to elevate spiritually, or to educate. For some, the.purpose of theatre is ther­ apy, It may be a combination of any or all. of these, or, it may simply be considered art and intended to reveal some truth. Whatever the purpose, it also dictates the nature of the desired response. Participatory theatre as­ sumes an occasion where the purposes of the player, and those of the audience in going to the theatre, are iden­ tical, and that the manner in which the act is communicated is effective for those given purposes. The occasion in­ sists upon vital immediacy, a direct experience in which the audience takes part neither vicariously nor retro­ spectively, but actively as the experience happens.

The Spiritual Theatre

The earliest occasions for theatrical acts are recognized in the gathering of primitive people to conduct religious rites and ceremonies. The purposes of these events varied; initiation and fertility rites,.magical charm rites meant to insure food and the favorable condi­ tions of nature, or celebrations of the success of the tribe and the continuance of life. Whatever the purpose of the individual occasion, that purpose, the form of the act and the response of the audience were integral and in­ separable. The entire group participated from a deep sense of communal need. To equate primitive rites to the requisite situ­ ation of theatre, it is necessary to discern in man the inherent element of play, the immutable human quality that will always make theatre, art, and religion possible, if not necessary. It is play that releases man from the limits of matter, to create metaphor, and hence, to think 7 abstractly. Play is also manifested in mimesis, the imi­ tation of man’s external and tangible existence. As a matter of survival man recognized the necessity for the regular succession and changes in the seasons, and for the favorability of weather. By mimicking nature, man sought to create order in it. Sir James Frazer’s monumental ethnological study gives evidence that nearly all primitive people enact the regular changes of nature in their play, clearly intending to bring under their control elements which they do not dominate and, if necessary, correct them.^

The urgency of purpose, the collectivity of pro­ tective effort, and the lack of language forced ritu­ alistic representation into the form of a dance. Primitive man had not yet conceived of the gods, "but what could bring him into closer contact with that vaguely human

7. J [ohan] Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Boston, 1955) , pp". F-27.

8. The New Golden Bough, ed. Theodor H. Gaster (Garden GityT~T^T)^"p7~~3T~et~~passim. Supernatural force than the winging rhythm o£ the dance?

All primitive sympathetic rites were superimposed upon the

dance. Men derived natural joy from both dance and mimetic

action. As this pleasure was reinforced by success, and

order was thought to have been maintained, the more ritu­ alized and sophisticated the basic form became. Ritual

dances of a more gratuitous nature were evolved: cele­ brations of the order of nature or of.the success of the hunt. Still identifying himself with nature, man found a joy in play that expressed itself as spiritual elevation

and exaltation.

At this stage of development, all the elements of theatre seem to be present: the purpose, the form, and .

especially the participatory quality of the form. However,

there is no apparent audience. While it may be argued that

the rituals were performed for the arch-spirits, and the

spirits responded by making nature favorable, there must

eventually be a differentiation between religion and .

theatre. The reaction, which is so essential to the

action, must occur simultaneously with the occasion. When

separation- occurred, in the tribe, between performer and observer, an audience was created for the first time, and primitive theatre began to take shape.

9. Benjamin Hunningher, The Origin of the Theater (New York, 1968), p. 16. The increasing .importance, and complexity of the dance rituals were responsible for the segregation of the performer. Certain men excelled at the dance, were singled

out by the community, and eventually became medicine men,

priests and kings. These individuals were charged with

special responsibilities in the rites. The introduction

of this personal element led ultimately to heroes and gods,

and the concept of immortality. In a word, religion became

anthropomorphized. The various phenomena in nature took on

human shape and behavior, and the rituals became enactments

of human dramas in which the special dancers portrayed

gods. One of the most important dance-rites, the Year- drama celebrated the triumph of spring over summer, or of life over death. When gods developed, the Year "-drama as­

sumed the quality of a life and death struggle between . man-like gods. The Osiris drama, well known as the Abydos

Passion play, is an important example of this development!,

Throughout this early phase, the theatre remained essentially religious and its dance-ritual characteristics

never disappeared. Hunningher emphasizes this point in

regard to primitive theatre; Its performance was an action in itself and had a prescribed purpose; it was not a mental commemo­ ration; it was an act of identification carried out in energetic ecstasy by the entire tribe or community. Through this autonomous act, it aimed at obtaining for that group a part of the Super­ natural at extorting demands from the Power-over- Life.10 . ^ . ; .

In pre-literate Greece, religious development pro­ ceeded along the lines that have been indicated above.

But, with the appearance of myth, that development began which eventually led to the separation of ritual and . theatre. In the great dramas of the Classic age that are extant, there is apparently no vestige of the ancient dance-rituals. Rather, they are comprised homogeneously of dramatic poetry, taking as content parts of a sophisti­ cated mythology that had already reached the literary level. Aristotle’s analyses leave no doubt as to the efficacy of Classic tragedy as educational and recreation­ al, and thus, we infer the purpose of the Greek theatre.

But the plays of the City Dionysia were presented as part . of a religious festival, in celebration of Greek religion’s most honored god. Can the intrusion of an instructive and • entertaining theatre upon a religious occasion be recon­ ciled?

The City Dionysian theatre was an immensely popular event; the audience consisted of virtually all Athens: the free and educated men as well as the lowly.. We are told r that the best plays were enthusiastically and critically

10. Hunningher, Origin, p. 24. ■ : ' • " v :: , . '. ■ - 10 received; the worst were "hooted" from the theatre.This is an obvious indication of audience activity and critical awareness o The question of whether the community .participa­ tion in the theatre of Dionysus was a religious response cannot, in the end, be resolved. After all, Aristotle wrote from the perspective of an historian., Plato, slightly closer to the Classic fifth century, placed the origin of poetry in a gift from the gods, given to men in their misery that it might be corrected. The atmosphere of Athens, too, must be considered. In its place as the cultural center of Greece in the morning of Western lit­ eracy, Athens was pervaded by a sense of intellectual enlightenment and spiritual rebellion. To the free and ed­ ucated, the divinity of the mythical gods had become a tired and mundane notion. To the more deprived levels of Attic society, any occasion connected with Dionysus worship was festive and riotous. Theatre had reached the; stage of art, and the remarkable theatre of the Classic tragedies had found a form not only artistic, but capable of both delight and instruction.

Yet, the fact of the religious occasion remains and, at least in its early years, the Classic theatre must have been a spiritual experience as well. Dionysus worship .

11. Vera Mowry Roberts, On Stage: A History of the Theatre (New York, 1962), p. 2B. * had not become an inactive religion by any means. After the older, ancient gods had migrated into mythology and, hence, into man s rational realm, Dionysus nremained the

daemon of death and resurrection, of reincarnation, the renouveau of spring, and that reincarnation was of man as 12 well as nature." The worship of Dionysus was charac­ terized by ecstasy and frenzied elevation of the senses, so that man might attain the power of the gods. Further, the cult was open to everyone; "Dionysus was the god of . the masses."13

There is evidence that the spiritual theatre re­ mained in the form of the Greek drama as well as in the occasion. Gilbert Murray has demonstrated that the inte­ rior structure of most Classic tragedies is identical to structure of the dromenos, a Dionysian ritual Year-draraa found.at Delphi.1^ Murray theorizes.that tragedy origi­ nated in this religious dance-ritual. Through Dionysus, all of mythology was available to be molded into the dromenos structure. It is in this form, and in the fact, that dance had been retained, that Greek Classic theatre

12. Jane E. Harrison, Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and Themis, 1st Am. edl (New Hyde Dark, N. Y., 1962T7p7™339.

13. Hunningher, Origin, p. 27.

14. "Excursis on the Ritual Forms Preserved in Greek Tragedy," in Harrison* s Epilegomena and Themis, pp. 343, et seq. maintained a religious purpose and response. Murray con­ cludes :

An outer shape dominated by. tough and undying tradition, an inner life fiery with sincerity and spiritual freedom; the vessels of a very ancient religion overfilled and broken by the new wine of reasoning and rebellious humanity, and still, in their rejection, shedding abroad the old aroma, as of eternal and mysterious things: these are the fundamental paradoxes presented to us by Greek Tragedy.^5

Hunningher endorses this paradox, and adds the evidence that as late as 405 B.C., that The Bacchae of Euripides, an exemplary instance of the dromenos renouveau form, caused tremendous enthusiasm and emotional response when it was produced at the festival. This fact can only be explained by close ties with the "Bacchic e s s e n c e .

There remains in the historical, line of develop­ ment one further possibility for the spiritual theatre: the medieval religious theatre. But, it is evident from the start that the response to the medieval theatre was not, essentially, a religious one. The Greek era was notable for creating the artistic and instructional pur­ poses of the theatre; the medieval religious theatre for instituting a theatre that was almost purely didactic in its purpose.

15. "Exeursis," p. 363.

16. Origin., p. 33, .. - • : : ' ' • " ' ' . ' 13 In the simplest terms, the spiritual experience of

Christianity is not Inherently theatrical, as are the ex- periences of the primitive religions. Hunningher effec­

tively presses this point in his attack of the theory that medieval church drama was the origin of modern theatre,^

However, Hunningher1s point hardly needs emphasis. There

is general agreement that the religious experience of the church remains centered in its ritual, the Mass, and that, at no time does the medieval theatre presume to undertake .. the spiritual prerogatives of Christian ritual. As

Cameron and Hoffman point out, the "language of the church drama is the language of the sermon, not the language of the sacrament,"^

This is not to say, however, that there is not acceptable unity in the purpose, the occasion, the form and the response of the most important manifestations of medi­ eval religious, theatre. The didactic purpose of religious plays extends from the Church’s search over a millennium

for ways to Christianize a barbaric Europe, The Church recognized that strengthening the belief of the ignorant and the converts would require an educational effort which would reach the masses. The theatre was popular among the people, not only because of the survival of the mimes,

17. Origin, pp, 60, 61,

18, Kenneth M, Cameron and Theodore J. C, Hoffman, The Theatrical Response (New York, 1969), p, 66, ■' ' . 14 from Roman times throughout the Dark Ages, but also because

of the tenacious existence of pagan ritual habits. So, the Church gradually abrogated its centuries-old suppression of

theatre, and adapted it to its own purposes. A lesson was learned from the Feast of Fools.

The occasion of the earliest Church dramas was in the annual celebrations of Christmas and Easter: festive times ripe for a favorable response to spectacle. The con­ tent of these dramas, usually the life of Christ, and the

form, visual and concrete imagery, were harmonious with the occasion and the level of the audience. The later, non­ cycle plays changed, in form and content, to adjust to the changing social context. It is not merely happenstance that the first morality plays, the advent of the Renais­

sance, and the appearance of mechanized print occurred virtually in the same decade. A tremendous potential for learning dictated that the didactic theatre find more sophisticated forms. Having switched entirely to vernac­ ular language, the religious theatre was able to adopt more

intellectual methods of staging and dramatic style.

Throughout the period of medieval religious theatre, the didactic purpose remained constant as did the doctrine it preached. Moral behavior was idealized in action illustrating the doctrine of repentance: sin, penitence, . confession,and atonement. As effective theatre, the medieval religious productions provide models exhibiting many methods of effective theatre communication„ The staging of the cycle plays illustrate the effect of various action-audience spatial relationships. The epic form was especially receptive to the insertion of comic intermezzi, the effect of which was to keep the spectators mentally active and relieve the serious tone. The morality plays are models for the verbal techniques of allegory: personi­ fied abstracts acting out moral less.ons.

The Popular Theatre

The phenomenal intellectual liberalization of the

Renaissance resulted in the religious theatre, with its rigid doctrine, being out-distanced by secular theatre. Thus, historically, the last trace of theatrical response within a formal religious context disappeared.

One example of a primarily popular theatre, none­ theless , is possibly still presided over by a ghost of the spiritual. Hunnihgher’s book contains an exemplary treatise on the tensions between pagan religious practices and the Church during the long period of Christianiza­ tion. The native Europeans, having developed ritual observations similar to those practiced around the world, were gradually cut off from the ultimate evolution of. their own theatre from religious ritual. Further, the confusion created by Christian adaptation and assimilation

19. Origin, p. 85, et passim. of pagan habits, has virtually denied today’s ethnologist the possibility of accurately describing those ancient rituals, European and English folklore, and a few extant non-Christian folk observances provide us with the only clues to the ritual past.

