Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

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campaign literature and a nominating speaker, but where is the candidate who the YouthInternational Party wants for President? Suddenly a battered old station wagonapproaches the plaza. One Yippie starts to shout a nominating speech, extolling thevirtues of candidate Pigasus the Pig. As the media rushes towards the car, a door opens,and an unhappy 150-pound porker makes his dash for freedom. The Yippies cheer andwave their signs in support. The police dart after the pig. The media scribble in theirnotebooks. Within minutes, it is all over: the pig is caught and carted off to the HumaneSociety, seven Yippies are arrested, the reporters depart to file their stories, and thecrowd disperses. The plaza empties, with only Picasso’s surprised Cubist sculpture left towatch the ebb and flow of city life continue at its feet.This chapter investigates how the Yippies used and adapted the performancetheories of guerrilla theatre and Theater of Cruelty for their Festival of Life streetperformances at the August, 1968, National Democratic Convention in Chicago. I arguethat the Yippies’ Chicago Festival of Life was the ultimate Yippie performance ofrevolutionary action theater—participatory street action that both challenged authorityand captivated the national media. With a performance meant to clearly communicate thecentral Yippie position of dissatisfaction with the state of the country and the DemocraticParty, the Yippies drew on two different performance practices: guerrilla theatretechniques and concepts outlined by R. G. Davis, the founder of the San Francisco MimeTroupe, and Theater of Cruelty ideas theorized by Antonin Artaud in The Theater and its148
Double (1938). The Yippies used these techniques to create street performances aimed atpersuading the American public into political action.Focusing on specific moments from the Convention week, I demonstrate how theYippies conceived of and put into action their adaptations of guerrilla theatre and Theaterof Cruelty techniques. For guerrilla theatre, I explore the mock press conference forPigasus and then compare this performance to both Davis’s original “Guerrilla Theatre”manifesto as well as Yippie manifestos on public action. I demonstrate that the Yippies’conscious theatricality owes a debt to Davis and the San Francisco Mime Troupe,although their philosophy of the meaning of action and revolution is radically different,and therefore resulted in Yippie-specific theatricality.I then demonstrate how the street actions of the so-called “Battle of MichiganAvenue,” which included a variety of soundscapes, a fluidity between actor and audience,and emotional as well as physical violence, reflect the Yippies’ understanding ofArtaud’s Theater of Cruelty. I rely heavily on Abbie Hoffman’s critique of Artaud inRevolution for the Hell of It and compare it to Artaud’s own The Theatre and its Double.I argue that the Yippies adapted Artaud’s vision to create a mass spectacle, not within thebounds of a performance space, but in the parks and on the streets of Chicago. Andbecause they created a compelling spectacle that fascinated the media, the Yippies andtheir version of Theater of Cruelty reached a national audience.Finally, I analyze audience responses to the Festival of Life performances, usingas my archive the many letters and telegrams sent to President Johnson duringConvention week. I argue that the Festival of Life performances successfully shocked the149
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CopyrightbySusanne Elizabeth Shawye
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Radical Street Theatre and the Yipp
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Kokai, Olivia Whitmer O’Hare, Tam
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organizational strategies of the an
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IntroductionThe Chicago Poster:Cont
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adical hipsters, or counterculture
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linguistic theory, the field of per
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The language of performance thus al
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protest from theatre. 8 Mass demons
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performative has the potential to e
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evolution using methodological and
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Realist, suddenly noticed that when
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Revolution for the Hell of It is a
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The Yippies’ politics are clear i
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2). They embraced a romantic notion
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made up of many separate organizati
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and a free store on the Lower East
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When they formed the Youth Internat
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Most of the dozen core Yippies were
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acknowledgment that her business sk
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The claim of millions of Yippies wa
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Man to tease out the New Left’s n
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eports from the popular press, test
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Image of Yippie Chicago poster.47
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surround the Pentagon are a long wa
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the Conference for New Politics in
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Washington was no stranger to mass
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uilding in acts of civil disobedien
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had a history of civil disobedience
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the crowd into affinity groups by m
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Like Abbie Hoffman, Rubin was aware
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Krishna” and “Om” to their re
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Pentagon began its work for the wee
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A respectable horde of respectable
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that time was still expected to see
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It didn’t matter if there was dis
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democratic political-economic and c
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social activist Malcolm X, Communis
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The aesthetic of the New Left now t
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straight-laced emphasis on communit
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Unlike the young student politician
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on the improvised actions of variou
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society” by changing, not ignorin
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similar to the very same ones used
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scenery falls. The Yippies loved th
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unrest by the lower ranks of societ
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Don’t rely on words. Words are th
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writing to President Johnson from V
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Page 155: Chapter ThreeThe Festival of Life:
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night of the Battle of Michigan Ave
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Chapter FourFlash Mobs: The Yippie
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that is, they were political only t
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as their primary political and cult
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1969, “Four Days of Rage” campa
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The Festival of Life and the ensuin
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The Yippies’ revolutionary action
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Glasgow, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, Sydn
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and social conventions: flash mobs
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social behaviors, and the technolog
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organized by anyone with access to
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advantage of the dramaturgy of prot
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Yet the insider/outsider dynamic of
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List of AbbreviationsCOREFBIHUACLBJ
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Letter, Roger Light to the Presiden
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Telegram, Marjorie Satthoff to the
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Brown, Joe David, ed. The Hippies.
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Editorial. Chicago Tribune. 29 Aug.
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Higgins, Dick. “The Origin of the
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Karastamatis, John. “Don’t Star
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McMillian, John. “Garbage Guerril
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Rosenberg, Bernard. “Chicago: Blo
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Stewart, M. J. F. and Davis, Lisa.
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VITASusanne Elizabeth Shawyer was b
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