Restaging the Sixties

by Harding, James M.

• ISBN13: 9780472069545
• ISBN10: 0472069543
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-19
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

In the volatile period of the late sixties and early seventies, several theater groups came to prominence in the United States, informing and shaping activist theater as we know it today.Restaging the Sixtiesexamines the artistry, politics, and legacies of eight radical collectives: the Living Theatre, the Open Theatre, the Performance Group, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, El Teatro Campesino, At the Foot of the Mountain, the Free Southern Theater, and Bread and Puppet Theater. Each of the specially commissioned essays is from a leading theater artist, critic, or scholar. The essays follow a three-part structure that first provides a historical overview of each group's work, then an exploration of the group's significant contributions to political theater, and finally, the legacy of those contributions. The volume explores how creations such as the Living Theatre'sParadise Nowand the Performance Group'sDionysus in 69overlapped with political interests that, in the late 1960s, highlighted the notion of social collectives as a radical alternative to mainstream society. Situating theatrical practice within this socio-political context, the book considers how radical theaters sought to redefine the relationship between theater and political activism, and how, as a result, they challenged the foundations of theater itself. James M. Hardingis Associate Professor of English at Mary Washington University. His other books includeNot the Other Avant-Garde: The Transnational Foundations of Avant-Garde Performance. Cindy Rosenthalis Associate Professor of Theatre Studies, Hofstra University. "A useful introduction to an eclectic period of experimental theater, providing portraits of the major political theaters and engaging with new vigor many of the era's familiar aesthetic and ideological concerns. The writers offer a provocative history of theater's attraction to (and occasional anxiety over) activism." --Marc Robinson, Yale University

Table of Contents

Introduction: Between Characteristics, Continuities, and Change-Theorizing the Legacy of Radical Theaters	p. 1
The Living Theatre: Historical Overview	p. 27
Only Connect: The Living Theatre and Its Audiences	p. 33
Four Scenes of Theatrical Anarcho-Pacifism: A Living Legacy	p. 56
The Open Theatre: Historical Overview	p. 75
After Paradise: The Open Theatre's The Serpent, Terminal, and The Mutation Show	p. 79
Ways of Working: Post-Open Theatre Performance and Pedagogy	p. 106
At the Foot of the Mountain: Historical Overview	p. 125
Cut by the Cutting Edge: Martha Boesing and At the Foot of the Mountain	p. 129
The Beautiful Legs of Feminist Theater: At the Foot of the Mountain and Its Legacy	p. 150
The San Francisco Mime Troupe: Historical Overview	p. 169
Revolution Should Be Fun: A Critical Perspective on The San Francisco Mime Troupe	p. 175
San Francisco Mime Troupe Legacy: Guerrilla Theater	p. 196
El Teatro Campesino: Historical Overview	p. 213
Re-Constructing Collective Dynamics: El Teatro Campesino from a Twenty-First-Century Perspective	p. 219
The Legacy of El Teatro Campesino	p. 239
The Free Southern Theater: Historical Overview	p. 263
The Free Southern Theater: Mythology and the Moving between Movements	p. 269
Comforting the Afflicted and Afflicting the Comfortable: The Legacy of the Free Southern Theater	p. 286
The Performance Group: Historical Overview	p. 307
The Performance Group between Theater and Theory	p. 313
A Different Kind of Pomo: The Performance Group and the Mixed Legacy of Authentic Performance	p. 332
Bread and Puppet Theater: Historical overview	p. 353
"Go Have Your Life!": Self and Community in Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater	p. 359
Bread and Puppet and the Possibilities of Puppet Theater	p. 377
Resources	p. 411
Contributors	p. 423
Index	p. 427
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