One particularly homogeneous and, until quite re­ cently, common folk practice, is the English Mummers’ play. It is worth considering here because of its special relationship of occasion and response. The play is per­ formed annually upon the occasion of some prominent cele­ bration, usually Christmas, by members of a small community for members of that community. The troupe moves either from house to house or, in larger towns, in procession to various stations in the streets.. There is an enthusiastic ■ reception by people of all ages. As a folk tradition, it varies little from year to year within a given community.

From community to community, there is some variance; but, in addition to the aspects mentioned, every example con­ tains dance and the central action of conflict, slaying and resurrection: precisely the elements of the primitive

Year-drama. The remarkable aspect of the Mummers’ play is its apparently gratuitous purpose and content. Aside from the occasional naming of a character Saint George, there is no

Christian connection. The Mummers’ play is clearly a ritual, as seen in its rigidity in form, its grotesque costume and mask» the stylistic playing, and the dance6 As with other countless fragments of apparent primitive religion, its origin can only be approximated» Southern does not hesitate to call the Mummers’ play a direct descendant of the Year-drama,^ but E„ I<4 Chambers is more

conservative, insisting that it is a folk play of relative

ly modern origins which draws only upon the idea of the

r e n o u v e a u .21 in any case, it is interesting to speculate

on why the play delighted so well. Is the performance of

ritual enjoyable for its own sake? Certainly, the play was an act of community identification; and one is led further to imagine a certain spiritual elevation; a sense

of wonder and the mystique, inherent in the ancient

structure.

The secular theatre of the Renaissance age devel­

oped along myriad paths until it found its culmination in

the public theatres of Elizabethan England. On this point, an obvious value judgment is entered; there were many occurrences of effective secular theatre in the period. Except for the remarkable genius of one drama­

tist, the Elizabethan public theatre might never have merited this distinction. In this case, however, the ex­

ample is chosen mainly as an approach to a sociological

20. Seven Ages, pp. 49, 50.

21. The Medieval Stage (Oxford, 1903), I, 161. :■ . ' ■ , ■■■■ ■ ■ .. 18 context for. theatre-, which can best be labeled as popular. The purpose of the popular theatre, and the public

context that purpose addresses, is not dissimilar to that of Classical Greece. The rebirth of learning had created

tensions between custom and liberated thought, intensifying in everyone the fervor for intellectual inquiry. In an­

other sense, the Elizabethan public was not unlike the modern American public. England’s ascendancy to world power fostered a sense of national pride and the attendant hunger for cultural supremacy, in which all English sub­ jects united. Still another factor informed the.sense of purpose in the English public theatre: that of enter­

tainment. The rise of professional playing in the six­

teenth century, and the popularity of these players in

innyards and the portable theatres in the provinces, had given the public a taste of the theatre’s potential, for

sheer delight. It is not necessary to envision that any

one of these philosophies dominated. Indeed, the occasion of the English public theatre was the joint expression of audience and dramatist of the total concerns of the day: a blend of political-cultural-delightful experience. Add to the occasion the picture of a rough and

functional place: a sunlit, “paved yard and hawkers O O selling food,1 with audiences standing, audiences eating

22. Cameron and Hoffman, Response,, p , 98, : , ...... 19 and drinking, and the smell and noise. This is the audi- .. ence to which Shakespeare tailored his art-“to which every playwright for the public theatre adjusted his vision.

MacGowan and Melnitz remark that the dramatists catered to the ''grosser" tastes of the masses, illustrating with Shakespeare's treatment of the problem:

The weaknesses of" Shakespeare--beyond every play­ wright 's normal chance of failure--were the weaknesses of his time and audience. Elizabethan England loved allegory as much as violence, long-drawn philosophizing as much as soaring poet- . ry. Too often, issues were all black and white and characters either good or.bad. Love at first sight seemed no more implausible than last-minute conversions with the good man turning to evil or the evil man to good. Audiences accepted magical potions as well as disguises that any child could see through. They were content with types instead of characters.2^

Keeping in mind the.apparent standards.by which the authors label the listed effects as "weaknesses,u such judgment must be viewed as relative. It is doubtful that

Shakespeare catered to the grosser tastes of anyone. He did however create meaningful communication knowing all the potentials of his medium and all the complexities of the desired response. It has been said that Shakespeare con­ tains something for everyone. A better view would be that Shakespeare created a bit of everything for the composite

Elizabethan man. Would anyone deny his ability to.elevate the rough man or to simply tickle the erudite? Peter Brook .:

23. Kenneth MacGowan and William Melnitz, The Living Stage (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1955) , p. 152. 20 is convinced of the efficacy of: Shakespeare’s total-theatre language:

The power of Shakespeare's plays is that they, pre­ sent man simultaneously in all his aspects: touch for touch3 we can identify and withdraw. A primi­ tive situation disturbs us in our subconscious; our intelligence watches, comments, philosophizes, We identify emotionally, subjectively--and yet at one and the same time we evaluate politically, objectively in relation to society. Because the profound reaches past the everyday, a heightened language and a ritualistic use of rhythm brings to us those very aspects of life which the surface / hides; and yet because the poet and the visionary do not seem like ordinary people, because the epic state is not one in which we normally dwell, it is equally possible for Shakespeare with a break in his rhythm, a twist into prose, a shift into slangy conversation, or else a direct word from the audience to remind us--in plain common-sense-- of where we are and to return us to the familiar rough world of spades as s p a d e s . 24

By passing his spectator through many stages of conscious­ ness , Shakespeare was speaking in the dialectic of the day, A similar people's theatre of the Age was conducted by the professional public players of Italy, who became so proficient at improvised comedy that' their art invaded

Spain and France before they were finally absorbed into other types of theatre. These players, commonly referred to nowadays as commedia dell'arte, are interesting to us, mostly because Of their improvisational approach. Whether it can be argued that the scenarios were often completely filled-in and rehearsed prior to performance, is not cogent

24, The Empty Space, pp, 87, 88 : 21 to the central focus on their techniques» Audiences were aware that the action they witnessed was spontaneous and particular and new for that occasion. This awareness

compounded the pleasure derived from.the ancient conven­

tions , There is the excitement of the unknown in spontaneous creation.

The Traditional Theatre

The Elizabethan public theatre blazed briefly and

then went dark, snuffed-out by the combined pressures of the plague and Puritan censorship. With the passing of

the popular theatre, the participatory element of theatre

also retreated into the background, where it remained un­ noticed until our own century. After the revival of the

theatre in England, following the interregnum of the

seventeenth century, the content and form of theatre began a process of change, resulting ultimately in the illu-

sionistic theatre of today.

To facilitate dealing with confusing terms, the

following apt definition is extracted from Cameron and

Hoffman: "Illusion: Coleridge’s ’willing suspension of

disbelief,’ the adult attitude that human beings [on stage]

are both actors and characters, but that they are totally believable and their whole stage existence is a perfect

rendering of recognizable experience, "25 Clearly,

25. Response, p. 11. : : ■. ■ ■■ ■■ . : . ■ : ■ 22 elements of illusion have always existed in the theatre; the^imetie act itself is illusion. The difference between the illusionistic theatre, at its inception, and the non- illusionistic theatre of the preceding ages is one of . mental suggestion. Essentially, in non-illusionistic the­ atre, the actor creates the physical setting of the action through pantomime and languagea In illusionistic theatre, the scene painter creates the setting.

The illusionistic theatre came to maturity in three separately developing phases: the scenery, the dramatic text, and the acting. The evolution of scenery began,with the late Renaissance Italian invention of the wing and drop arrangement, with its cleverly painted perspective set­ tings, and the proscenium arch. These inventions were im­ proved in various ways during the seventeenth and eight­ eenth centuries, until it began to appear that the goal was • creating for the audience the impression that they were not really sitting in the theatre. The proscenium arch was embellished while the fore-stage disappeared; the audience faced an ornate picture frame. With the setting pushed behind the taboo line of the arch, the distance between the audience and the action increased; the players were effec­ tively diminished. Finally, with the advent of gas light and, later, electricity, the auditorium could be plunged into a cave of darkness, looking out at a luminescent world.

Southern, commenting on this scenic effect, finds that the ■ v: 23 players give the impression of impotent puppets, hut

"there is, of course, a certain attractiveness in this little world of puppet player over which one hangs in

darkness, sympathizing, with complete immunity, in every 2 6 tiny naked heart throb." While stage and setting moved inexorably toward the illusionistic ideal, illusion in the drama of the corresponding times, according to our present sensibil­ ities , was somewhat slower in developing. Then, about the mid-nineteenth century, the literary schools of Realism and naturalism found a compatible medium of communication on the illusionistic stage. This conjunction produced an extremely hardy type of theatre experience and is widely hailed as the progenitor of the modern theatre.

It was eventually recognized that traditional styles of acting had failed to keep pace with the in­ creasing verisimilitude sought by the naturalistic school of dramatic thought. The illusionistic theatre’s final phase of perfection was accomplished after the turn of the .. present century, when Stanislavsky’s precepts gained wide­ spread popularity. In the nineteenth century, Realism was a positive achievement, in that it aligned the: purpose and content of theatre with the form and audience responsiveness

- - ' 26. Seven Ages, p. 269. particular to that era. The industrial and scientific rev­

olutions had brought about a democratic reformism, and a

new concern for the condition of the people. Inasmuch as

Realism professed to be "a candid presentation of the natural w o r l d , "^7 possessed the scientific objectivism with which many dramatists hoped to achieve a sort of empirically derived social reform, Ibsen, as both artist and social commentator, achieved a specific, balance of well-made play, inconography, and naturalistic discourse, which had tremendous appeal in his day, especially to

Norwegian audiences.

But what was Ibsen’s success has become the basis for the stifling effects of Realism we now feel. His use of the theatre, as well as his themes, have been so often copied and so thoroughly explored that there are no sur­ prises left. There is a sameness in Realism that makes audiences passive; none of the plays which emulate his forms can ever have the same efficacy as they had for the audiences he had in mind. Still, it is precisely the structure of the well-made play, its logical, linear un­ folding, supported by psychologically based characters, and naturalistic dialogue, that we associate with the word tra­ ditional today; and text book dramatic theory and criticism are founded in its processes.

27, Eric Bentley, The Playwright as Thinker (Cleveland; 1965), p, 5, • ' . '■ \ 25 Realism, however, had barely taken its first steps, when an opposing movement began. Again, it was the theatre artists who first saw the low plane of imagination to which the theatre of illusion was descending. Hence, through the early efforts of such prestigious theatre innovators as

Adolphe Appia, Gordon Craig, and Max Reinhardt, the materiel of the illusionistic theatre has now been generally discoun­ tenanced. The box set is seldom seen these days; the pro­ scenium arch is no longer sacred; and still, for the want of an integrated approach to theatre. Realism remains.

The dramatists, concepts, and theatre noted in the following discussion are representative, but by no means inclusive, of the reactions against the entrenchment of

Realism. Considered as a body, the various manifestations of anti-illusionistic theatre have been as prominent and influential in the twentieth century as the traditional school. "If realism survived, so did the animus against it. Realism reigned, but the insurgent movements had 28 achievements of their own."

The German Anti-illusionistic Theatre

The surface appearance of Expressionistic theatre is the opposite to that of Realism; that is> it is charac­ terized by the appearance of unreality. It is marked by extremism in theme, language and stagecraft. Recognizable

28. Bentley, Playwright, pp. 20, 21. features of most Expressionistic plays are distortion, ex­ aggeration,. grotesqueness, and implausibility. Dialogue moves'from hymnic poetry to obscenities and cursing to the

point of vanishing completely. The expected becomes the unexpected and the bizarre.

One word describes the rationale of Expressionism:

subjectivity. The dramatist who felt fettered by the

forms and content of Realism wanted the freedom of ex­ ploring the limits of his own mind, wherein he thought the

greater truth was to be found. As. in every phase of modern

theatre where subjectivism opposes the objectivism of realistic drama, August Strindberg is cited as the founding

influence, although Strindberg himself cannot be listed among the Expressionists. However, there was a cult of

Strindberg in Germany, which was to spawn Expressionism, as revealed by the fact that, immediately prior to World War I,

Strindberg was the most frequently performed playwright on 99 the German and Austrian stages. Certain. German dramatists pinpointed on his subjectivism: his almost exclusive con­

centration on the conflicts in the rebel’s own soul.

Strindberg was ’’primarily concerned with self-expression--

29. Walter H. Sokel, ed. An Anthology of German Expressionist Drama (Garden City, N. Y., 1963; , p. x. : V: V ; ^:; ''- ' - - 27 or justifying the superiority of the poet's vision in a world without meaning or coherence.

