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 reel in Real Reel refers to a type of industrial spool used for electrical cables. The play is without a story, but rather a succession of scenic moments of no logical sequence. Thus, the spectator is transported from one unknown to another without progression.

Bunraku puppets are up to three feet tall. They are little men or women with mobile limbs, hands, and mouths; each puppet is moved by three visible men, who surround it, support it, accompany it. The master puppeteer controls the puppet's upper body and right arm; his face is uncovered, smooth, light, impassive, cold as “a white onion which has just been washed” (Basho). His two assistants are dressed in black; cloths cover their faces. One, gloved but with his thumb left uncovered, holds a large, stringed, scissors-like extension, with which he moves the puppet's left arm and hand; the other, crouching, supports the puppet's body and steadies its course. These men move along a shallow trench, which leaves their bodies visible. The scenery is behind them, as in the theatre. On a platform to one side are the musicians and narrators; their role is to express the text (the way one squeezes a fruit).

An account of Apocalypsis cum figuris has long been overdue. It is total theatre, collectively created, no sooner thought through than orchestrated for the proper instruments, for the specific members of the company. It is the most mature fruit so far produced by the ascetic labors of the Wroclaw Theatre Laboratory. In any case, it is an event, one of more than local interest, and we don't get those every day of the week. It needs, therefore, to be recorded as accurately as possible before it slips out of focus. Fair enough, only how? Seldom does something so straightforward prove so baffling.

Ordinarily in describing a play we can always fall back on the script, on the lines and the plot. In Apocalypsis there are only the bare bones of a scenario. In the reading, the text is a haphazard jumble of quotations from the Bible, liturgical chants, Dostoevski, T. S. Eliot, Simone Weil.

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.

The Japanese theatrical face is not painted (powdered), it is written. This unforeseen movement occurs: though painting and writing have the same original instrument, the brush, it is not painting, however, which seduces writing with its decorative style, its sprawling, caressing touch, its representative space (as no doubt would have happened with us in the West, for whom the civilized future of a function is always its esthetic ennoblement); on the contrary, it is the act of writing which subjugates the pictorial gesture, so that painting is always only writing. This theatrical face (masked in Noh, drawn in Kabuki, artificial in Bunraku) is made from two substances: the white of the paper, the black of the inscription (reserved for the eyes).

When The People Show began in 1966, there was no experimental theatre in Britain, not any. There were no groups. The only theatre in London was the West End, and that was it. There was only one theatre-in-the-round in Britain, the Victoria at Stoke-on-Trent, run by a guy called Stephen Joseph, who was a beautiful guy, but who later died. He was the only one really. So when we started, it was very exciting.

I had studied theatre at a teachers’ training college called Trent Park. We didn't study much acting technique, but we studied a lot of improvisation technique, because that is what you need with children. It was a very useful thing to have done. Trent Park was a music, art and drama college, and we found ourselves, while there, working all the time with music students and art students. From those days onward a lot of values, in a way, were knocked down for us.

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.

There seem to be four major theatrical traditions in Southeast Asia: the Eastern, strongly influenced by Chinese theatre and found in the coastal region of Vietnam; the Southern, previously Hindu-Buddhist and now Moslem, covering parts of Indonesia and Malaysia; the Central, Hindu-Buddhist, found in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia; and the Western, more strictly Buddhist than the Central tradition and found chiefly in Burma and Ceylon. The traditional theatres of the Southern, Central, and Western areas share many features: they are commonly nightlong performances, done outdoors on a temporary bamboo stage, accompanied by a mainly percussive orchestra; they use either live actors or puppets; and dialogue and action are usually improvised around Indian epics and religious stories.

Yet there are important differences even within the geographical areas. For example, in the South, shadow puppets are comparatively small, with articulated arms, and operated by a single puppeteer, or dalang. In the Central area, puppets are large, not articulated, and operated by a number of dancers; the dalang sits at the side of the screen narrating the story.

In contemporary Western society, theatre has become primarily a source of entertainment and sometimes of social criticism; its older function of articulating and instilling prevailing values is now performed by the mass media and specialized educational and propaganda institutions. In Indonesia, however, and elsewhere in Asia where mass media and educational facilities are less developed and private reading is not a widely established habit, popular drama still transmits sociopolitical ideals between the court (or city) and the countryside, and reinforces religious tradition. While some of its communicative role is now shared with movies and other new media, live theatre is still a vital and popular teacher.

In Java the Wayang Kulit, or shadow-puppet theatre, epitomizes the traditional Javanese world view; it has functioned as an art form, a religious rite, and a medium of instruction for more than a thousand years.

The People Show 39 was presented for two weeks (from August 19 to September 4, 1971) at the Open Space Theatre on Tottingham Court Road in London, England.

The members of The People Show did not rehearse this particular show before the opening. They met together, however, and discussed what images and general dialogue each wanted to perform, as well as the over-all structure and timing of these images in relationship to each other. This resulted, of course, in a slightly different performance each night as the four young actors explored, changed and improvised the separate parts. The dialogues recorded below are unique for that one performance, but, nevertheless, give a good idea of all the performances.

The following description is of a performance on the 25th of August. The members performing were Laura Gilbert, Michael Figgis, Mark Long, and Jose Nava. There were less than fifty people in the audience.

Lucien Goldmann was one of the most important independent Marxist intellectuals in Western Europe during the past two decades. His interests and works—in philosophy, sociology, history, and aesthetics—were classically broad, insisting as he did on the indivisibility of social experience. He was probably the most prominent of the pupils of Georg Lukács and in turn helped form a whole generation of French and German humanist Marxists. The course he taught at the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes was a mecca for European and Third World students. His major work The Hidden God, on Pascal and Racine, remains a classic in the sociology and epistemology of literature; The Theory of the Novel is currently being translated by Random House. The study below continues the socio/structural line of inquiry followed in his work on Genet (T38) and Gombrowicz (T47).

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.

1789, directed by Ariane Mnouchkine, is a production of the Théâtre du Soleil. It was created in Milan in 1970 at the invitation of the Piccolo Teatro and has been a tremendous popular success during 1970-1971 in Paris. The play is performed in a former cartridge factory and army barracks in the forest of Vincennes, on the eastern outskirts of Paris. Inside the large rectangular building the theatre company has divided the huge space into two parts, cleaned it up, and minimally painted it. One section has become a “lobby,” where tickets are picked up, some costume racks are stored and a photo display of former productions is mounted on panels.