Antigone by Judith Malina; Sophocles; Paradise NowReview by: Howard SteinEducational Theatre Journal, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Mar., 1969), pp. 107-108Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3205783 .

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107 / THEATRE IN REVIEW 107 / THEATRE IN REVIEW

of uncertain dimensions. APA's high hopes for this season were dealt an early blow by the news that an expected National Endowment for the Arts grant of $250,000 had been denied. The financial emergency generated rumors of an impending demise and forced the cancella- lation of the projected production of The Bacchae. There were also rumblings of money miseries, forced economies, and curtailed pro- grams for the cultural complex at Lincoln Center. Fortunately, monetary crises involving respected and admired institutions such as APA and Lincoln Center invariably generate a flurry of fund-raising activities on several fronts, so would-be funeral orators should probably save their rhetoric for the time being, at any rate.

GLENN LONEl'

Brooklyn College

ANTIGONE. Adapted by Judith Malina, from Brecht's adapta.tion by Holdelin of Sophocles' A ntigone.

PA RADISE NO W.

The Living Theatre Company. Yale Univer- sity Theatre, New Haven. September, 1968.

THE LIVING THIE:ATRE COMPANY IS A DEVOTED, DD-

icated, and disciplined community. Intent upon radicalizing an audience, they arrived at New Haven in the fall of 1968 not at all sure of the kind of audience they would find; in fact, they anticipated the very real possibility of a con- servative, apathetic, and belligerent crowd. What they found, in Judith Malina's words, was an already radicalized audience. Unlike the au- dience at the Yale Repertory Theatre produc- tions, the audience at the two week run of the Living Theatre was packed with young folk- sympathetic, eager to participate, and receptive to conversion. The productions had been created to perform a task which was relatively non-existent.

There were, nevertheless, the occasional dissi- dents. During the performance of Antigone, a young Greek student-actress jumped onto the stage while Antigone was about to lie on top of her dead brother and told the audience that this was not Antigone but a sham. After the student returned to the auditorium, the per- formance continued without interruption. The same student rushed to the apron during Para- d ise Now and shouted, "What your country needs is another Robert Kennedy, another Martin Luther King, not these people." In this

of uncertain dimensions. APA's high hopes for this season were dealt an early blow by the news that an expected National Endowment for the Arts grant of $250,000 had been denied. The financial emergency generated rumors of an impending demise and forced the cancella- lation of the projected production of The Bacchae. There were also rumblings of money miseries, forced economies, and curtailed pro- grams for the cultural complex at Lincoln Center. Fortunately, monetary crises involving respected and admired institutions such as APA and Lincoln Center invariably generate a flurry of fund-raising activities on several fronts, so would-be funeral orators should probably save their rhetoric for the time being, at any rate.

GLENN LONEl'

Brooklyn College

ANTIGONE. Adapted by Judith Malina, from Brecht's adapta.tion by Holdelin of Sophocles' A ntigone.

PA RADISE NO W.

The Living Theatre Company. Yale Univer- sity Theatre, New Haven. September, 1968.

THE LIVING THIE:ATRE COMPANY IS A DEVOTED, DD-

icated, and disciplined community. Intent upon radicalizing an audience, they arrived at New Haven in the fall of 1968 not at all sure of the kind of audience they would find; in fact, they anticipated the very real possibility of a con- servative, apathetic, and belligerent crowd. What they found, in Judith Malina's words, was an already radicalized audience. Unlike the au- dience at the Yale Repertory Theatre produc- tions, the audience at the two week run of the Living Theatre was packed with young folk- sympathetic, eager to participate, and receptive to conversion. The productions had been created to perform a task which was relatively non-existent.