.From Strindberg's dream plays, the Germans adopted the pattern of the human mind in dream and reverie. In­ stead of form and detail, the dream pattern consists of a formless, fluid series of episodes in which the imaginative use of light, music, visual symbols, and atmospheric ef­ fects attempted to cut through the material surface of life to the spiritual truths beneath. To express the magical effects and pervasive symbolism in terms of the theatre, the Expressionists were able to draw from the advances al­ ready demonstrated by Max Reinhardt.

There are several other characteristics which apply collectively to the German Expressionists' theories. Be­ cause of its subjectivism. Expressionist drama does not allow the conventional conflict'of protagonist-antagonist to arise. The center of the play becomes its theme, rather than the clash of independently motivated characters. It is generally devoid of all real touch and communication between human beings. The themes expressed are usually some variation of man's predicament as a puppet, helpless in the mechanistic clutches of capitalism or industry. In some cases, the dream structure becomes a narrative or epic, in which a central character moves through life on a mission

30, Robert Brustein, The Theatre of Revolt: An Approach to the Modern Drama (Boston, 1964)'," p . ’95. ■ 28 or pilgrimage. Brecht1s first full-length play Baal is an

example of this type of Expressionistic theatre. ,

Several of the German writers have left bits of pseudo-theory which help to illuminate their approach. Paul Kornfield voiced the general Expressionistic opposi­ tion to naturalistic acting, and the suitability to the Expressionist’s needs of stylistic acting, pantomime, and gesture. "The melody of a great gesture says more than the highest consummation of what is called naturalness.

The purpose of the Expressionist shows in Yvan Goll's manifesto in the "Preface" to The Immortals;

It is not the object of art to make life comfort­ able for the fat bourgeois so that he may nod his head: "Yes, yes, that’s the way it is I . And now let's go for a bite!" Art, insofar as it seeks to educate, to improve men, or to be in any way effective, must slay workaday man; it must fright­ en him as the’mask, frightens the child, as Euripides frightened the Athenians who staggered from the theatre. Art exists to change man back into the child he was. The simplest means to accomplish this is by the use of the grotesque--a grotesque that does not cause laughter. The dull­ ness .and stupidity of men are so enormous that only enormities can.counteract them. Let the new drama be enormous

Expressionism also emerged in America in some of the early plays of Eugene O ’Neill and Elmer Rice, who were influenced by the Germans and, to some extent, directly by

31. "Epilogue to the Actor," trans. Joseph Bernstein’, in Anthology of German Expressionist Drama, pp. 1 1 , 1 2 . 32. Trans. Walter H. Sokel, in Anthology, pp. 7, 8. Strindberg. In 1924, O'Neill, who was perhaps America's most important experimental dramatist, called Strindberg

/'the greatest interpreter in the theatre of the charac- .

teristic spiritual conflicts which institute the.drama--the .

blood--of our lives today."As with the Germans, O ’Neill

was indebted to Strindberg for his dream techniques. How­ ever , in most of his Expressionism, O'Neill’s borrowed technique seems "grafted on" to his material, giving the impression of being "gratuitous and excessive"*^ Notwith­

standing this stern comment by Brustein, O'Neill’s early

Expresslonistic endeavor. The Emperor Jones (1920),

achieves a remarkably integrated use of the theatre for

subjective effect.

As a formal movement, lasting roughly through the

second and third decades of this century. Expressionism

failed because of its general abstruseness and overly rad­

ical: use of emotional trickery, which had the effect of

obscuring the "reality" which it hoped to evoke.

Expressionist theories were seldom realized. The point in

discussing the movement is that "as a more general expres­

sion of distaste for illusionism and a sense that the

33. Bentley, Playwright, p^ 160..

34. Brustein, Theatre of Revolt, p. 327. . . ' .. - ■ ■ 30 theater could deal in nonlogical symbolism, its tendencies can still be seen,"^^

Several of Brecht1s works following Baal also exemplified Expressionistic principles, especially in terms of their anguished themes. However, if Expressionism exerted any lasting effect on Brecht, that effect was both positive and negative. The German dramatist outgrew his

Expressionist trappings; he rejected the movement as a whole, and refused to be identified, with it. Brecht found pronounced shortcomings in common Expressionist practices: the heavy appeal to the emotions of the spectator prohib­ ited the objective judgment of the adult spectator; the high flown Romanticism of the writers repulsed Brecht; he would have never allowed the theatre-goer to become a

"child again." In 1940, Brecht said: "Expressionism, which greatly enriched the theatre s means of expression and brought about a hitherto unexploited aesthetic gain, showed itself in no position to interpret the world as an object of human usage. The theatre’s powers of instruction shriveled away."

Brecht is directly in the stream of twentieth century developments. All of his dramatic theory is

35.■ Cameron and Hoffman, Response, p. 183.

36. "On the Experimental Theatre," Theatre in the Twentieth Century, ed. Robert W. Corrigan (New York,1965), p. 100, ' V , vV :: 3i designed for the benefit of the.spectator and, in that re­ spect , he is allied to participatory theatre. Moreover, he is vitally opposed to illusionistic theatre: it is in his words that we can more clearly understand how illu­ sionistic theatre might destroy the audience’s potential for finding reality in the theatre experience, Brecht feels that in the. illusionistic theatre the audience is drawn into the plot and made to identify itself with the characters; the means by which this is achieved falsify the picture of reality, and the audience is too contentedly hypnotized to see that it is false. He wrote that the most obscene sight one can see is to look at the audience and find everybody totally disembodied, vicariously living through the experiences of the characters on s t a g e . ^7

To correct this degrading vision, Brecht developed a system of theatrical theory which he referred to as the

Epic theatre. With it, he hoped to avoid the deadly faults of fhe naturalistic approach to reality. It is im­ portant to realize that, when appraising the practicality of Brecht's theory, it cannot be considered apart from his drama. The content of Brecht’s plays constitutes a major study in itself because of his peculiar intellectual pos­ ture: communistic optimism and underlying metaphysical anguish. This intellectual opposition forms a kind of

37. Brecht on Theatre, trans. John Willet (New York, 1964), pp. 186, 187. \ ; ■ . . ; .. 3.2 dialectic which informs the message of Brecht’s drama,

This idea is minutely explored by Brustein, 3 8 The struc­ ture of his plays, as well as the language and setting, conform neatly to Brecht’ s theory, because they developed together, ' Brecht had begun to experiment with his staging concepts years prior to his setting them down formally,

John Willett points out how, in the middle nineteen twen­ ties, Brecht began by approaching the theatre like a sporting event: hard seats, bright lights, smoking, "the possibility of a critical but dispassionate audience which would regard the actor in the same wide awake spirit as it 39 judged a sporting event.

The center of Brecht’s theory is the alienation effect. Alienation is stopping the illusion, interrupting, holding something up to the light, or looking at something in a new perspective. It is a bid to the spectator to participate by being personally responsible for accepting what he sees only if it is vitally convincing to him. The

German term for alienation effect in verfremsdungeffekt which, literally, is "making the familiar strange."

Brecht illustrates: • To see one's mother as a man’s wife one needs a V-effect; this is provided, for example, when one acquires a stepfather. If one sees one’s

38. Brustein, Theatre of Revolt, p. 261,

39. John Willett, The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht (New York, 1968) , p. 144. - ; ■ ; ' ' ' 33 form-master hounded by the bailiffs, a V-effect occurs: one is.jerked out of a relationship in which the form-master seems big into one where he seems small, .

Peter Brook explains how alienation works in Brechtian theory:

In all communication3 illusions materialize and disappear. The Brecht theatre is a rich com­ pound of images appealing for our belief. When Brecht spoke contemptuously of illusion 3 this was not what he was attacking. He meant the single sustained Picture, the statement that con­ tinued after its purpose had been served, . . . What we see most often is a character inside a picture frame surrounded by a three-walled in­ terior set. This is naturally an illusion, but . .Brecht.suggests we watch it in a state of anaesthetized uncritical belief. If, however, an actor stands on a bare stage beside a plac­ ard reminding us that this is a theatre, then in basic Brecht we do not fall into illusion; we watch as adults-=and judge.^

Alienation is effected in many various, sometimes subtle, ways. Its use is limited only by the imagination of the writer or director; it is the purely theatrical method of dialectical exchange between audience and playwright.

V-effect is the key that, informs all Brecht’s theory; the term is used to explain all those means of achieving crit­ ical detachment.

The catchword "Epic theatre" refers to a structural form which entails alienation, but by no means originated with Brecht. In Brecht’s use, the Epic is a sequence of

40. Willett, Theatre of Bertolt Brecht, p. 177.

41. Empty Space, pp. 78, 79. incidents or events, narrated without artificial restric­ tions as to time, place, or relevance to.formal plot,

Brecht consciously invested the Epic form with heightened alienation by bridging between his scenes with earthy music, announcing the coming scenes with legends resembling news­ paper headlines, and changing scenery in view of the audience. To insure that each scene within the Epic was capable of being dissociated from contiguous scenes, Brecht recommended rehearsing each separately, perfecting it to . polished detail. His purpose was to divest the play of any resemblance to a tidy, comprehensive plot. Thus, he warns:

As we cannot invite the public to fling itself into the story as if it were a river, and let it­ self be swept vaguely to and fro, the individual events have to be knotted together in such a way that the knots are easily seen. The events must not succeed one another indistinguishably but ,_ must give us a chance to interpose our judgment, It was Brecht’s intention to pare away from his production any useless information which might absorb our attention at the expense of something more important,

Brecht cared little for elaborate settings or geographic accuracy within the text. The only point where truth matters is at the center of the action. In this core of representation, for example, properties involved in the

42, Brecht on Theatre, p, 201, , ■■ ... ■. . ■ / - :: ; : 35.. . action must be absolutely real and utilitarian. The charac- ters, too, must be free of superfluous detail. He thus re­ jects naturalistic acting for fear of leaving the actor alone to add life-like detail to his character which fails to contribute to the purposes of the play.

Brecht’s concepts of acting in the Epic theatre are very difficult to grasp for the actor trained in the naturalistic method. Such catch phrases as l!showing the audience the action" and "standing between the spectator and the text" do not offer the actor much help. Brecht ex­ pressed his acting doctrine differently as he prepared notes for successive plays. -

The actormust demonstrate, like a bystander de­ scribing an accident; he must remember his first reactions ■■ | to the character whom he represents, and keep them fresh; - . -■ ■ • ' - ' . ; '• "must view him from a socially critical angle, must show

. : 1 his own point of view,’ must treat the story not as • ' | "broadly human" but as historical and unique.The author . and producer endeavor to present the world in an unfamiliar light. It is the actor’s responsibility not to take the edge off that unfamiliarity by losing himself in the play.

Brook compresses the acting rationale of Brecht as follows: ■ What Brecht introduced was the idea of the intel­ ligent actor, capable of judging the value of his

43. Willett, Theatre of Bertolt Brecht, p. 179. I ; ' v;v: : ; . : • . 36 contribution, , , There were and still are many actors who pride themselves of knowing nothing about politics and who treat the theatre as an ivory tower. For Brecht such an actor is not worthy of his place in adult company: an actor in a community that supports a theatre must be as much inyolved in the outside world as his own craft.44

The essence of Brecht is that he cared that theatre performed a useful role in the community: this care is for his audience. His plays are designed as penetrating.ques­ tions about the real world, and his theatre is designed to insure that the spectator leaves the performance with those precise questions burning in his mind.

Brecht's theory of theatre is often put into prac­ tice abortively because directors are not aware of the degree to which it was designed to fit Brecht's drama. This is not to say other texts calling for critical awareness. cannot make effective use of. Brecht's theory, providing that use comes from a complete understanding. But even pro­ ducers of Brecht's plays often fail because they presume to pick and choose from Brecht's production concepts.

