Richard Schechner And New Theatre

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Richard Schechner And New Theatre

Richard Schechner envisions a “new theatre” in three of his major essays,
“Happenings” (1966), “Six Axioms for Environmental Theatre” (1968), and
“Negotiations with the Environment” (1968). He does not spend time
discussing his famed “not not themselves” ideology of the performer or
ritual ecstasy; instead he discusses a new genealogical hybrid termed the “new
theatre” by Allan Kaprow. Schechner uses the traditional theatre as a
comparison and first comments in “Happenings” “because it is unlike
traditional theatre, the familiar locutions of these arts, e.g., dance, music,
sculpture, painting cannot describe what’s going on or provide criteria for
which to evaluate it” (145). Still, Schechner does provide many a comparison
between the traditional theatre and this new form. Schechner recognizes that the
“theatrical event is a complex social interweave, a network of expectation and
obligation. The exchange of stimuli—either sensory or ideational or both—is
the root of theatre” (158). Knowing this, the author claims all theatre, both
traditional and new, is a set of related “transactions” (changes in outlook
and situation). How these transactions occur is what defines the art form. For
example the traditional theatre “works from an organic system of correlations
concerning character, story, and locale. Likewise, Susanne K. Langer states,
traditional theatre “runs on a continuum of past and future as parts,” (147)
organic parts developing the situation.” It involves a series of
understandable transactions. However, the new theatre lacks this destiny of
time. “There the referents to everyday life are purely functions of sounds,
textures, and images” (147). Schechner basically breaks down all the major
components of the traditional theatre in a comparison with the new theatre. To
start, the traditional theatre involves plot as a means of telling a story, but
the new theatre involves images/events. There are three kinds of new theatre as
Schechner describes in “Happenings”: the technological, essentially
electronic event (a la John Cage concerts), the free-for-all happenings or party
gone wild in which the event is roughly sketched by the author, a group of
people are told to do something and another group is invited to
watch/participate, and the “ceremony” (a la Kaprow) in which the
participants are given a set of instructions which they are not to improvise on
but simply do. “All three kinds share autonomy and revitalization.”...

The complete article is about 1283 words and 5.13 pages long.

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