There were, nevertheless, the occasional dissi- dents. During the performance of Antigone, a young Greek student-actress jumped onto the stage while Antigone was about to lie on top of her dead brother and told the audience that this was not Antigone but a sham. After the student returned to the auditorium, the per- formance continued without interruption. The same student rushed to the apron during Para- d ise Now and shouted, "What your country needs is another Robert Kennedy, another Martin Luther King, not these people." In this

instance she was loved off the stage with kisses and hugs and caresses, finally carried off bodily in the spirit of love by the well-disciplined actors. During an apparently free period of improvisation in Paradise Now, another Drama School student did his imitation of Ed Sullivan, but he was soon shot down by the Living The- atre's Steve Ben Israel, who upstaged him with an impersonation of John F. Kennedy at the moment of assassination. In this sense, The Living Theatre, a religiously spirited groupS was without mercy no relief, comic or otherwise.

The first principle of this revolutionary com- pany is "break the existing laws." "Freedom Now," one of the street songs in Mysteries and Other Pieces, is their slogan, and anarchy their law. With this principle as their major thrust, the selection of A ntigone was appropriate. In their extolling of civil disobedience through the battle between Antigone and Creon, however, they succeeded only in boring one with the telling of it. Antigone was a saint, Creon a vil- lain. Julian Beck's Creon was monotonous, awk- ward, obstinate, and cruel. Antigone had no chance for a dialogue. The play was performed for the body poems of the chorus rather than for the drama of individual conscience in con- flict with public law. And why not when the production recognizes no conflict anyway! The body poems, for an audience who had already seen the skill of a Yoga trained company in Mysteries, were quite prosaic and the poems that were in the mouths of the principals may have been based on the hexameters of Brecht but came through as totally undistinguished utterances because the discipline of these actors does not extend into the realm of speech. Judith Malina, nevertheless, did provide an au- dience with moments of irony when her New York accent exported Antigone to Brooklyn. Performing on a bare stage, the companv added to Malina's irony and put the audience up against the wall with their final gesture their own retreat to the back wall of the stage. The actors shriveled in horror, then retreated in terror before the unyielding stares of the audi- ence watching them. They eventually found the rear wall of the theater building which provided them with precious little comfort from the obvious corruption of the observers in the auditorium. This action rounded out a pro- duction which began with Creon and the chorus on stage wandering about and observ- ing with grim, outraged, and contemptuous stares the audience filing intd the theater. This

instance she was loved off the stage with kisses and hugs and caresses, finally carried off bodily in the spirit of love by the well-disciplined actors. During an apparently free period of improvisation in Paradise Now, another Drama School student did his imitation of Ed Sullivan, but he was soon shot down by the Living The- atre's Steve Ben Israel, who upstaged him with an impersonation of John F. Kennedy at the moment of assassination. In this sense, The Living Theatre, a religiously spirited groupS was without mercy no relief, comic or otherwise.

The first principle of this revolutionary com- pany is "break the existing laws." "Freedom Now," one of the street songs in Mysteries and Other Pieces, is their slogan, and anarchy their law. With this principle as their major thrust, the selection of A ntigone was appropriate. In their extolling of civil disobedience through the battle between Antigone and Creon, however, they succeeded only in boring one with the telling of it. Antigone was a saint, Creon a vil- lain. Julian Beck's Creon was monotonous, awk- ward, obstinate, and cruel. Antigone had no chance for a dialogue. The play was performed for the body poems of the chorus rather than for the drama of individual conscience in con- flict with public law. And why not when the production recognizes no conflict anyway! The body poems, for an audience who had already seen the skill of a Yoga trained company in Mysteries, were quite prosaic and the poems that were in the mouths of the principals may have been based on the hexameters of Brecht but came through as totally undistinguished utterances because the discipline of these actors does not extend into the realm of speech. Judith Malina, nevertheless, did provide an au- dience with moments of irony when her New York accent exported Antigone to Brooklyn. Performing on a bare stage, the companv added to Malina's irony and put the audience up against the wall with their final gesture their own retreat to the back wall of the stage. The actors shriveled in horror, then retreated in terror before the unyielding stares of the audi- ence watching them. They eventually found the rear wall of the theater building which provided them with precious little comfort from the obvious corruption of the observers in the auditorium. This action rounded out a pro- duction which began with Creon and the chorus on stage wandering about and observ- ing with grim, outraged, and contemptuous stares the audience filing intd the theater. This

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108 / EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL 108 / EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL

Antigone was directed to the moral depravity of the audience rather than to the problem of two rights in a world which can tolerate the action of only one.

