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

scenery falls. The Yippies loved this unpredictability of theatre, its potential fordisruptive energy. When Rubin argues in Do It! that “theater has no rules, forms,structures, standards, traditions—it is pure natural energy, impulse, anarchy,” he notesthat it is the potential for anarchy and disruption that make theatre a useful tool forattacking the predictable dominant system (132).The unpredictable energy of theatre can combat dominant political and culturalforces because it doesn’t play by the rules of the system. Instead of producing somethingplanned or expected, anarchic theatricality can create the unexpected. That forces areconsideration of expectations, and possibly, a reconsideration of the system itself. Byrevealing the contradiction between the anarchic energy of theatre and the structuredorganization of the system, activists hope to expose the system’s repressive nature. Leftwingwriter Philip Abbott Luce in his analysis of the New Left argues that “a politicalcrazy . . . may be utilizing the political theatre of the absurd in order to attempt to driveyou into new arenas of thought in order to make you see reality from a differentperspective” (122). The political crazy, Marcusean outcast, or Yippie “is an elementaryforce which violates the rules of the game and, in doing so, reveals it as a rigged game,”Marcuse similarly argues (257). As political crazies who looked beyond the system foractivist tools and tactics, the Yippies used their improvised and flexible theatricality toreveal the inflexibility of the system. Using different terms but making the same point,Hoffman argues for the chaotic energy of live performance in Revolution for the Hell ofIt. He terms the anarchic energy of theatre a “Perfect Mess,” and notes that “in a PerfectMess only the System suffers” (122). Hoping to demonstrate how the system is “a rigged89