Table Of ContentA History of
Collective Creation
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A History of
Collective Creation
Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva, Editor,
and Scott Proudfit, Associate Editor
a history of collective creation
Copyright © Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva and Scott Proudfit, 2013.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-33129-8
All rights reserved.
First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is
by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in
England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21
6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-46134-9 ISBN 978-1-137-33130-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137331304
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of
Congress.
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: July 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Catherine Schidlovksy, without whose collaborative
gift I might never have discovered collective creation.
For Carl Weber, without whose mentorship I might
never have discovered history.
—K. M. S.
For Kelly, Jack, and Emily: the best in the west.
—S. P.
Contents
List of Figures ix
Introduction: Toward a New History of Collective Creation 1
Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva
Part I: Collective Creation’s First Wave
1 Preface to Part I: From Monastic Cell to Communist
Cell—Groups, Communes, and Collectives, 1900–1945 13
Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva
2 Revolution in the Theatre I: Meyerhold, Stanislavsky,
and Collective Creation, Russia, 1905 37
Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva
3 Reduta’s Reorigination of Theatre: Radical Collectivity
in Poland’s Interwar Theatre Laboratory 59
Kris Salata
4 The Accidental Rebirth of Collective Creation:
Jacques Copeau, Michel Saint-Denis, Léon Chancerel,
and Improvised Theatre 71
Jane Baldwin
5 Collective Creation in Documentary Theatre 97
Attilio Favorini
Part II: Collective Creation’s Second Wave
6 Preface to Part II: Crossroads and Confluence, 1945–1985 115
Scott Proudfit and Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva
7 Collective Creation as a Theatre of Immanence:
Deleuze and The Living Theatre 129
Laura Cull
8 Something Queer at the Heart of It: Collaboration between
John Cage and Merce Cunningham 145
Michael Hunter
viii CONTENTS
9 Shared Space and Shared Pages: Collective Creation for
Edward Albee and the Playwrights of The Open Theater 157
Scott Proudfit
10 Against Efficiency: Théâtre du Soleil’s Experimental
Relations of Production 171
David Calder
11 From Mao to the Feeling Circle: The Limits and
Endurance of Collective Creation 187
Victoria Lewis
12 Who’s in Charge? The Collective Nature of Early
Chicano Theatre 209
Jorge A. Huerta
13 Collective Creation in Quebec: Function and Impact 223
Jean-Marc Larrue
Notes on Contributors 239
Index 243
Figures
4.1 Neutral Mask from the Collection of Brian Smith 78
4.2 Mask Made by Marie-Hélène Dasté and Worn by
Suzanne Bing in the Copiaus’ Production of
La Celestine 79
4.3 Michel Saint-Denis as Oscar Knie, His Masked
Contemporary “Commedia” Character 84
7.1 A Continuum Model of Collective Creation 134
7.2 Collages by Lin Hixson 137
7.3 Hankbook by Goat Island 137
7.4 Goat Island: The Last Film. Mark Jeffery, Litó Walkey,
Karen Christopher, Matthew Goulish, Bryan Saner,
Lucy Cash, Lin Hixson 139
Introduction
Toward a New History of
Collective Creation
Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva
“The group, not the individual,” writes Theodore Shank at the opening of
his 1972 article “Collective Creation,” “is the typical focus of an alternative
society.”1 In the 1960s and 1970s— decades marked in so many Western nations by
utopic yearning— the theatre, as elsewhere, became a site of society building, and,
in the alternative theatres of North America, Australia, parts of Latin America,
and Europe, the group was ascendant. Collective creation— the practice of col-
laboratively devising works of performance—r ose to prominence, not simply as
a performance-making method, but as an institutional model. This was the hey-
day of The Living Theatre, years that saw the nascence of France’s Théâtre du
Soleil, The Agit Prop Street Players in England, El Teatro Campesino in the fields
of Southern California, English Canada’s Théâtre Passe-Muraille, and Quebec’s
Théâtre Euh!—c ompanies associated, variously, with collective performance cre-
ation, egalitarian labor distribution, consensual decision making, and sociopoliti-
cal revolt.
The prominence of collective creation in the alternative theatres of the sixties and
seventies has with time led to a vague sense that collective creation—a long with sex,
drugs, and youth culture— sprang more or less fully grown from the thigh of ’68.
This conflation derives from early historicization of collective theatre making, such
as we find in Mark S. Weinberg’s seminal work, Challenging the Hierarchy: Collective
Theatre in the United States (1992).2 For Weinberg, hacking a path through what was
still a largely uncharted terrain of theatre history, collective creation and the social
and political upheaval of 1960s America were virtually synonymous: “The genera-
tion of the sixties led this movement as part of its theatricalization of political life
and its use of theatre as a weapon in its political struggles.”3
But the sixties are hardly the only era in which human beings have entertained
utopic longings for a more perfect social union. Nor are they the only time that
alternative theatre companies have yearned not merely for more cooperative
modes of work but to hold, in their daily practices of work and collegial interac-
tion, to a higher standard of interpersonal relations—t o make of the artistic group