Paradise Now is considered by the company as the culmination of its years of work. A controlled happening, this event is designed as a trip based on the ten rungs of spiritual development described by Martin Buber. The trip for the Living Theatre group is from the opening statement of living in a world of con- fining and reprehensible laws made by men- passports, drug control, money, clothing- - through a series of liberating variations which culminate in a joyous release of freedom in the streets. During the course of the journey the performers and the audience can engage in custom-breaking, improvised play, a love-in, money burning, and revolutionary fervor. The effect of the performance is significantly dif- ferent for those who engage in the activity on the stage and those who choose to remain separated and observe only. For those of us who remained in our seats, the performance was repetitive, slow, and relentless. For those on the stage, however, I was told that the love- in produced abundant orgasms, that the sense of being truly engaged in the theater was a real and novel experience, and that the feeling of being transported into a world of freedom and sensory excitement was genuine and tran- scendent. The pace of the performance may well have been informed by the quality of the drug experience rather than by the tradi- tional theater-goer's experience of an endless series of days and nights in which he con- fronts reason, logic, and contradiction. What- ever the informing factor, the youth yielded while the squares squirmed.

With all their devotion and righteousness, The Living Theatre is a community theater which pretends interest in dialogue but tol- erates only dogma; pretends interest in art but creates events; pretends participation but exercises punishment. One is left with a sink- ing sense that they have the disease for which they pretend to be the cure.

HOWARD STEIN

Yale University

GOD IS A (GUESS WHAT.?) By Ray McIver, Negro Ensemble Company. St. Marks Play. house, New York City. December, 1968,

Antigone was directed to the moral depravity of the audience rather than to the problem of two rights in a world which can tolerate the action of only one.

Paradise Now is considered by the company as the culmination of its years of work. A controlled happening, this event is designed as a trip based on the ten rungs of spiritual development described by Martin Buber. The trip for the Living Theatre group is from the opening statement of living in a world of con- fining and reprehensible laws made by men- passports, drug control, money, clothing- - through a series of liberating variations which culminate in a joyous release of freedom in the streets. During the course of the journey the performers and the audience can engage in custom-breaking, improvised play, a love-in, money burning, and revolutionary fervor. The effect of the performance is significantly dif- ferent for those who engage in the activity on the stage and those who choose to remain separated and observe only. For those of us who remained in our seats, the performance was repetitive, slow, and relentless. For those on the stage, however, I was told that the love- in produced abundant orgasms, that the sense of being truly engaged in the theater was a real and novel experience, and that the feeling of being transported into a world of freedom and sensory excitement was genuine and tran- scendent. The pace of the performance may well have been informed by the quality of the drug experience rather than by the tradi- tional theater-goer's experience of an endless series of days and nights in which he con- fronts reason, logic, and contradiction. What- ever the informing factor, the youth yielded while the squares squirmed.

With all their devotion and righteousness, The Living Theatre is a community theater which pretends interest in dialogue but tol- erates only dogma; pretends interest in art but creates events; pretends participation but exercises punishment. One is left with a sink- ing sense that they have the disease for which they pretend to be the cure.

HOWARD STEIN

Yale University

GOD IS A (GUESS WHAT.?) By Ray McIver, Negro Ensemble Company. St. Marks Play. house, New York City. December, 1968,

IF A DIRECTOR'S TASK IS TO EXPLOIT THE STRENGTHS

and cover up the weaknesses in a script, Michael Schultz has discharged his responsibilities and exercised his craft with first rate skill. This script by an Atlanta schoolteacher has notable entertainment value, genuine moments of in- vention and originality, its heart in the right place, an unfortunate penchant for cliche language that too frequently fails to rise to the occasion, and a central character who is unin- teresting and unrealized. Mr. Schultz has ac- complished that enviable result the audienec is given no chance to dwell upon the less effective moments in the writing.

