From Mao to the Feeling Circle

The Limits and Endurance of Collective Creation
  • Victoria Lewis
Chapter

Abstract

This chapter provides a historical comparison of the collective practice of three theatre ensembles that emerged along the West Coast of the United States in the 1970s and 1980s: the San Francisco Mime Troupe; Lilith: A Women’s Theatre (San Francisco); and Family Circus Theater (Portland, Oregon). I was an ensemble member of both Family Circus Theater from 1973 to 1976 and of Lilith: A Women’s Theatre from 1978 to 1981. Family Circus modeled itself after and was formally mentored by the Mime Troupe, and Lilith absorbed several former Mime Troupe members over the years. My analysis draws on the limited scholarship of West Coast people’s theatre, as well as personal interviews with company members from the late 1990s and 2010, Lilith’s collaborative diaries, and my own ensemble experience. Though I seek to historicize and problematize all three companies’ utopian claims for collective practice, I do not intend to denigrate the groups’ radical aesthetic-political projects. I find their efforts toward structural reforms noble, the dramatic results often joyous and generous, and their legacy foundational to all such efforts today.1 If there is one cautionary note sounded in this tale, it would be the difficulty in all utopian efforts to sustain what Victor Turner called “permanent liminality”—the impossibility of institutionalizing communitas and maintaining absolute equality among all participants.2 I do incline toward the bottom-up strategies over the top-down, as I observe the former stand a better chance of resisting the inevitable accumulation of power in theatre practice at all times but especially when combined with a radical political agenda.

Keywords

Ensemble Member Political Theatre Company Member Personal Story Collective Practice 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Bibliography

  1. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991.Google Scholar
  2. Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
  3. Brownmiller, Susan. In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution. New York: Delta, 1999.Google Scholar
  4. Canning, Charlotte. Feminist Theaters in the U.S.A.: Staging Women’s Experience. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
  5. Chumley, Dan. Interview with the author. December 4, 1998.Google Scholar
  6. Coyote, Peter. Sleeping Where I Fall. Washington, DC: Counterpoint Press, 1998.Google Scholar
  7. Davis, Ronnie. The San Francisco Mime Troupe: The First Ten Years. Palo Alto: Ramparts Press, 1975.Google Scholar
  8. Eagleton, Terry, Frederic Jameson, and Edward Said. Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.Google Scholar
  9. Fields, Belden. “French Maoism.” In The 60’s without Apology, edited by Sohnya Sayres, Anders Stephanson, Stanley Aronowitz, and Fredric Jameson, 148–77. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1984.Google Scholar
  10. Jameson Fredric. “Periodizing the 60’s.” In The 60’s without Apology, edited by Sohnya Sayres, Anders Stephanson, Stanley Aronowitz, and Fredric Jameson, 178–209. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1984.Google Scholar
  11. Katz, Alfred H. Self-Help in America: A Social Movement Perspective. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993.Google Scholar
  12. Lawson, John Howard. Introduction to People’s Theatre in Amerika, by Karen Malpede Taylor. New York: Drama Book Specialists, 1972.Google Scholar
  13. Leabhart, Thomas. Etienne Decroux, Kindle edition. Routledge Performance Practitioners, 2007.Google Scholar
  14. Lewis, Victoria. “Theatre without a Hero.” In Bodies in Commotion: Disability and Performance, edited by Philip Auslander and Carrie Sandahl. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.Google Scholar
  15. Linfante, Michele. Interview with the author. December 4, 1998.Google Scholar
  16. Mankin, Joan. Interview with the author. December 2, 1998.Google Scholar
  17. Myers, Carolyn. Interview with the author. December 1, 1998.Google Scholar
  18. Myers, Carolyn. Interview with the author. August 17, 2010.Google Scholar
  19. Natalle, Elizabeth J. Feminist Theatre: A Study in Persuasion. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1985.Google Scholar
  20. Orenstein, Claudia. Festive Revolutions: The Politics of Popular Theater and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1999.Google Scholar
  21. Pex, Deb. Interview with the author. August 23, 1998.Google Scholar
  22. Roessler, Shirley Elson. Out of the Shadows: Women and Politics in the French Revolution, 1789–95. New York: Peter Lang, 1996.Google Scholar
  23. Rolland, Romain. The People’s Theater. Translated by Barrett H. Clark. New York: Henry Holt, 1918.Google Scholar
  24. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. D’Alembert on the Theatre. Translated by Allan Bloom. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
  25. Schiffer, Harriet. Lilith newsletter. Spring, 1984.Google Scholar
  26. Spolin, Viola. Improvisation for the Theater. Evanston: Northwestern University Press: 1963.Google Scholar
  27. Tsetung, Mao. Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1971.Google Scholar
  28. Turner, Victor. Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine De Gruyter, 1995.Google Scholar
  29. Varney, Joan. Interview with the author. December 3, 1998.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva and Scott Proudfit 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Victoria Lewis

There are no affiliations available

Personalised recommendations