There is no question that the so-called “Aristotelian unities of time, place and action” were, for several centuries, of primary importance in theatrical theory and criticism. At present, however, creative and critical reliance on these unities is slight or non-existent. Although they put up a struggle, unity of time and unity of place were eliminated some time ago. What appear to be examples may still be found, of course, but these tend to be expedients—the use of only a single setting can be vital when the economics of theatre are considered—and discussion seldom focuses on whatever unities of time or place they happen to possess. Even the concept of a single and complete action has little of the strength it once had. Shakespeare's plays are no longer deprived of their sub-plots in order to concentrate on a single action, and if the action of an “actionless” play like Waiting for Godot, for example, is “waiting,” no one would call that action complete.

The Living Theatre came alive again during the Summer. A glimpse of the group's new work in progress, The Legacy of Cain, surfaced along with news that 15 members of the group, including Julian Beck and Judith Malina, had been arrested in Brazil.

The Legacy of Cain is the first major work by the group since Paradise Now, which had its world premiere in Avignon, France, on July 24, 1968.

At this writing, just past mid-August, the 15 members of The Living Theatre are still being held in “preventive detention” by the authorities in Brazil. A spokesman for the group said that under Brazilian law the group could be held until October 1 without formal charges being brought.

My theatre work started when I was studying art and architecture under Kandinsky, Klee and Gropius at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1924. One day, Kurt Schmidt, rushing by, said: “Hey, Schawinsky! Come to my atelier tonight at eight!” When I arrived, several of his friends were already there. The gathering ended in a theatrical improvisation in which a hilarious group of characters danced, acted and exclaimed a lot of nonsense—Napoleon, Goethe, a dog, Frau von Stein, Voltaire, Bismarck. Rags, hats, umbrellas and other objects served as costumes and props. I was fascinated. It reminded me of my boyhood marionette and puppet theatre, but this, of course, was much more sophisticated.

The following day, Schmidt asked me if I would join in the preparation of a full-fledged stage performance. We met at the theatre workshop in the park. It was a large gothic pavilion that was empty except for a grand piano and an old armchair.

On June 7, 1913, the Industrial Workers of the World presented the Paterson Strike Pageant at Madison Square Garden. It was a powerful and innovative use of the pageant form: On a huge stage, more than 200 feet long and capable of holding more than 1,000 performers, workers from silk factories at Paterson, New Jersey, recreated the central events of their strike, which was led by the IWW. The strike had begun in February. By June, two workers had been killed by random gunfire from police and private detectives hired by the mill owners. Nearly 1,500 strikers and sympathizers had been arrested. Among those arrested was the young journalist John Reed, who was later to write Ten Days That Shook the World.

Many think that because participation is new to them, it is new to the theatre. These same people automatically participate in responsive readings at church, flag saluting, standing for the national anthem at sporting matches, cheering, and agreeing to umpire a few innings of sandlot baseball. In fact, participation in theatrical events is a very old, widespread practice. It has been limited in our culture for several hundred years for a variety of reasons. Chief among these is “professionalism.” Because trained, skilled performers have come to be expected, there are those who grow uneasy contemplating direct interaction between performers and the unskilled audience. The audience, by and large, expects a show to begin and end on time, to be “finished” and “packaged” like other products of the Ameriaan culture. Therefore, many in the theatre are loath to risk a process that may upend these anticipations, such as accepting a rough or long performance, or not being sure how something is going to work.

Last night we put the James Joyce Memorial Liquid Theatre to rest. It was two years and five months old and it went out very quietly. Too quietly. Just like real life, hmmmm?

Of course it will be back, here and there, now and then. We can bring it back, raise it out of its ashes full formed. But then it will be a re-creation of something done once truly without fiction or pretense. The audience last night saw the last real event. They also witnessed The Company Theatre saying goodbye to a life-style.

I am full of sentiment on the day after the death of my old friend.

But it was a party. It began with a blind walk through a maze and culminated in a kind of ecstasy when the audience and The Company in a giant huddle sent their massed voice through the ceiling to the sky with the high decibel music and danced and shouted and hugged their way to exhaustion.

Norman Taffel's Little Trips was presented at 70 Grand Street in New York City on the ground floor of a loft building. Passing through a narrow hallway, one entered a small room where some people sat on cots and benches; others stood. Everyone was asked to pay a contribution. At approximately 9 p.m., a young girl in leotard and tights (or a boy in dungarees, depending on who was playing the role that evening) entered from the adjoining room and addressed the waiting audience. “Good evening. Would you please come inside.” (Note: The dialogue quoted in this description is only approximate, since the exact words changed at each performance. This description is written about performances when the Guide was played by a girl; performances did not change significantly when a boy played the part.)

The audience followed her through the door into a large, well-lit room. The high ceiling was supported by three pillars making a line across the center of the space.

The premise for developing Little Trips was an actress “tripping out” while working with an audience. Her age: 19. The stress of performing and the acid would combine and cause her to stop the ritual “montage” based on “the life of Cassandra, prophetess of the Trojan War.” What fascinated me was the dissolution of hard, ritualistic theatre into something loose and spontaneous, with people really responding to each other in the immediacy of the present moment.

In Dionysus in 69, the actors acted at the audience. The two times that I saw it, the audience participation was an effect. There was no real place for the audience within the structure of the play. What is the point of getting an audience to participate if the actor cannot or will not incorporate the audience's response? If the actor never lets this response affect his next action?

Theatre of Fact, like a fast sock in the jaw from, the thirties, has forced its way onto the American stage again. But unlike its noisy brawling predecessor, the Living Newspaper, which was fathered by the Federal Theatre out of the fertile discontent of the depression, this present brand of Theatre of Fact has lowered its voice and grown more decorous. It has entered the courtroom.

Two German playwrights have had a prime influence in the use of court records as dramatic material. Heinar Kipphardt's In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Peter Weiss’ The Investigation, produced first in Germany and then here in the United States in the mid-sixties, effected radical departures in dramatic form insofar as they relied almost entirely on the sheer weight of fact and the dialectic of courtroom argument to provide the movement and emotion expected of an evening in the theatre.

Cherry Smash by Marjorie Strider was presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York on the 23rd and 24th of March, 1971. The spectators occupied temporary seats or sat on cushions on the floor at one side of a large display room; they faced the performance as they would have done in a proscenium theatre.

Close to the gallery wall at the rear of the performance space stood a white paper wall 40 feet wide. Seven feet high, the wall was seen to be divided by frame lines into eight rectangular segments.

Eight performers, wearing the simple, white belted “uniform” of karate, aligned themselves facing the audience at equal intervals in front of the segmented paper wall; two others, dressed in the same way, stood at the ends of the wall. These performers came from the S. Henry Cho Karate Center. On the harsh, shouted commands of their leader, the eight advanced toward the spectators, performing a sequence of karate blows and kicks in unison.

The performance area is a large rectangle set off by silver tape. The audience is arranged on three sides of the rectangle.

Throughout the performance a young girl holding a cane sits on a stage or a platform. She is “Antigone.” She does not move until Section Fifteen.

There should be spotlights focused on the performance rectangle and one dim spot on “Antigone.” Behind her should be a large screen for slideprojections. Everything else should be dark, and the lighting should be arranged in such a way that it will be possible to see the slide projections without turning off the lights.

All of the objects and props to be utilized are arranged within the rectangle. There are: Silver tape, incense sticks stuck into small lumps of clay, four full-length mirrors—the inside of the mounting is painted red so that when they are broken this becomes visible, but the backs are painted black—twelve wooden yardsticks, six pairs of nylon stockings, the I Ching, three gas masks, three stones, a hammer.