Mr. McIver describes his script as a "moral- ity play with music." The "morality" is the story of Jim, a Black who is selected as the next lynching victim by the Whites out for sport. A Job-like figure with an Old Testament faith and a New Testament martyr-complex Jim is willing to sacrifice himself because his belief in God is absolute. Forces appear to influence him both ways: on the nay side, his pregnant wife, a Black militant, and a society Lady; on the yea, church, Whites, and an African tribeswoman. Eventually Guess Who appears; and after an extended exchange, Jim remains with a good head on his sholllders and nobody gets hurt. This fable is the vehicle and the message; yet it is all the tangential elements which make the evening so satisfying.

After the chorus establishes the satirical tone with its opening song, "A Mighty Fortress," two white-faced end men appear on an open stage and begin their act. Behind them three silver tepee-like structures provide narrow doors through which come most of the sur- prises of the evening: the Extraordinary Spooks who tap dance a spoof on the Nicholas' Brothers and all those Black rhythm panders of the good ole days; Esther Rolle as the spirited Cannibal; Norman Bush as the priest with an entourage in regalia that would thrill any minstrel audience; Frances Foster, who stops the show with her Society-seeking Lady mono- logue; and finally, Graham Brown, who extends with considerable polish that startling moment when God Bla-Bla appears as a vision in gray. It is only when one realizes that Jim has been on stage almost all the time more watch- ing than engaging (awkward and extraneous to the point that I once thought he might be getting sleepy) that one succumbs to the major flaw in the sctipt. Fringe benefits cannot sub- stitute for a salary check.

IF A DIRECTOR'S TASK IS TO EXPLOIT THE STRENGTHS

and cover up the weaknesses in a script, Michael Schultz has discharged his responsibilities and exercised his craft with first rate skill. This script by an Atlanta schoolteacher has notable entertainment value, genuine moments of in- vention and originality, its heart in the right place, an unfortunate penchant for cliche language that too frequently fails to rise to the occasion, and a central character who is unin- teresting and unrealized. Mr. Schultz has ac- complished that enviable result the audienec is given no chance to dwell upon the less effective moments in the writing.

Mr. McIver describes his script as a "moral- ity play with music." The "morality" is the story of Jim, a Black who is selected as the next lynching victim by the Whites out for sport. A Job-like figure with an Old Testament faith and a New Testament martyr-complex Jim is willing to sacrifice himself because his belief in God is absolute. Forces appear to influence him both ways: on the nay side, his pregnant wife, a Black militant, and a society Lady; on the yea, church, Whites, and an African tribeswoman. Eventually Guess Who appears; and after an extended exchange, Jim remains with a good head on his sholllders and nobody gets hurt. This fable is the vehicle and the message; yet it is all the tangential elements which make the evening so satisfying.

After the chorus establishes the satirical tone with its opening song, "A Mighty Fortress," two white-faced end men appear on an open stage and begin their act. Behind them three silver tepee-like structures provide narrow doors through which come most of the sur- prises of the evening: the Extraordinary Spooks who tap dance a spoof on the Nicholas' Brothers and all those Black rhythm panders of the good ole days; Esther Rolle as the spirited Cannibal; Norman Bush as the priest with an entourage in regalia that would thrill any minstrel audience; Frances Foster, who stops the show with her Society-seeking Lady mono- logue; and finally, Graham Brown, who extends with considerable polish that startling moment when God Bla-Bla appears as a vision in gray. It is only when one realizes that Jim has been on stage almost all the time more watch- ing than engaging (awkward and extraneous to the point that I once thought he might be getting sleepy) that one succumbs to the major flaw in the sctipt. Fringe benefits cannot sub- stitute for a salary check.

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Fri, 19 Dec 2014 12:49:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions