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Dionysos in 1915: A Pioneer Theatre Collective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Extract

In an essay on ‘Collective creation,’ Theodore Shank observed that emphasis on the ‘cooperation of a creative collective,’ sometimes in combination with group living, is a response to ‘the fragmentation of established society,’ and as such, an essential distinguishing characteristic of the ‘alternative’ or ‘new’ theatre. Social fragmentation and individual alienation from society are not, of course, products exclusively of the nine-teen-sixties; the idea that individual survival is possible only within a group structure has emerged in previous generations that have felt threatened by a cult of individualism—a salient characteristic of Western civilization that has been carried ad absurdum in the United States.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1977

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References

Notes

1. The Drama Review, 16, 2, (06 1972), p. 3.

2. See my ‘Producing Principles and Practices of the Provincetown Players’, Theatre Research! Recherches Theatrales, 10, 2, (1969) and ‘Wharf and Dome: Materials for the History of the Provincetown Players’, Theatre Research/Recherches Theatrales, 10, 3 (1970), for a discussion of some principles, and for a partial chronology.

3. Johnson, Paul E., Psychology of Religion, New York, 1965, p. 43Google Scholar, in pointing out the kinship between Moreno's Einladung zu einer Begegnung (1914), and Buber's, Ich and Du (first draft 1916, published 1923)Google Scholar, mentions Robert McDougal as the first user of that term.

4. There are few unbiased treatments of Moreno, but Back, Kurt W., Beyond Words: The Story of Sensitivity Training and the Encounter Movement, New York, 1972, 2nd. ed. 1974Google Scholar, gives this selfproclaimed prophet due recognition. Moreno tells the history of his own work in the introduction to Who Shall Survive?, New York, 2nd ed., 1953.

5. Tashjian, Dickran, Skyscraper Primitives; Dada and the American Avant-Garde 1910–1925, Middletown, 1975, p. x.Google Scholar

6. Back, Preface to the Pelican (2nd) ed., p. xiv.

7. The preceding passage is based on an unpublished manuscript written with Douglas McDermott.

8. Glaspell, Susan, The Road to the Temple, New York, 1927, p. 245Google Scholar, citing unpublished notes of her husband, George Cram Cook.

9. Richter, Hans, Dada: Art and Anti-Art, New York, 1966, p. 12Google Scholar, as cited by Tashjian, p. 8. Richter's description of the Dada circle fits the Provincetown group to a ‘T’.

10. Hapgood, Hutchins, ‘The Provincetown Players’, unpublished manuscript, Yale Collection of American Literature, p. 10.Google Scholar

11. Cook, cited by Glaspell, , Road, pp. 252–3.Google Scholar

12. May, Henry F., The End of American Innocence. A Study of the First Tears of Our Own Time, 1912–1917, New York, 1959Google Scholar, eloquently analyzes this otherwise quite neglected period. The key terms as well as the key personalities referred to in this paragraph (and in some subsequent passages) are derived from his work.

13. Dickinson, Thomas H., The Insurgent Theatre, New York, 1917, p. 75.Google Scholar

14. ibid., pp. 76–80.

15. The Players are regularly mentioned as one of two or three most important forces in American theatre. See Lewisohn, Ludwig, ‘Harvest’, The Nation, 05 17, 1922, p. 604Google Scholar; Cheney, Sheldon, The Art Theatre, New York, 1925, p. 68Google Scholar; Aiken, Conrad, Clark, Barrett H., Quinn, Arthur Hobson, James Weldon Johnson cited, ‘The Provincetown Playhouse In the Garrick Theatre’, 1929Google Scholar; Berthold, Margarete. Weltgeschichte des Theaters, Stuttgart, 1968, p. 478Google Scholar; Little, Stuart W., Off Broadway, The Prophetic Theatre, New York, 1972, pp. 3035Google Scholar; Brockett, O. G., History of the Theatre, 2nd. ed.Boston, 1974, p. 551.Google Scholar

16. Vorse, Mary Heaton, Footnote to Folly, New York, 1935, p. 129.Google Scholar

17. Hapgood, Hutchins, A Victorian in the Modern World, New York, 1939, p. 391.Google Scholar

18. ibid., p. 392.

19. ibid., pp. 392–3.

20. ibid., p. 393.

21. Edna Kenton, unpublished history of the Provincetown Players, Fales Collection of New York University, pp. 20–1. Subsequently referred to as ‘History’.

22. Hartley, Marsden, ‘The Great Provincetown Summer’, unpublished manuscript, Yale Collection of American Literature.Google Scholar

23. Cook, cited by Glaspell, , Road, p. 256.Google Scholar

24. ibid., p. 260.

25. ibid., p. 276.

26. Hapgood, , Victorian, p. 394.Google Scholar

27. Cook, cited by Deutsch, Helen and Hanau, Stella, The Provincetown; A Story of the Theatre, New York, 1931, p. 26.Google Scholar

28. Hapgood, , Victorian, p. 394.Google Scholar

29. Glaspell, , Road, p. 236.Google Scholar

30. Hapgood, , Victorian, p. 394.Google Scholar

31. New York, 1927.

32. Clark, Barrett H., Eugene O'Neill, all eds.Google Scholar; Arthur, and Gelb, Barbara, O'Neill, New York, 1962, 1974Google Scholar; Bogard, Travis, Contour in Time, New York 1972Google Scholar; Sheaffer, Louis, O'Neill, Son and Playwright, Boston, 1968Google Scholar; Sheaffer, Louis, O'Neill, Son and Artist, Boston, 1973.Google Scholar

33. Gold, Michael, cited, ‘The Provincetown Playhouse in the Garrick Theatre’, 1929.Google Scholar

34. Interview with the author, 07 23, 1963.

35. As repeatedly cited and described by Glaspell, , Road, pp. 90–6, 251, 307.Google Scholar

36. Anderson, Margaret, ‘Art and Anarchism’, The Little Review, 03 1916, p. 3.Google Scholar

37. Hartley, Marsden, Adventures in the Arts, New York, 1921, p. 27.Google Scholar

38. On the Art of the Theatre, London, 1905, p. 99.

39. ibid., pp. 156–7.