44. Empty Space, p. 76. \ 37 The French Anti-Illusionistic Theatre The anti-Illusionistic counterpart? in France, of the German Expressionist movement was the avant-garde the­ atre, Although the term, avant-garde, has become diluted and diffused through years of application to theatre ex­ periments , in the years of artistic rebellion immediately following World War I, avant-garde meant, formally, the related ideologies of Dada and Surrealism,

For the avant-garde theatre, the lodestar of anti- illusion was Alfred Jarry, whose play Ubu Roi caused a riot when produced in 1897 and eventually influenced the whole of modern French theatre. In Ubu Roi, Jarry anti­ cipated and guided the nihilistic spirit, the parody and nonsense, the savage assault on the bourgeoisie,, and non- illusionistic staging that characterized nearly all avant-garde endeavors, In the history of drama, Jarry was a true primitive; he never formulated a coherent phi­ losophy, but "presented everything with the simplicity and immediacy of a child slinging mud pies,"^3

Similarly, the Dada movement, founded nearly twenty years after Ubu Roi by Tristan Tzara, seldom reaches above the sophomoric level. The essence of Dada is incompre­ hensibility, the abolition of logic and the absolute negation of all human activity. The destructive caprice

45. George Wellwarth, The Theatre of Protest and Paradox (New York, 1964), p. 3. ■;v;; : 33 of the Dadaists cannot be better illustrated than by the

claim of its leaders, in 1921, that the movement ought, as a final gesture, to abolish even itself. Surrealism came into being in 1917, when Guillaume

Apollinaire coined the term to sub-title his play, The

Breasts Of Tiresias. This work is the prototype of

Surrealist drama, employing the startling juxtaposition of images that has become the identifying mark of Surrealism

in all realms of art, Apollinaire used the dream form, abrupt switches into nonsense, distorted symbols, masks, and a hero from Greek mythology,

Andre Breton attempted to formalize the Surrealist movement in the early nineteen twenties by establishing himself as spokesman and creating an actual methodology.

The basis of Breton’s ^Manifestos of Surrealism" was his

theory of automatic writing. But few of Breton’s methods were realized in the theatre, and the movement eventually

evolved into a literary one. Those elements of Surrealism which have survived are its verbal inventiveness and an

extensive catalogue- of scenic strategies - which evoke un­

reality on the stage. These techniques soon filtered into the mainstream of modern French theatre where they can be

seen today in the plays of such writers as Jean Cocteau,

Jean Anouilh and Eugene Ionesco,

Beyond its incipient anti-illusionistic influence,

early Surrealism did little to advance the cause.of : ; . . ■ : 39 audience involvement. The Surrealist dramatists of the early avant-garde were, in all, too arty to create a gen­ eral response from the public „ There is an exceptional case, however, which bears notice. In 1927, in the Alfred

Jarry Theatre, founded the previous year by Roger Vitrac and Antonin Artaud, Vitrac’s play, The Mysteries of Love, was producedo It called for the mingling of audience and performance, employing such methods as the conventional

"aside," the opening of the action in the auditorium under house lights, and a violent denouement in which a member of the audience was apparently shot and killed.None of these methods were really novel; the significance of the event lies in the association with Surrealism of the visionary Artaud. Artaud was to become famous for synthe­ sizing a unified, written concept of the disparate prin­ ciples of the avant-garde anti-illusionist revolt and the need for audience involvement.

Artaud was a prolific poet and essayist, far more than he was a dramatist. His vision of a new theatre is contained in a handful of letters, essays, manifestos and tracts, most of which were consolidated in The Theatre and Its Double, first published in 1938. Artaud wrote of his theatre seemingly from his imagination and intuition, as

46. The Mysteries of Love, trans. Ralph J. Gladstone, in Modern French Theatre, eds. Michael Benedikt and George E. Wellwarth (New York, 1966), pp. 226-267. ■ . . , . . • . 40 though isolated from the rest of the theatre world. It is remarkable how compactly and conclusively his philosophy reaches the reader. Its poetic density, like the theatre he would re-create, strikes at us emotionally,

• The earliest effect of Artaud's work was seen in his formulation of the common principles of the avant- garde theatre, George Wellwarth recalls that Jarry’s real significance had languished unacclaimed, and that only since Artaud has Jarry been recognized as something more than "an infantile prankster.However, Artaud began early to add his own concepts to those of the avant-garde.

In founding the Jarry Theatre in 1926, Artaud announced that the theatre was dedicated "to contribute by strictly theatrical means to the ruin of the theatre as it exists today in France.

Artaud demanded an uncompromising, technically precise and complete restructuring of the theatre. It can be shown that his vision is not coherent, that it is often audacious and largely self-contradictory. Even so, more than one critical writer has advanced Artaud’s stature by alluding to him as a modern Aristotle, and to The Theater and Its Double as the Poetics of the modern theatre. This at once provides us with a point of perspective from which

47. Wellwarth, Protest and Paradox,.p. 15

48. "States of Mind: 1925-1945," trans. Ruby Cohn, TDR, VIII (Winter 1963), 43. i to appraise. Artaud, and an acute appreciation of the

largeness of his vision. His redefinition of theatre is

concerned with the forms and content of theatre, as well

as with its purpose, in terms of both its original moti­

vating forces and its intrinsic value to mankind„ Artaud wishes to return to the pre-Aristotle theatre and discover

its true meaning: "The ancients came seeking the taste

for life and the power to resist the blows of f a t e „ l,4 9

Artaud’s revolution includes all of Western civi­ lization, He evokes the return of primitive man who, be­

cause of his unadulterated state of mind, sees reality as

it is, and reacts strongly and emotionally to his preca­

rious state in a chaotic and mysterious universe. It is

the function of theatre to maintain this awareness of

terrible reality. Theatre is magic, The ancient myths are pregnant with images which evoke fear and indignation, and by their very opposition to man, give him a sense of exhil- .

aration and the heroism of his existence.

In regard to the response of his audience, Artaud would devise a theatrical language that by-passes the pro­

cess of logic and speaks directly to the emotional aware­ ness of the spectator. Through the senses, rather than the

mind, he would create a profound sense "of Becoming, of

Fatality, of Chaos, of the Marvelous, of Equilibrium--in

49. "States of Mind," p, 64. 42 short, anything-“that sharpens the metaphysical awareness 50 of the primitive, pre-logical mentality.'1

The illusionistic theatre creates a certain uni­ verse; the distance of that universe from the actual one is proportionate to the amount of suspended credulity asked of the spectator. Artaud wants to create a universe that is contiguous to reality, where the spectator does not need any mental exercises to cross the gap. Moreover, he believes that the subjects of the traditional theatre are frivolous and damaging to humanity:

I am well aware that the language of gesture and postures, dance and music, is less capable of analyzing a character, revealing a man s thoughts, or elucidating stages of consciousness clearly and precisely than is a verbal language, but who ever said the theatre was created to analyze a character, to resolve the conflicts of love and duty, to wrestle with all the problems. of a topical and psychological nature that monopolize our contemporary stage? Given the theatre as we see it here, one would say there is nothing more important in life than knowing whether we can love skill­ fully, whether we will go to war or are cowardly enough to make peace, how we cope with our lit­ tle pangs of conscience, and whether we will become conscious of our "complexes” (in the language of the, experts) or if indeed our "com­ plexes” will do us in.51

What, then would be the content and form of Artaud's theatre? Anything that is real, spontaneous, and

50. The Theater and Its Double, trans. Mary C. Richards (New York, 1958), p. 36.

51. Ibid., p. 41. ■ - ' . ' ■ • : ' ■ ' ■■ - • ■ ' 43 non-intellectual is, appropriate. The spirit of life which is the business of the theatre must be accessible without thought-associative processes. As with the Expressionists, the creations of Artaud1s theatre assume the form of rites or dreams, in either of which fiction is made to merge with reality. The action which they consist of is criminal, per­ verse, magical: an objectivity which instantly impresses images of the dark forces underlying reality,

. Artaud does not exclude the presentation of clas­ sic themes as long as they are altered to bring them into harmony with the feeling of a contemporary audience. He allows, for example, that .Oedipus Rex contains the requi­ site elements of a play, "In Oedipus Rex there is a theme of incest and the idea that there are certain unspecified powers at large we would do well to be aware of, call them destiny or anything you choose,"' 5 2 The public is capable of sensing the "sublime" in these elements provided the

"sublime" is not confused with defunct, formal manifesta­ tions , The response to Artaud’s theatre is based on the disposition of the audience to view the theatre as a necessary, beneficial human institution. Theatre becomes utilitarian, almost therapeutic. In return for the bene­ fits , the spectator must assume a role in the creative

52, Theater and Its Double, pp. 74, 75, ■ ■ . ■ ■ . ■ • ‘ 44 process; his responses become parameters to the director

and actor; spectator and actor are bilaterally involved in ,

spontaneous action* The spectator, is aware of his. role and he takes the theatre seriously* He does not expect to come away unscathed but, to the contrary, he expects to identify so immediately with crime, love, war, or madness, that the experience will, purge his suppressed aggression and sex drive,

Artaud’s essay, "The Theater and the Plague," dwells exclusively on this pivotal matter of purgation,.

It is here that Artaud meets considerable opposition,

Paul Arnold is one of the skeptics: "In other words, the delirium will cleanse man of all. evil, , ,. , This is an obvious philosophical, psychological and historical error.

The Alfred Jarry Theatre failed after several, years and Artaud began, in the early nineteen thirties, to plan materially the Theatre of Cruelty, a living theatre where he could put his theory into practice. He describes the

Theatre of Cruelty in terms of its purpose:

At the point of deterioration which our sensibil- ity has reached, it is certain we need above all a theatre that wakes us up: nerves and heart. , . . In the anguished, catastrophic period we live in, . 53. Theater and Its Double, pp. 16-32. 54. "The Artaud Experiment," TDK, VIII (Winter 1963), 21. . . we feel an urgent need for a theatre which events do not exceed. . . , Our long habit of seeking diversion has_made us forget the idea of a seri­ ous theatre.55

He describes the Theatre of Cruelty as to response: Imbued with the idea that the public thinks first of all with its senses . „ . the Theatre of Cruel­ ty proposes to resort to mass spectacle; to seek for the agitation of tremendous masses3 convulsed and hurled against each othera little of that poetry of festivals and c r o w d s . 56

Artaud visualized the content of the Theatre of. Cruelty:

We want to make out of the theatre a believable reality which gives the senses that kind of con­ crete bite which all true sensation requires. . . . We believe that the images of thought can be identified with a dream which will be efficacious to the degree that it can be projected with nec­ essary violence. And the public will believe in the theater’s dreams on condition that it will take them for true dreams and not a servile copy of reality; on condition that they allow the public to liberate within itself the magical liberties of dreams which it can only recognize when they are imprinted with terror and cruel- ' ty. . . , Everything that acts is a cruelty. It is upon this idea of extreme action9 pushed beyond all limits, that theatre must be re­ built.5/

Artaud outlines fairly specifically the physical . requirement for the Theatre, as well as the forms of theatrical communication. To facilitate the integration of the spectator into the action, Artaud called, first of all, for the dissolving of any delineation between the

55. Theater and Its Double, p. 84.

56. Ibid., p. 85

57. Ibid., pp. 85, 8 6 . ■■■ 46 auditorium and the stage. In the ideal configuration, :

action would take place on all sides of the spectator, so

as to completely envelop the senses, with spectacle and

noise. All means that are available to the theatre--music,,

dance, plastic art, pantomime, mime, cry, gesture, into­

nation, lighting, sound, costume, and scenery--are inte­ grated into an effective "poetry in Space."

In Artaud's system of theatrical expression, the actor holds a curious, place. Although he has been reduced ;

from his central position to a role of contributor to the

Poetry in Space, his requisite skill has been upgraded. Artaud wants to concentrate on the actor’s lyrical quali­

ties in order to. invoke purely metaphysical notions rather

than passions, and to create immediate external images which give the spectator a sense of nature. Instead of

being a speaker, the actor must apply the full range of his

instrument with trained precision.

Perhaps the most radical departure from the tradi­ tional theatre is the use of language that Artaud con­

templates for the Theatre of Cruelty. Artaud’s wish is to

completely eliminate that which has always been the thea­

tre’s primary means of expression. He did.not envision a

theatre where the actor would be limited to pantomime, but

one where speech would be utilized for something other

than the communication of ideas: words are to be used as

sounds, through which emotional value is communicated by ; 4? intonation and not through the medium of thought. In place of speech, Artaud would substitute a language of

signs that is somewhere between speech and gesture, a con­ crete language of hieroglyphics which is directly trans­

latable to real images or aspects of nature. To Artaud,

all Western language is rational and, as such, antitheti­ cal to the theatre atmosphere which must be purely irra­

tional, Unfortunately, Artaud was never able to realize

in fact the theatre of his vision.

