The production of the first German Expressionist play, Murderer, the Women's Hope (Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen), broke upon the staid Vienna art scene with the force of scandal in 1909. (Although Kokoschka is credited with having written and performed Murderer, The Women's Hope in 1907 and 1908, his own accounts of the improvised rehearsal for the July 4, 1909 production at the Kunstschau make it doubtful that an earlier script or production could have existed.) Oskar Kokoschka angered the public and most of the critics with his play, which they considered dangerous to the public morals and offensive to esthetics. Reviewers called him a “degenerate artist,” “bourgeoise-baiter (Bürgerschreck),” “corrupter of youth,” and “common criminal.” The savage attacks in the press caused, the Minister of Education to suggest that the twenty-two year old artist and teacher end his association with the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts.

The expressionistic images that Jozef Szajna employs in his production of Replika have their roots in the World War II concentration camps of Poland, where the Polish director was sent when he was seventeen. This past spring he brought his production to the Slavic Cultural Center in Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York, from his Teatr Studio in Warsaw. It played March 12 through April 2. Szajna commented that “the concentration camps were my university.” After he was freed, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw where he began “to re-examine what we call acting in the theatre.” He soon found that the theatre itself had become another concentration camp. “It was the pop art that was created by the Fascists: hair, shoes, limbs, dolls, naked people.”

On Sunday, April 2, 1972, The Washington Postpublished an article entitled “ ‘Dismal Fare’ For a Theatre Festival.” The article referred to the productions of the American College Theater Festival, then the only genuine showcase in the nation for the work of the educational theater. Though out of context, a phrase from this inflammatory statement is pertinent here: “… our college drama departments are far worse off than we thought, emasculated by academism and timidity, unable or unwilling to immerse themselves in the meaningful theater movements of our time….”

The day before “Dismal Fare” was published, a proposal for the establishment of another festival was formally announced. The new event was intended exclusively to promote and produce experiments in theatre production among students in American colleges and universities.

The ProVisional Theatre from Los Angeles performed two of the three works in their repertoire at the Experimental Theatre Festival in Ann Arbor. In addition, they gave a workshop, conducted by Steve Kent, a non-performing director of the group. It consisted for the most part of animated body work and theatre games. Exercises from Viola Spolin's canon as well as sound and movement exercises developed by Joseph Chaikin and The Open Theater were demonstrated, as well as improvisational games of their own. It was obvious that, in addition to the political aspect of The ProVisional Theatre's work, there was a desire to experiment with developing the actor's technique.

The ProVisional Theatre is an eleven-member group and, although they consider themselves highly political, they refuse to identify themselves with any specific philosophy.

Scaffolds were placed in the center of the auditorium, and five raised platforms were set around the perimeter of the space: two had curtains hanging from makeshift wires across the back, another was a booth stage with a framework of poles on which fabrics were draped, one stage was used by the orchestra, and one was set up as-a boxing ring. The audience seated themselves on top of, under, and around the central construction. They were surrounded by the stages, contained by them. A mirrored ball hanging overhead rotated slowly, casting colored light over the entire space.

The orchestra played “Yesterday.” Five people in costumes emerged onto the largest of the playing areas and applauded the audience, who promptly responded with whoops and cheers.

One week after its American premiere in Washington, D.C., the Otrabanda Company's Barong Display was presented in the Michigan Union Ballroom. The production was the finished product of the Otrabanda's study at the University of Malaysia in Peneng.

A comic melodrama treated in a somewhat serious fashion, Barong Display exhibited influences from the traditional and popular Balinese and Chinese theatres. The plot involved the intricate, workings of a rapidly decaying Southeast Asian kingdom and its court, symbolized by the Balinese barong, or dragon. Barong Display's music was composed from a mixture of gameloninstrumentation and Western percussion pieces. The acting and costuming were derived in part from the Peking Opera and from popular Chinese and American roots—for instance, Kung Fu and the Chinese Dragon Dance.