We have moved into the position now of where we are more concerned with being directly a part of the political activity of our time than we are with being a part of the theatrical activity of our time.” So said Julian Beck of The Living Theater. He was speaking in the somewhat derelict three-story brownstone near the Brooklyn Academy of Music that has been the home of the twenty-member collective for the last couple of years. Judith Malina, Beck's wife and co-founder of the theatre, explained that on January 1st of this year The Living had begun another rehearsal phase in its development of The Legacy of Cain, a cycle of some 150 plays to be performed not in theatres but throughout a city.

The Legacy of Cain is a unique theatrical/political piece. The Living collective has been working on the development of the cycle for four-and-a-half years, and it is estimated that it is at least three or four years from culmination.