The French chain of early anti-illusionis.m is connected to the present by a group of modern avant-garde

dramatists who because of certain common characteristics,

and because of Martin Esslin’s critical treatise, have

come to be called the Theatre of the Absurd, In the center

of this group, a core, consisting of Jean Genet, Eugene

Ionesco, and Arthur Adamov, all had occasion to work

directly with Artaud prior to World War II, In the work

of these writers, there is much that appears to have been

influenced by Artaud’s ideas. But just as surely, these same dramatists, and others who have filled the ranks of

the Absurdists, derive much of their theatre heritage from

Strindberg, the Expressionists, Luigi Pirandello, Albert

Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, and even

Brecht, To deny these influences would be tantamount to

.diminishing the wide front of anti-illusionistic theatre

active today, . ' / - : : 48 This broad Absurdist field is informed by many

philosophies; the chief asset of the Absurd dramatist is

his individuality. He is neither the spokesman for a social problem nor the disciple of dramatic schools.

The Absurdist attack on illusionistic theatre is '

total. The themes3 forms, and language of the traditional ,

theatre are rational and logical because they presuppose a rational existence outside the theatre. The Absurdist con­

tends that any effort to picture a glossy, ordered world in .

the theatre is absurd: it has no model in reality. The

Absurdist thus effectively presents his own world-view:

there is in our world no widely accepted unifying princi­ ple, no ideology, no ethical system, no metaphysical answers to the fact of human isolation and the futility of

life. This message, if it is a message, comprises the content of the Absurdist theatre, and also its form. The world created in the Absurdist theatre is the same un­ guided, irrational, and chaotic world as the one outside.

The theatre-goer finds a series of paradoxes and mysteries inside and outside the theatre. This is not necessarily a completely negative approach to the theatre, as Martin Ssslin explains:

As I. have tried to point out , . . ., the recogni­ tion that there is no simple explanation for all the mysteries of the world, that all previous systems have been oversimplified and therefore were bound to fail, will appear as a source of despair only to those who still feel such a sim­ plified system can provide an answer. The moment we realize that we have to live without any final truths the situation changes; we may have to re­ adjust ourselves to living with less exalted aims and by doing so become more humble, more receptive, less exposed to violent disappointments and crises of conscience--and therefore in the last resort happier and better-adjusted people, simply be­ cause we live in closer accord with reality<>58

Collectively, the Absurdists have enriched the theatre by effective use of some of its long neglected potential, most of which was envisioned by Artaud. They have sought to re-establish the theatre’s own particular language: the super-dense poetry of purely theatrical effect that Artaud talked about, and the concrete metaphor which the Expressionists desirede Take the simplest ex­ ample: Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, on the level of the whole play, is an enlarged visual metaphor of the . human activity of waiting.

Absurdist action proceeds on many levels of con­ sciousness, The Absurdists have successfully employed the theatre’s ability to portray internal existence, as in dreams and'fantasies, directly without any relation to external plot lines. Sometimes they are able to evoke an internal existence while a simultaneous external line of action develops. Such is the case in Beckett’s Endgame, where the characters are. acceptable both as human beings

58. Reflections: Essays on Modern Theatre (Garden City,"TJ1 Y„", "1969) , p . 185. in some post-catastrophic age and, at the same time, diffe rent components of a single dreamer’s mind,

The Absurdists have greatly emphasized the visual media of the theatre, while coincidentally devaluating language in its literary sense, . As part of the total poetry of the theatre, language has been used for its emo­ tional potentials of rhythm, pitch,and intonation,

Ionesco’s Bald Soprano is a parody on the ineffectiveness of verbal communication, but, at the same time, it is a brilliant composition of rhythm and syntax. Absurdism decries the illusionistic theatre in ways reminiscent of both Brecht and Artaud, Without de­ ferring to didactic motives, the Absurdist effects the ultimate alienation by depriving the spectator of all familiar frames of reference. Inasmuch as he has no fas­ cination for the emotional appeal of ritual, he surpasses Artaud by returning man to the pre-ritual stage: to the primordial, pre-community man, utterly alone. Primitive ritual and political systems are both constructs of past thought, outside the individual. The illusion of the traditional theatre is really no more ''illusion” than the world it tries to imitate.

59, Reflections, p, 187, The content and form of the Absurdist theatre are one: irrationality'in an irrational theatre. The pur­ pose of the dramatist is to affirm his own individuality and the individuality of the spectator. CHAPTER 2

CURRENT SOCIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL PHENOMENA

In April, 1970, the United States Government launched its third exploratory mission to the surface of the moon. Through the miracle of modern informational media, the attention of the entire.nation was invited to the crucial stages of the adventure, but the Apollo 13 mission failed to arouse the unanimous interest that the momentous first landing of Apollo 11 had excited the previous summer. Unexpectedly, an accident, which not only negated the investment in Apollo 13 of massive re­ sources and technology, but also seriously jeopardized the lives of its human explorers, commanded the interest of the entire world. Within hours,.governments had ex­ tended offers of aid and official expressions of anxiety.

Nations turned away, if only for the moment, from social struggle, political strife, and even armed conflict, to focus on the intense drama unfolding in space. The super- technology which made the exploration possible also enabled virtually every person in the world to witness instantaneously the recovery by earth of three of her own.

This incident illustrates the incredible smallness of the world today. All of humanity is enveloped in an electronic informational environment; man is:infinitely ex­ tended and we are all the immediate neighbor of everyone else. This is the basis of the "global community,a concept essential to understanding our age. All that is changing and dynamic in man’s social and cultural spheres occurs within the influence of the global environment.

Theatre, one of man’s most tenuous cultural institutions, . seems to be particularly restless today.

At first glance, the theatre revolution, as repre­ sented by various avant-garde groups and radical movements, seems to reflect no more than the chaos and transitory vogue of its time. Traditional tenets of dramatic idea and form are either absent or admitted as;contemptible compro­ mises , The experimental theatre scene, which will be identified for the moment as new theatre, is typified by such controversial names as The Living Theatre, The

Performance.Group, folk-rock happenings, guerilla theatre,

Tom 0 1Morgan, Joseph Chaiken, Jerzy GrotOwski and Peter

Brook, These names are often alluded to as rebellions of self-expression or multi-sensory orgies. Also, because the new theatre is characterized by the enthusiasm of youthful audiences and the creative endeavors of youthful artists, the unrest is closely identified with the larger

1, Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, War and Peace in the Global Village (New York, 1968), p, 5, et passim. ; ■ .. ;■ ,vv ■ 54 unrest of.the younger generation which has gripped all of America today.

Closer examination may show that the majority of the manifestations of new theatre share some very serious common principles, beyond the simple urge to challenge traditional tenets. There is no mistaking that our con­ ventional ideas of theatre are being questioned; there is a fervent search for the forms and sources of inspiration which will revitalize theatre as a valid and viable popular art form that has some assurance of survival in our culture.

Observers of the various phenomena.in the category of new theatre are apt to minimize the value of these ex­ periments to the ,very health and welfare of live, theatre in general. This is especially true among observers from the academic theatre community and understandably so since from the university perspective there has been a. recent intensi­ fication' of interest in theatre. The surge in university theatre activity could perhaps simply reflect a growth proportionate to our rapidly expanding higher education • systems; but the fact remains that the commercial theatre, the professional theatre, and just about all forms of live theatre outside the academic, community, are in trouble.

Concern should be focused on all efforts to keep theatre from becoming a vestigial academic subject,% The revolutionary new theatre must be regarded as a response to the problem of all theatre rather than some­ thing superimposed from outside the theatre by a general cultural revolution which somehow relates to hippies and a generation gap. It would be helpful to cite, at this point, the impressions of some observers of contemporary trends. Theatre educator Samuel Selden speaks about the demands of the rebellious college student of theatre to abandon all traditional disciplines in favor of anarchic freedom of expression. He appears to equate the immature, irrational, and self-serving on campus rebellion against middle class values to the theatre experiments outside the. university:

• A standout against the sterility of a static mind, the university rebel tends nevertheless to fall . into intellectualistic traps set by his own brain. Demanding change at a. hundred points in other . people’s thinking, he feels he is effecting those changes simply by naming them, He calls for free­ dom , he calls for joy, he calls for imagination. But too often he personally provides little to illustrate the blessed art he describes. Just noise and impulsive activity, such as we are being shown in such experiments as Tom Paine, Futz, Hair, and the older Viet Rock, don't prove very much of an advance, I think. The rebel-aristocrat is still (commonly) operating under the delusion that he can obtain a happy realization of a new way of life just because he has "a word for it,

Oddly, by naming Tom Paine, Futz, and Hair, Selden seems to be "zeroing in" on the controversial but highly successful

2, "Towards a Brave New Theatre--With No. Sweat?" ETJ, XX (December 1968), 566, • ..' director of new theatre5 Tonr O’Morgan. Conveniently,

O'Morgan1s rebuttal is found in. a composium of ten writers, directors, actors, producers, and critics who responded to a question posed by the New.York Times: "Has Broadway Had

It?" O'Morgan says in part: It seems obvious to everyone except those most vitally concerned with Broadway's welfare that any peace demonstration or rock concert has more actual theater and audience than 90 per cent of boredom perpetrated on Broadway. No significant audience will sit still for the (two-and^one-half- hour double-talk smutty joke about tired business­ men set to. plastic soulless period music) show.

I abhor that blue-haired audience that dis­ dains the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation the young audience can give our theater. If they do riot invite them in, they are sitting at the wake of our dearest f r i e n d . 3

Since O'Morgan is, in fact, part of the subject under scrutiny, his comment.is hardly representative of the professional theatre observer, but is more of a polemic to

Selden's observations. Interestingly, Selden concedes that there is probably enough validity in the rebellious theatre ideas to hold us "of the older theatre seriously at fault. Our sedate productions of the classics and our decorous, recitals of chit-chat in pretty, modern, drawing room comedies have made a big part of our audience turn with desperation to something that elicits a more vigorous .

3. "Invite the Young In," New York Times, November 23, 1969 = . response."^ ' 57

Selden? s ambivalence is suggestive of an uneasiness about the audience appeal of traditional theatre. The fact that both observers address the problem of audience response appears to be a consensus that there can be no commercial or professional theatre without popular enthusiasm0

The purpose of these initial remarks has. been to confirm that a problem does exist in the popular approba­ tion of traditional theatre. The argument is well summarized by New York critic John Simon in his response to the New York Times8 challenge. For Simon3 the choice is either an almost completely subsidized national program of - traditional-formula theatre which would relieve the theatre of its need for an audience and the attendant economic pressures, of an entirely new form; .

The reasons for Broadway5 s decline are numerous3 perhaps innumerable. As a form of cheap popular entertainmentj Broadway cannot compete with the movies3 which are better and cheaper, or television which is free and cheap to the point / of vulgarity. Yet even if the greed of producers, labor unions, and the rest could be curbed, there would still be the problem of the antiquated concept of theatre as a mass medium. History has demonstrated that when a more available art or entertainment comes along, the one it competes against has no choice but to become more serious, . speculative, aristocratic. Thus the novel became more highbrow when magazines and news™ papers proliferated; painting became more

4. Selden, "Brave New Theatre,1' p. 567. . . ' : . " .' 58 cerebral and esoteric when photography came into its ownj and so forth,, The theater must, there­ fore, willy-nilly grow up, which is what Broadway, by and large, refuses to do. e a „

By catering so exclusively to the tastes of a generation now dying out, Broadway has, moreover, forfeited the goodwill.of the young6

O O O O O O O O 0 0 0 © O © 0 O O 0 O O O 0 ©0©

The other possibility [alternative to subsi­ dized theatre] is some new form of theater, of which the current avant-garde is only an inchoate, floundering forerunner; a new theater that will achieve.the validity and status of the old, What", this might be, I cannot begin to say. • But any­ thing is better than a theater that subsists only because the reviewers pretend that it is theater, and the spectators pretend that it is entertain­ ment. ^

This critic offers some piercing questions for our considerationo If theatre is not entertainment, as the slumping Broadway scene evidences, then what is it? How does the typical Broadway fare fail to measure up to ideals that so frustrate the critics that they have difficulty in justifying their own existence? The premise of this paper is that in the Off™Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway theatres, and.in coffee houses and lofts, and basements, and wherever experimental theatre is flourishing, answers to these questions are being sought. The new directors and avant- garde experimenters are not just making an empirical response to the competition offered by television, motion pictures, and discotheques; they are seeking, rather, to

5,, "There Are Two Hopes," New York Times, November 23, 1969» ' ■ ' ' ■ ■ 59 re-define theatre as a mode of art:which has a critical role to fill in a violently changing society. With his sight set on establishing a place for.theatre in the world of art, rather than the world of big business, the radical entrepreneur is emerging with a variety of theatrical ideas which seek to embody a purpose for contemporary theatre.