40. Cook, cited by Glaspell, , Road, pp. 252–3.Google Scholar

41. ibid., p. 245.

42. Cook, cited by his daughter, Nilla Cram Cook, in a letter to the author, 11 24, 1975.

43. Wetzsteon, Ross, ‘Chaikin and O'Horgan Survive the ‘60s’, The Village Voice, 11 3, 1975, p. 81.Google Scholar

44. Tomkins, Calvin, ‘Time to Think’, (A Profile of Robert Wilson), The New Yorker, 01 13, 1975, pp. 43, and 51.Google Scholar

45. New York, 1951.

46. The concepts as well as the terminology relating to ‘accusing’ versus ‘established’ use of ideas derive from Paul Krueger, ‘Theology and Literary Criticism: An Attempt at Common Categories’, unpublished Master's thesis, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, 1976 – especially sub-sections ‘Law as Accuser’, and ‘Law as Structure’, in Chapter One, pp.15–21.

47. Cf. Jaspers, Karl, Tragedy is Not Enough, London, 1953, p. 49.Google Scholar

48. Nilla Cram Cook in a letter to the author; 12 17, 1975.

49. ibid.

50. Dell, Floyd, Homecoming, An Autobiography, New York, 1933, p. 149Google Scholar, reports that in 1906 he and Cook were among founders of a society of free thinkers in Davenport, to be called the Monist Society. Later Cook joined the Contemporary Club, the Chicago Little Theatre, and presumably the Socialist Party before moving to New York. There he became a member of the Liberal Club and the Washington Square Players before forming the Provincetown Players.

51. Hapgood, , Victorian, 394Google Scholar; May, End of American Innocence, 280–1.

52. Dell, , Homecoming, p. 266.Google Scholar

53. Hapgood, , ‘The Provincetown Players’, p. 5.Google Scholar

54. ibid., p. 10.

55. Eugene O'Neill, The Great God Brown, Act Four, Scene One.

56. Tietjens, Eunice, The World at My Shoulder, New York, 1938, pp. 1819.Google Scholar

57. Glaspell, , Road, pp. 255–6.Google Scholar

58. Cited by Deutsch, and Hanau, , The Provincetown, pp. 41–2.Google Scholar

59. Cook, Nilla Cram, My Road to India, New York, 1939, pp. 48–9Google Scholar; amplified in several letters to the author.

60. Kenton, , ‘History’.Google Scholar

61. Dell, , Homecoming, pp. 263–4.Google Scholar

62. ibid., p. 265.

63. ibid., p. 266.

64. ibid., p. 267.

65. ibid., p. 368.

66. Hapgood, H., ‘The Instinct to Conform’, New Republic, 11 29, 1933, p. 80.Google Scholar

67. Hapgood, , Victorian, pp. 374–5.Google Scholar

68. Eastman, Max, Enjoyment of Living, New York, 1948, p. 566.Google Scholar

69. Kenton, Edna, ‘Provincetown and Macdougal Street’Google Scholar, Cook, George Cram, Greek Coins, New York 1925, p. 22.Google Scholar

70. ibid., pp. 20–1.

71. Glaspell, , Road, p. viii.Google Scholar

72. Dell, , Homecoming, p. 266.Google Scholar

73. Cook, cited by Kenton, , ‘Provincetown’, p. 30Google Scholar, and by Glaspell, , Road, p. 310.Google Scholar

74. Three of these connections can be indicated here sketchily; they would provide sufficient material for a book dealing with the history of ideas. First, Moreno (who in Vienna was known as Jakob Moreno Levy) began publishing Der Daimon in 1918. This periodical (the title was changed to Der Neue Daimon in 1919, to Die Gefaehrten in 1920) provided an outlet for expressionists, mystics and existentialists (Yvan Goll, Paul Kornfeld, Georg Kaiser, Franz Werfel, Paul Claudel, Max Brod, Jakob Wassermann, Franz Blei, and others). – The only known public performance of the Impromptu Theatre took place at the Guild Theatre, home of the Theatre Guild's Studio from which the Group Theatre evolved. Simultaneously, Moreno published Impromtu (New York, 1931), the only two issues of which contain contributions from psychotherapists and from Hans (for Franz?) Kafka, and Theodor (for Adolph?) Appia, among others. Second, Viola Spolin, whose ‘Seven Aspects of Spontaneity’ (in Improvisation for the Theatre, Evanston, 1963) closely parallel both Cook's and Moreno's thought, had once been Neva Boyd's pupil, but developed her game techniques for actors independently. Inspiration for her influential book derived from the renewed interest in improvisation, largely as a result of her son's success. Third, that Maria Montessori had embraced Theosophy after a sojourn in India, as some Village Bohemians and German Expressionists did without such a voyage, tallies with current mingling of play and meditation, whether at Esalen or in alternative theatre groups.