4 from ritual to theater and back: the efficacy ... - AAAARG.ORG

actuals 53
the play has been running, Pentheus, a man, has won over Dionysus,
the god. The play is over.” Cheers and cries and celebrations. . . . I felt
betrayed. I was hurt and angry at Shephard. . . . I learned something
corny but true: that if you invest all of yourself in the work, the risks are
very great.
(The Performance Group 1970: n.p.)
On only one other occasion was the performance similarly torn from
its rehearsed path. But many times people came into the play challenging
performers, participating in the “death ritual” (where Pentheus
is “killed”). Some of this participation was naive, but much of it
came from people who had seen Dionysus in 69 more than once. In June,
1968, Shephard was “kidnapped” by five students from Queens’ College
who planned to stop the “killing” of Pentheus and spent an afternoon
working out their strategy. Many of the performers felt that the
play should not stop because Pentheus was not “genuinely” rescued. I
agreed and asked for a substitute Pentheus from the audience. A young
man of 17 volunteered – he did very well: he had seen the play five
times and knew what was expected of him.
Contest, something is at stake. It is hard to build into a performance both
narrative power and the tensions of a sporting match. The two ambitions
cross each other. The tensions of sports come not so much from
the spectators being in doubt about the outcome as from the doubt and
resulting struggle among the players. There is some doubt like this in
all performances because actors seek the unknown in their partners. In
conventional theater an actor’s creativity is most powerfully engaged
in the narrow band between the details of the mise-en-scène and the
obligation not to throw your partner off by doing something
wholly unexpected.
The band is much wider in Dionysus in 69 and theater like it. Those in
the audience who know the performance can enter it at any of several
places and change the flow of the action. In the scene cited the play can
end abruptly. Mostly, however, the changes are modular – in tone,
speed, intensity. Even those who are at the performance for the first
time can participate if they stick to the rules. These are implicit: you
can do anything that will not prevent the performers from performing.
What varies wildly from night to night is not the text or the story but