Participatory is a term suggested as a common basis for considering the great bulk of new theatre practices,

It points not only to the prevalent sensibilities of pros­ pective theatre-goers , but also reiterates a timeless corollary in the purpose of theatre: that the theatre ex­ perience is a communal experience, accessible to and desirable to the masses, and that the experience reaches out not just to the affluent middle class seeking a form of passive escapism, nor to some intellectual elite who would regard art as esoteric cultism. The new director, in seeking to involve his audience is basically only reempha­ sizing the active, creative, and indispensable place of. the audience in the theatre experience.

Today’s audiences will be slow to acclimate to participation. The invitation to become involved often takes the curious spectator unaware. One writer in the

Educational Theatre Journal records his impressions:

Some recent visitors to New York’s theatres have been surprised and shocked by the kind of in­ volvement required of them in the productions they merely came to view. The audience is bedazzled - . ' . 60 by electric equipment: amplifiers scream; strobe lights flash; technicolor slides are projected on the walls and on the audience," The actors perform the play by moving through, over, and around spectators in a personal and non-illusory manner. Language seems less important than visual action and non-linguistic sounds, The total effect seems designed to stir the audience to active partici­ pation, There seems to be little or no interest in telling a story. Instead, short but highly charged instants.of intense energy are transmitted in every direction. Slowly one.becomes aware that what has happened- is that traditional barriers between the cast and the audience have been dropped. We are with the nobles once again, sit­ ting on Garrick1s stage and waiting to be kicked off again,"

The author of the above cited article, Charles

Gattnig, sees in the productions he describes an attempt to change the definition of the term theatre: ’’Simply stated this new drama is theatre in which both the creation and the performance of the play is a total sensory experience for everyone in the area of activity."^ Here is an admi­ rable summation of the essence of participatory as contem- plated in the introduction to Chapter 1 above. The significant elements of the definition include first, the inference that "creation" and "performance" occur together at the same place and occasion, denoting a sense of spon­ taneity and action. Secondly, "total.sensory experience" evokes the degree of involvement and the complexity of

6 , Charles Gattnig, Jr., "Artaud and the Partici­ patory Drama of the'Now Generation," ETJ, XX (December 1968), 485,

7. Ibid, expressive stimuli offered the audience. Finally, the sharing of the experience by "everyone in the area of activity" indicates the merging of the actor and audience into an integrated creative role.

Before examining specific examples of netv theatre, there is a need for further discussion on the matters of multi-sensory involvement, the general content and media o the new theatre, and the whole question of the theatre artist in respect to today's audience. It is too often noted that theatre, as a form of art in its own right, is forever behind the other arts. Whereas the serious artist is always first to respond to the changing patterns of perception in society, and in fact often anticipates the changes, theatre has the unfortunate habit of looking backwards for modes of expression, This may be due simply to the. success criteria that have traditionally informed theatre enterprise; this writer, however, rejects the premise that theatre is a commodity,

Richard Kostelanetz seems convinced that the new theatre is an attempt to make theatre a contemporary art, rather than an archaic art: Historically, the new theatre represents that radical departure from nineteenth century forms that the modern theatrical medium, unlike the other arts, has yet to undergo„ 1 The theatre is always twenty or thirty years behind poetry," Eugene Ionesco once wrote, 1 and even the cinema is in advance of the theatre,55 As. the revolt . in poetry was away from the Renaissance notions ■: v .• v : ; : . ■ ■; ^ 62 of perception and. connection 3 so the new theatre embodies a rejection of linear form and explan­ atory truth«,

Kostelanetz goes on to point out that new theatre extends from, many distinctly modern tendencies in the arts»

To be truly forward-looking, it must also reflect the most recent thought» For ,example, there is a cultural revo­ lution against the Word. We are now. in a post-literate age, in which print has been forced to compete and interact with other media of communication. As twentieth century art and music were liberated from the nineteenth century’s dependence on literary themes and conceptions, so the new theatre is, in one respect, trying to emancipate itself from the need to make sense with words. Modern thought, contends that the written language has separated man from an instinctive relationship with natural life, a condition which Marshall McLuhan explains has existed for twenty-five hundred years of civilization. It was the phonetic alpha­ bet, in contrast to the Eastern ideographic one, that initiated Western man’s alienation from his environment. nBy surpassing writing, we have regained our wholeness, not on a national or cultural, but cosmic plane. We have evoked a super-civilized, sub-primitive man."^

8 . Theatre of Mixed Means, p. 9.

9. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York, 1964) , p . "91). - ■ .'■■■ . V-. 63 The new theatre tries to speak in terras which cultivate the total sensorium, and, in so doing, seems de­ signed to help man develop a more immediate relationship with his environment. For not only does the theatre of mixed media stress the return of the performer-audience situation back to its original, primitive form as a cere­ mony in which various art forms were undistinguishable, but also it hopes to speak internationally by minimizing the older languages which reinforce archaic national boundaries, by employing the universal media of sounds and movement, as contemporary painting speaks universally in shapes and color. In the same sense, the new theatre eschews the fallacy that formal education is necessary for the appreciation of art and, therefore, the tradition that

•theatrical arts are solely for the educated.

To imply that art and, in its slowly emerging way, theatre, are returning to the forms of their primitive origins, demands more than a passing glance. The modern artist contends that the basic nature of art has remained unchanged, but that Western civilization has simply re­ pressed its true value to society.' This basic nature of art, which is the equivalent of its place in primitive cultures, is described in three ways: first, that it is continuous and Inseparable from life; second, that it is communal and participatory; and, third, on the 64

' . ' v ‘ . ‘ ■ psychological plane,.-that. it;presents the unconscious in the form of primal, necessary pleasure.

That art is continuous and inseparable from the other activities of daily life is demonstrable not only in primitive societies, but also as the foundation for the

Oriental philosophy of art: Art is not an.object done, or a creation; it is the-doing or the creating. This act of doing is the continuous adjustment to the environment.

Only Western civilization has split art off from other activities and made it into a commodity. Richard

Schechner, writing in The Drama Review, explains: "as ’art1 became something in itself, aesthetics developed as a means of evaluating art. The values aesthetics put on art are converted easily into market values,"

Art is in the doing. To the Eastern man "it is not

. 1 1 the tea but the ceremony that matters," There is no art but the art of living:

To the inhabitants of the Sepic River area of New Guinea a dance mask is not Art, but a mask for dancing; the dance is not art but something one does at certain times for the spirits. The spirits look out for themselves and if the dance pleases them, they will do good things for the community--or at least not do any harm. . Those who made the medieval theatre were similarly

10. "Speculations on Radicalism, Sexuality and Performance," TDR, XIII (Summer, 1969), 107. 11, McLuhan,. War and Peace, p. 20. : v . ■ . . ..- ': -/ ;:: 65 engaged in communal activity,.. I am not able to say why people like to embellish material and . stories, paint their faces.move in dances. There is a pleasure in it, ^

Oriental art and primitive art are essentially comparable. Eminent anthropologist, Margaret Mead, adds a further dimension to the Eastern and primitive conception:

The art of primitive culture seen now as a whole ritual, the symbolic expression of the meaning of life, appeals to all the senses, through the eyes and ears, to the smell of incense, the kin- aesthesia of genuflection and kneeling or swaying to the passing procession to the cool touch of holy water on the forehead. For Art to be Reality, the whole sensuous being must be caught up in the experience,

This implies that ordinary life is filled with artistic movements and objects, and that some of the best art stems from fortuitous accidents. Furthermore, there is little real use in distinguishing between fine art and applied art. Especially today, art is everywhere,.impressing our sensibilities continuously.

Since art is not at all a thing on a pedestal above life, but a way of enhancing life.itself, neither, is the artist elevated above the masses. If at all dis­ tinguished, the artist is only a man who does better, and thus is admired by his peers:

12, Schechner, "Speculations," p . 108,

13, "Art and Reality," College Art Journal, II (May, 1943), 119. In primitive societies the artist, instead, is a person who does something best that other people, many other people, do less well. His products, whether he be choreographer or dancer, flutist or potmaker-, or carver of the temple gate, are seen as differing in degree, but not in kind from the achievements of the less gifted, among his fellow citizens, 14- The more "gifted" citizen perceives, through all his senses, and then recreates his sensory experience, so that his fellow citizens, using the identical senses become more conscious of their common existence.

Finally, no modern discussion of art can disregard the psychological consideration. Art, at its origin, was at once concrete and symbolic, Claude Levi-Strauss writes that savage thought, which is still extant in some parts of the world, "is definable both by a consuming symbolic ambition such as humanity has never seen rivalled, and by scrupulous attention directed entirely toward the concrete, and finally by the implicit conviction that these two attributes are but one,"-^ Savage art is also sensuous and pleasure-seeking. As civilization has repressed this organic joy, art has been, according to Herbert Marcuse, the most viable return of the repressed joy, not only to the individual but also on the generic-historical level, "Art challenges the prevailing principle of reason: in

14. Mead, "Art and Reality," p. 120,

15. The Savage Mind (Chicago, 1966), pp. 219-220. 67 representing the order of sensuousness, it invokes a ta­ booed logic--the logic of gratification as against that of. ,,16 reason.

. The unchanging roots of art are now reemerging amidst our twentieth century electric environment.

Schechner summarizes clearly the awareness that modern artists.have of this process:

Many of us want to end repression; to find new ways of relating to each other; to stop working when work deadens and to make something worthy of human beings. To turn people into artists.

Art began as something whole--not separable from the community. Rites, dances, cruel and joyful celebrations, orgies, cures, trials-- there were all kinds of things. Celebrations Were periodic or tied to specific events and crises. Acting-out was communal and sanctioned. There was no aesthetics. Later, in our culture, productivity became the overriding value. The repression that made industrialism possible made communal art impossible. Artists felt the need to express themselves and their work jbecame more and more personal. Aesthetics developed as a means to evaluate what artists did--and to •make certain that art conformed to the canons of productivity. ^ '

In our century, as periodically throughout history, art has attempted to rediscover its origins. That is not to say that modern art, as a movement, is homogeneous in any sense; it is often compromised and self-deceived.

16. Eros, and Civilization (New York, 1955), p. 8 6 .

17. Schechner, "Speculations,M pp. 108-109. But •when one views a work of modern art and remarks, "That : is not art!" a question is posed which goes quite beyond aesthetics, for the artist is involved not so much in a quest for form, but for freedom. The super-technology which McLuhan describes works in opposing ways on the freedom quest. On one hand, the vast and instant nature of informational media seeks to accelerate the marketing of new art as a commodity. And, on the other hand, the super­ technology opens to the artist infinitesimal possibilities for the expression of his liberated proximity to reality.

The new theatre artist utilizes the new, electric media, and contributes to the cultural revolution, in several ways, As one example, the new theatre rebels against the classical conceptions of mental concentration by trying to destroy the narrow focal point, and presenting, instead, a diffuse conglomeration of images and activity,

McLuhan.refers to this technique as montage; the newspaper front page and contemporary advertising presentations are cited as corresponding examples in the informational media.

Secondly, the theatre, of mixed-media departs from tradi­ tional ways of organizing experience. Instead of lining up everything in a sequential order of development, a form in­ herent in literary narrative, images.and events are some­ times discontinuous, sometimes simultaneous, so that the observer must actively contribute to piecing together the logic. Theatre is thus defined as a "cool"' medium rather

■I Q than "hot." Finally,.though this cursory catalogue is far from exhaustive, new theatre, by exploring:complex

combinations of informational media stimulates responses of more than one sense in the observer. This kind of sensory involvement corresponds to the changing sensory ratios which the super“technology is inculcating in every­ one, young and old alike. The last two analogies to the new media phenomena contribute directly to the participa­ tory and communal spirit of most-new theatre experiments.

It can be readily concluded that new theatre is

. ' V characterized by an attempt to escape from the purposes.and audience response of traditional theatre. But it is, again, not necessarily new forms that the new artist values, since form implies a new set of aesthetics that would be restricting, however radical. Rather than imitate conceptual models, such as the formula for the well-made play, the new artist hopes only to imitate Nature in some fresh way. Similarly, he wishes to subordinate the tradi- . tional notion of theme. If his theatre has any message, the purpose is to be sensed in the media. It is not at all that there is no market for the overtold little stories of family, conflict, psychological drama, personal problems, and romantic narratives, but that the theatre simply cannot

18. McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 44. hope to compete with motion pictures and television for these commodities. Not just Broadway, but all commercial theatre shows evidence of the failure of theatre as big business.

