10
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, November 8, 1967
Theater strives to shock audience into awareness
American avant-garde theater is highly individual, shows dissatisfaction with society and strives to "shock people into, not out of, a new awareness—socal, human and esthetic," said Enrique Sandoval.
Sandoval, a Fulbright research scholar from the University of Chile, spoke Tuesday to an audience of about 50 on "Ideological Trends in American Avant-Garde Drama" in the second event in the Theatre Research Colloquia.
"The concept of avant-garde is closely related to that of the frontier spirit, in that it means exploration, defiance, courage and determinism," Sandoval said.
Out to make money
Established theater such as Broadway has "fallen into the hands of the professionals" and is out to make mone, he said. Off-
French theater group to be here
The touring company "Le Treteau de Paris," will appear here at 8:20 p.m. Friday in the University Theatre.
The company will perform Alain Rene Lesage's "Tucaret," a drama first performed in 1709. The performance is sponsored by the department of French and Italian, which has brought the company here annually for several years.
In the play, which outraged Parisian financial circles when it was first performed, money is the protagonist. Humorous and satirical, the play is a character study, and Lesage was a man of the theatre who had a keen eye for grasping the elements necessary for spectators.
Tickets may be purchased from the University Theatre box office.
Broadway is inbetween but is rapidly becoming commercialized, too.
Off-off-Broadway, however, is "genuine and revolutionary—the underground," and its artists are sometimes stigmatized, Sandoval said.
The avant-garde in America could well be the start of an off-off-off-Broadway, now emerging in progressive theater centers in New York City, Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
Several groups in America are helping young playwrights get started, Sandoval said. Among these are "sublimal theaters like Ellen Stuart's, La Mama's and the Cafe Chino which seek to explore man's inner emotions. As Ellen Stuart says, 'One may dislike them but one is never unmoved by them.'"
Other groups are going out into the streets to meet their audience, often to inspire anti-war feelings, such as "happenings" current in New York, he said. Other groups provide foundations and workshops for aspiring playwrights.
Existence," and Marie Irene Fornes, author of "Tango Palace."
War "powerful metaphor"
Interest is spreading The interest is spreading, Sandoval said, but only a few playwrights are getting ahead in a truly avant-garde attitude. The danger of poor results always exists.
Among the new playwrights whose works have been published are James Baldwin, Arthur Kopit, Kenneth H. Brown and Jack Richardson. "They have had success in the past but things are changing fast," Sandoval said.
War "powerful metaphor"
The Vietnam war is "the most powerful metaphor at hand" to express dissatisfaction with society, Sandoval said.
More established avante-garde playwrights include Jean-Claude van Hallie, who wrote "America Hurrall"; Megan Terry, whose "Viet Rock" experiments with "transformation" (actors changings roles); Sam Sheppard, author of "Chicago"; Rosalyn Drexler, who wrote "The Line of Least
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THE UNIVERSITY THEATRE EXPERIMENTAL SERIES presents
THEATRE TODAY
November 8,9,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18
8:20 p.m. Murphy Hall Experimental Theatre
Students admitted for 75c plus current Certificate of Registration