The forward-looking new theatre artist sees the artistic salvation of the theatre, as it has always been seen, in its peculiar potential for live and spontaneous action. It should therefore involve itself with serious_ art which is close as possible to life itself, to the chaotic and necessary Nature that is absolute reality.

This sort of theatre would be a re-creation of the "origi­ nal" theatre that had its roots in primitive society.

Happily, the communal, participatory nature of "original" theatre addresses the tribal configuration to which the modern cultural revolution is leading. And for this rea­ son, the new participatory theatre demands, our appraisal a more than an ephemeral phenomenon engendered by a rebel­ lious younger generation. CHAPTER 3;

CONTEMPORARY PARTICIPATORY THEATRE

Observing a work of creative art, a painting for example, and watching a motion picture are experiences which have in common the knowledge that the observed work is finished®. The artist has done his part; the comple­ tion of the artistic process depends now upon the percep­ tion and judgment of the beholder» The viewer, if he wishes, may look once, leave, spend an indeterminate length of time in educating himself, creating new values, deepening his own experience--and then return to look at the same identical work with a completely new perspective and sense of the aesthetic. Theatre, however, is a single occasion; the spectator does not change; his experience and values remain relatively fixed for that occasion. In the traditional theatre, the text, the mlse .en scene, and the manner of performance have also been set in advance. The success of the occasion depends upon a very good predic­ tion of the complex, aggregate values of the one-time audience. Theatre is unique in the arts because it is alive, and being alive is being flexible and responsive.

The text, the mise en scene, and the manner of performance, particularly, all have the capacity to change in response

71 - : ■ ■ 72 to a given audience,, provided the spectator and the per­ former have the adequate means to respond to each other and to create the theatrical experience together, .

The New Participatory Theatre Scene. ' . Dating from the mid-nineteen fifties, the happening •is probably the earliest phenomenon which we associate with the new participatory theatre. In its spontaneity and re­ sponsiveness to the spectator, it is the prototype model for the new theatre director. Originally conceived as.an inno­ vation in the creative arts, the happening reflected the trend toward the.kinesthetic-tactile approach to artistic perception. The idea was to give painting and sculpture some of the advantages of theatre, to move the creation away from its fixed point in time, and to feel or direct the sensibilities, of the observer. In effect, the creator of the happening does not imitate reality; he uses it. The happening is the picture frame; it gives the observer a new and strange perspective on reality, by using shock, surprise, and heightened environmental stimuli. The action of a hap­ pening is usually spontaneous, bound to no strict time structure, and left, for the most part, to chance and im­ provisation, Often, the happening takes place in com­ pletely untheatrical surroundings, where the spectator’s involvement.proceeds with no preconceived notions as to his spectator status. Conversely, many happenings are scheduled V : / ' 73 events, adding to the happening the sense of occasion which is so basic to theatre. Happenings may range from con­ trolled environments of light and sound--where the partici­ pant uses the emotional stimuli to construct- his own experience--to carefully planned stage happenings, where im­ provisation is the only open ended parameter, Kostelanetz has classified the form in a continuum of typed-events, with variability of time, space and action,^

The following example shows how a familiar environ­ ment unexpectedly metamorphosed into a Surrealistic dream, in which the participants must have, at the outset, believed they were face to face with their own inner reality:

At the famous Happening at the Edinburgh interna­ tional drama conference of 1963, devised by Ken Dewey, the staid proceedings of one of the con­ ventional conferences suddenly dissolved into a sequence of mad but highly significant events: a nude girl passing across the back of the plat­ form; a famous film star suddenly darting from the platform into the audience, jumping across the rows of seats to fall into the arms of a bearded man in the back row; a bagpiper in Highland dress parading around the gallery, and the recorded voices of speakers at previous days of the con­ ference ^echoing from all sides in snippets of cliche.

Whether the participant is taken into a new environment, led through an adventure, or, as in the example, involved unsuspectingly, he is forced to come to terms with certain

1. Theatre of Mjxed Means, p , 7,

2. Reflections, p . 210, . 74

images. The message of the happening creator is: wake up to the life around .-you.

There are dangers, in the happening. It is diffi­

cult, for the inventor to control the shock treatment; the

willing participant may be bludgeoned into apathy. Or,

having succeeded in conditioning an alert and responsive

observer, the artist frequently has too little to fill-in the picture frame. According to Brook, "the sadness of a bad happening must be seen to be believed . . , you feel

that if a happening became a way of life then by way of contrast the most humdrum life would seem like a fantastic happening.

One revolutionary theatre is indeed a way of life:

the Living Theatre, which now performs in New York, having

returned recently .from a gypsy-like odyssey through Europe

during most of the last decade. The Living Theatre in

performance is closely allied with the happening in terms

of audience participation and the improvisational nature

of the action. Actors play themselves and carry out

activities much like participants in happenings; although, in actuality, the action.follows carefully planned sce­

narios, where the improvisation may take, alternative courses, depending on the responses of a given audience.

The audience is involved through a combination of ritual

3. Empty Space,. p. 55. ' " ■ 75 mise en scene and direct invitation: each witness9 actor and spectator alike, is challenged to break through his inhibitions and recognize himself as a performer of the ritual.

The communal nature of the Living Theatre.goes deeper, however, than group ritual. The underlying motive of the troupe is political anarchism. The members see themselves inextricably committed to the world-wide revo­ lution against the anti-humanistic restraints of civili­ zation, In this respect, they are like the guerilla theatre, another new theatre manifestation, which creates street happenings in order "to radicalize the people of the ghetto areas,The Living Theatre believes in the future success of the revolution and "performs as though it were the civic theatre of an emerging anarchistic community.

In content, the Living Theatre is guided by

Artaud’s vision. Ancient and classic themes are adapted to the group ritual patterns. The adaptation centers upon the break-through, by the individual, to his essential freedom, in which the constraints of morality, social structures and state become ineffective. In their

4. Michael E. Rutenburg, "Revolution in the American Theatre," Players, XLV (October-November 1969), 14.

5. Stefan Brecht, "Revolution at the Brooklyn Academy of Music,"TOR, XIII (Spring 1969)> 48. ' • ' ' • , 76 production of Antigone, Creon is absolutely without

heroism: an antagonist; whereas Antigone takes a pure and

holy prerogative. The theatre also borrows specifically,

as well as generally, from Artaud, In Mysteries and Smaller

Pieces, they enact Artaud? s essay on the plague in images of

death, hoping to realise the purging effect of Artaud’s plague. The Living Theatre, being political, urges a paradise, a renewal of humanity. Its concept is essen­ tially the renouveau: the return of nature after the defeat of civilization. To the members of the Living Theatre, the theatre experience goes on after the performance; every response to their work becomes a part of it: the criticism, the community attitude; each performance informs the next.

Theatre is a complete way of life for the thirty-four mem­ ber troupe. There is no separation of their everyday lives and their art. . They live and work together; they make love, produce children, act, invent plays, do physi­ cal and spiritual exercises, share and discuss everything that comes their way. Their function in New York is to

"provoke and divide audiences by increasing their aware­ ness of uncomfortable contradiction between a way of life on atage and a way of life outside. Their own identity

[is] constantly drawn and redrawn by the natural tension and hostility between, themselves and their surroundings0'’^

Peter Brook, who directed the first English pro­ duction of Peter Weiss8 Marat-Sade in 1964, brought Artaud1s term, the Theatre of Cruelty, into the English idiom. He recognized in Weiss’ play not only its inher­ ent Brechtian qualities, but also the possibility of illuminating some of Artaud’s thought, particularly that relative to the value of violent and immediate subjective 7 experience. Brook had previously clarified his inter­ pretation of Artaud’s writings in his Royal Shakespeare Company sponsored workshop, which had been initiated in

1963 to do Genet’s long, unproduced play The Screens. As

I Brook has explained, the purpose of the workshop experi­ ments was not to reconstruct Artaud’s theatre, but to define the poetry of the theatre: a way beyond language to communicate performer-to-spectator. The culmination of months of experimenting was a laboratory performance called

US, an important part of which was a study of the audience.

The program consisted of fragments: Artaud’s Surrealist play, The Jet of Blood, comic interludes, nudity, impro­ visations, an excerpt from Hamlet, and a scene from Genet. In the first performance, constantly changing mood and

6, Brook, Empty Space, pp. 62, 63.

7. Introduction to Peter Weiss, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed by the I run ate s~~o¥~~the Aaylum" of Char ent on Under the Direction of The MarqujF^e^Sade^TNew York, 196b) , pp. v, vT7~ imagery placed the audience in a confused frame of refer­ ence, Having come to the theatre pre-conditioned by elaborate sets of references, they were unable, to make their own instant judgments, second for second,^ The

"laboratory" evening played for the public for four months.

Because of. censorship problems. The Screens was never produced in full. The work that Brook’s Theatre of

Cruelty did on The Screens, however, proved to be an in- . structive example of how to interpret the workable in

Artaud’s vision without being bothered by the impossibili­ ties, Genet, like Weiss, is a post-Artaud dramatist whose work is very adaptable to Artaudian concepts. In explain­ ing Genet, Brustein notes his capacity to transform pathology into ceremo­ nious drama through a rich, imaginative use of the stage. Genet s plays take the form of • liberated dreams, organized into rites , , , of sacrifice and exorcism designed to bring about that cathartic possession in which the spectator’s taste for crime is purged,"

Genet dreams of an art that would be a profound web of active . symbols capable of speaking to the audience in a language in in which nothing is said but everything is portended.

Brook's group did perform the first half of The Screens for a single, private performance

8, Brook, Empty Space, p» 131,

9,. Theatre of Revolt, pp, 378, 391,

10, Ibid, 79 in Londono Martin Esslin was on hand and recalls:

One scene from it was to me one of the strongest experiences I have ever gone through in any the- atre-~the scene in which the insurgents set fire to the plantations of their oppressors. This was done in the production I saw according to Genet’s instructions, by letting the actors paint the fire on the empty white paper screens that formed the setting for the play. As the rebels surged in with large brushes that had been dipped in red paint and violently daubed the screens with more and more flaming colors, the excitement became almost unbearable. We were witnessing a fusion of action painting and theatre! And miraculously the emotion generated by the situation in the play produced the most fabulously.exciting action painting, so much so that after the performance some of the spectators hurried to secure fragments of the newly painted screens. Emotion had been aroused, we had seen it express itself on the . screens., and the screens now held congealed white- hot emotion. The possibilities of development for rection seem to me to be *1 4 i- m 1 Itr 1 4 m 4 1 ca c? C?

Almost every example of the new theatre is expressed and judged in terms of ritual: a return to the origins of the theatre. There is another example in the new theatre interpretation of The Bacchae of Euripides by the Per­ formance Group, which they entitled Dionysus in 69. This group, founded in 1967, is a troupe of predominantly young actors who specialize in "confrontations" between text and improvisation, between performers and spectator, and between space and performance. Abandoning the traditional configuration of audience and performance, they create a special environment for each production. Dionysus in 69

11. Reflections, pp. 219, 220 was a confrontation with its counterpart classical text.

The Performance Group attempted to translate the conflict of Euripides* drama into modern, hippie culture terms. In

Euripides9 when Dionysus resists Pentheus, whose mortal weakness is his ego expression, it is a resistance of the

Gods. In Dionysus in 69, the superiority of Dionysus is equated to a passivity equivalent to the hippie’s retreat into love culture. It is suggested, by critic Stefan

Brecht, that the idea fails essentially because it does not bring across the social-psychological message it pur­ sues, that of individual freedom from parent, law, and order. The result, instead, is conciliatory; it proposes 1 ? as a substitute for freedom— sex. This is typical of the erotic interpretation of the performance which prompted considerable difficulty with local officials when the troupe toured Dionysus in 69 to colleges in the Midwest.

The Performance Group professes a close kinship to the work of Polish Laboratory Theatre director,. Jerzy

Grotowski. The term "confrontation" is apparently ascribed to Grotowski, who uses.the term to describe.the dramatic performance in his theatre. Basically, confrontation means the story and motives of the text meeting the associative stories and motives in the. experiences of the actor and the audience.

12, Rev. of Dionysus in 69, TDR, XIII (Spring 1969), 162. The Polish Laboratory Theatre is„ like the Living Theatre, a complete way of life for its members. However, being state-supported, the focus is on performance technique, almost to the complete exclusion of all social context. The theatre is a vehicle for self-study and self­ exploration of its actor members. The actor has himself as his field of study; his own person, physical and spir- . itual, becomes his life’s work. Step by step he extends his knowledge of himself through the painful, fluid condi­ tions of rehearsal and the high points of performance.

Grotowski’s method calls for mastery over all psychological and physical barriers that might stand between the actor and his role. He acquires a role slowly, through a process of opening himself up to allow the role to penetrate him.

To do so, he sheds all his own identity and discloses all his secrets. In this vulnerable state, he gives himself to the audience in a spirit of sacrifice. Brook suggests that there is a relationship between actor and audience similar to the one between priest and worshipper:

It is obvious that not everyone is called to priesthood, and no traditional religion expects. this of all men. There are laymen--who have necessary roles in life--and those who take on other burdens, for the layman’s sake. The . priest performs the ritual for himself, and on behalf of others. Grotowski’s actors offer their performance as a ceremony for those who wish to assist: the actor invokes, lays bare what lies in every man--and what daily life ■ : 82 covers up. This,theatre is holy because its purpose is holy,-1-8 Grotwoski, in order to provide the audience the potential for participating in the confrontation, carefully chooses a spatial relationship giving the spectator a dra­ matic function identical to his function as spectator. For example, in Doctor Faustus, spectators become guests at the dinner table of Faustus where, in the Laboratory '

Theatre’s adaptation, the action of the play begins. In

Akropolis, the audience was scattered in chairs throughout the room, functioning as ghosts. In The Constant Prince,

Grotowski conceived that the function of the spectators was that of observers only and hid them from the actors,

"The important thing is that the relation between the ac­ tors and the spectators in space be a significant one,"^

A number of critical observations of Grotowski1s theatre gives, one the impression that the brilliance of the actors’ performance overbalances the content and meaning that might be found - in the. plays, Donald M. Kaplan, re­ viewing a New York performance had the sensation of getting

"half of theatre," the performance without the idea,

"Performers are not by temperament, sensibility, talent or whatever, capable of creating meaning substantial enough

13, Empty Space, p, 60,

14. Richard Schechner, "An Interview with Jerzy Grotowski," .TOR, XXIT (Fall 1968), 43. • ■ v . ; -.. } : ' ' .. . y , - . . 83 to be rendered plausible by their specific energies and physical deeds o" ^ Undoubtedly hampered by language diffi­

culties, Kaplan was unimpressed by the extremely conscious

text adaptation which Grotowski claims to insist upon.

Kaplan is echoed by Jan Kott who expresses admiration for

Grotowski’s method, allowing that "his athletes are precise

and veritable . . . but his metaphysics abstruse and

ambiguous.Kott attributes these shortcomings to the

probability that Grotowski* s theatre has no social context

in Poland. Donald Ritchie agrees that "they have no con­

text , social, aesthetic, or otherwise, for what they are

doing.Grotowski's attitude toward these detractors is

that social context is superfluous. It seems, then, that .

the audience serves the performance needs of the actors.

The Polish Laboratory Theatre is theatre for its own ends and thus, somewhat limited for more universal applica­ tions. Repeatedly, the problem encountered by contem­

porary regressions to ritual forms in theatre is one of the

absence of references common to both audience and perform­ er. In contrast to ancient Greece, today's Western

15. "On Grotowski: A Series of Critiques," TDR, XIV (Winter 1970), 199. Reviews by Stefan Brecht, Donald M, Kaplan, Jan Kott, Donald Ritchie, and others.

.16. Ibid., 200.

' 17. Ibid., 210 civilization possesses few believable myths. Perhaps, it is the task of dramatists like Genet to supply these myths. As Kott somewhat acidly observes, Grotowski needs to en­ list Samuel Beckett.^ Perhaps, as in the cases of the

Living Theater and the Performance Group, the invisible forces invoked are too dark. The ancient rites of Winter always included a sense of the rites of Spring,

There are many more new directors and theatre groups actively engaged in finding new vitality for today's theatre. Some are undoubtedly as worthy of mention as those discussed above: Joseph Chaiken's Open Theatre, the

Bread and Puppet Theatre, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the Theatre Workshop of Boston, to name only a few.

Each expresses dissatisfaction with the traditional theatre, approaching his revitalizing task without preconceived notions. Each endeavors to re-define the word "theatre."

Mew Participatory Theatre: A Page in History :

The discussion in the first chapter, was included to illustrate that the ideas incorporated by new directors in participatory theatre are not without precedent in the history of theatre. Meaningful, responsive communication between the audience and the player has always been the prime goal of the dramatist.and actor. Likewise, theatre in every age has been effective when the dramatist's

18. "On Grotowski," p. 201, ' 85 purpose was commensurate with the needs of his society3 and when both form and content of the performance are relevant and exciting to the experience and sensibilities, of a given audience.

There is hardly an aspect of the new participatory theatre which does not have its historical equivalent.

The new directors harken back to the primitive ritual forms in order to awaken in the audiences "reservoirs of subconscious memories of primordial group experiences."-^

The new political theatre has its own precursors in the

Elizabethan theatre, Brecht, Adamov, and many revolutionary theatres throughout the ages. If a prevalent philosophy of metaphysical anguish can be detected among the new theatre artists, it can be traced through the Absurdists to the existential view of Sartre, Camus, Artaud, and even deeper into history. The theatre has always returned to the

Classic myths to enact the conflicts of gods and heroes.

In fighting the illusionistic use of the theatre, the new director has powerful allies in the contemporary Absurdists and the Epic theatre. Artaud's. banner has been flying over theatres in the Western world for two decades. The fight of the new theatre is not to do battle against the traditional theatre on purely,artistic or the­ oretical grounds; it is an urgent campaign to keep the

19= Rutenburg, "Revolution," p. 14. . . : se theatre abreast of the times. The boulevard theatre against which Artaud reacted was not nearly so insidiously.

conservative as the commercial theatre establishment in

. America today. Richard Rdthrock depicts the American di­

lemma: "The American man seeks to save his soul by making

money; the American theatre seeks to save its soul by em­

bracing old i d e a s . There is nothing so repulsive to

the new theatre artist as to see the deadly economic ele­

ment at work: the whole Broadway5 0££~Broadway9 Off-

Off-Broadway syndrome, for example; or the folding of a

regional theatre in some large American city.

Despite their growing pains and obvious imper­ fections 3 the new participatory theatres have their

audiences. They are the audience of the electronic age:

A different generation, grown up with the bomb, nurtured.in affluence, highly mobile, better informed than their, pre-electronic age prede­ cessors, moralistic, is now dedicated to the overthrow of social, political, religious, and economic oppression in American life.' Partici­ pation in freedom rides, sit-ins, teach-ins, marches, demonstrations, and outright civil disobedience to certain laws held immoral and untenable to one’s own conscience, has changed the entire life of this country.21

20, "In Search of Demons and Saints,” Players, XLIV (February-March 1969), 98.

21. Rutenburg, "Revolution,” p. 14. The new participatory theatre communicates with the imme­ diacy and relevance of mass media,- the total communications environment with which the younger generation is thoroughly familiar.

The commercial theatre is losing its audience.

The great middle class is at home watching television, or at the movie or the football game. Perhaps there is another audience. Brook says that, despite our economic system, America can have a great theatre:

One morning I stood in the Museum of Modern Art looking at the people swarming in for one dollar admission. Almost every one of them had a lively head and the individual look of a good audi­ ence. . . . In New York, potentially there is one of the best audiences in the world. Unfortu­ nately it seldom goes to the t h e a t r e . 22

The audience will go back to the theatre, when the theatre stops patronizing the purchaser of the twenty-five dollar ticket who enjoys a lack of intensity, and even a lack of entertainment, for some special reason of his own.

Perhaps the established theatre must, as Tom

O'Horgan says Hinvite the young in.” Invite the young ideas. The traditionally cautious process of absorbing the best of the experimental theatre scene, seems now to be a matter of some urgency. In these cataclysmic and revolutionary times, the theatre must.be a place to.come

22, Empty Stage, p. 20.

23. See p. 56, n» 3. to grips with life, not to escape from it. The greatest harm that can come to the theatre is the failure to use it to its fullest potential and the failure to seek out the limits of its possibilities. Only a theatre that magnifies and intensifies the experiences of our everyday lives will be an indispensable one. Theatre, to have an efficacious purpose, must be unique; it must provide us with a means of expressing our common concerns for which no other activity can be substituted. LIST OF REFERENCES

Arnold, Paul. "The Artaud Experiment," TDK, VIlI (Winter 1963), 15-29. _

Artaud, Antonin. "States of Mind: 1925-1945trans. Ruby Gohn, TDK, VIII (Winter 1963)., 30-73. . . The Theater and Its Double, trans. Mary C. Richards. New York, 1958.

Benedikt, Michael, and George E. Wellwarth, eds. Modern French Theatre. New York, 1966.

.Bentley, Eric. The Life of the Drama. New York, 1964.

------, The Playwright as Thinker. Cleveland, 1965.

Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre, trans. John Willett. : New York, T 9 ’6'4T" Brecht, Stefan. "Revolution at the Brooklyn Academy of MusicT TDR, XIII (Spring 1969),47-73.

Review of Dionysus in 69, TDR, XIII (Spring 1969), 156-168. ” — : Brecht, Stefan, Peter L. Feldman, Donald M. Kaplan, Jan Kott, Charles Ludlam, and Donald Ritchie. "On Grotowski: A Series of CritiquesTDR, XIV (Winter 1970), 178-211. Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. New York, 1968.

Brustein, Robert. The Theatre of Revolt; A Study of the Modern Drama. Boston, 196"4T~^~^~^

Cameron, Kenneth M. and Theodore J. C. Hoffman. The Theatrical Response. New York, 1969.

Chambers, E„ K. The Medieval .Stage. 2 vols. Oxford, 1903,

Corrigan, Robert W», ed. Theatre in the Twentieth Century, New York, 1965. , *~

Esslin, Martin. Reflections: Essays on Modern Theatre. Garden City, New York, 1969. , 89 ' ; "■ . . ■ . ; y y y . ,■ ' '. ■ 90 Frazer, James„ The New Golden Bough, ed, Theodor H. Caster„ Garden City, N s Y„ , l9597™^An abridgement of The Golden Bough,)

Gattnig, Charles, J. "Artaud and the Participatory Theatre of the Mew Generation," ETJ, XX (December 1968), 485-491. Harrison, Jane E. Epilegomena to the Study, of Greek Re­ ligion and Themis. 1st Am. ed. New Hyde Park, N. Y. ,T 9 W 7 “ Huizinga, J [ohanj., Homo hudens: A Study of the Play- Element in Culture. Boston, 1955. Hunningher, Beniamin. The Origin of the. Theatre. New York, 1968. . ” Kostelanetz, Richard. The Theatre of Mixed Means. New York, 1968.

Levi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. Chicago, 1966.

Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization. New York, 1965.

MacGowan, Kenneth, and William Melnitz» The Living Stage, Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1955.

■' • ' . ■ ■ McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York", 1964'. ™ ™

McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore. War and Peace in the Global Village. New York, 1968%

Mead, Margaret,. "Art and Reality," College Art Journal, II (May 1943), 119-121. — — .

O'Horgan, Tom. "Invite the Young In," New York Times, .November 23, 1969.

Roberts, Vera Mowry. On Stage: A History of Theatre. . New York, 1962. ' “ Rothrock, Richard. "In Search of Demons and Saints," Players, XLIV (February-March 1969), 98,99.

Rutenburg, Michael E. "Revolution in the American Thea­ tre," Players, XLV (October-November 1969), 14-17.

Schechner, Richard. "An Interview with Jerzy Grotowski," TDR, XIII (Fall 1968)31-45, 91 Schechner, Richard. "Speculations on Radicalism, Sexuality and Performance," TDR, XIII (Summer 1969), 89-110. Selden, Samuel. "Towards a Brave New Theatre--With No Sweat?" ETJ, XX (December 1968), 563-568. Simon, John. "There Are Two Hopes," New York Times, November 23, 1969.

Sokcl, Walter H., ed. An Anthology of German Expressionist Drama. Garden City, N. Y., 1963.

Southern, Richard. The Seven Ages of the Theatre. London. 1964. ------

Weiss, Peter. The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction ot the Marquis de Sade, trans. Geoffrey Skelton. New York, 1966.

Wellwarth, George. The Theatre of Protest and Paradox. New York, 1964.

Willett, John. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht. New York. 1968. ~