Guerrilla Theatre: May 1970

Author(s): Richard Schechner

Source: The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1970), pp. 163-168
Published by: The MIT Press
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Guerrilla Theatre:
RICHARDSCHECHNER
What was most striking (from the New York
perspective) about the Maydays of 1970was
that students were organizing themselves to
use facilities and resources, not to destroy
them. The nihilism so powerfully present in
the Columbia uprising of 1968, and always
prominent in "revolutionary"rhetoric with-
in the student movement, was transformed
into something more fundamentally revolu-
tionary. "Burn it down," "trashit," "shut it
down" were not heard so often as "take it,"
"use it," "open it up," "liberateit." In either
case the work is somewhat symbolic-that is,
burnt buildings can be and usually are rebuilt
and liberatedbuildingscan be and usually are
reoccupied. The establishmentis not so weak
that it will yield everything at once. But it is
not so strong that it will last out the decade.
Guerrilla theatre is symbolic action. It is
called "guerrilla"because some of its struc-
tures have been adapted from guerrilla war-
fare-simplicity of tactics, mobility, small
bands,pressureat the points of greatestweak-
ness, surprise. The term itself was adapted
from war to theatre by Ronnie Davis in his
1966article "GuerrillaTheatre" [T32]. Davis
says:
The motives, aspirations,and practice of
U.S. theatre must be readaptedin order
to: teach, direct toward change, be an
example of change. . . . The Guerrilla
company must exemplify change as a
group. The group formation-its coop-
erative relationshipsand corporate iden-
tity-must have a morality at its core.
Davis talks about the how-to-do's: get a
cheap place to rehearse; "start with people,
163
May 1970
not actors"; perform in parks on a portable
stage; keep the length of a show "under
an hour"; slowly build a company; don't
get sucked into the commercial theatre. Of
course, Davis was talking about his Mime
Troupe. The guerrilla theatre we are now
involved in relates back to Davis' ideas-but
also, and more strongly, to the things the
Provos did in the mid-sixties, both here and
abroad.And the things men like Abbie Hoff-
man [see T44] and, later, Jerry Rubin did.
Like dropping dollar bills on the floor of
the Stock Exchange; dumping a truck of soot
and garbageon the brassof Con Ed; showing
up at HUAC hearings dressed as a revolu-
tionary war patriot. To make a swift action
or image that gets to the heart of an issue
or a feeling-to make people realize where
they are living, and under what situation.It is
primitive because many Americans still do
not know (or believe) what is going down
here.
However, the Kent State murders made
many people know directly and viscerally.
One of the basics of guerrilla theatre is that
you use what is at hand. The murders were
at hand, and they were used. I found out
about Kent State during my seminaron Per-
formance Theory at NYU at 6:00 P.M., May
4. Someone came into the class and handed
out a leaflet. It said that six students had been
shot down-four at Kent State and two at
Penn State. (The Penn State two turned out
to be a mistake.) A general meeting was
called for 7:30 at the Loeb Student Center.
The seminar ended at around 7:45 and sev-
eral of us went to Loeb.
164
The meeting was going as usual: lots of
speeches to and from about a thousandangry
students. Loeb had already been taken. The
speech-makinglasted about an hour and after
that committees were formed. I saw Ralph
Ortiz in the crowd and went over to him.
Joan Macintosh was with me. We decided to
start a guerrilla theatre. I got to the micro-
phone and announcedthat decision. We took
over a corner of the ground floor of Loeb,
about fifteen students joined us, and we
talked over what we should do. We decided
on an action for the next morning. It was a
scenario worked out by all of us, based on
some ideas from Ortiz.
THE KENT STATE MASSACRE. Per-
formed in New York City on La Guardia
Place in front of the Loeb Student Center
and also at the corner of MacDougal and
8th Streets. Groups of students are roped
together in subgroups of four. Other stu-
dents dressedin army uniforms and carrying
stage rifles and gallons of animalblood guard
the "prisoners."The prisoners are abused
verbally and physically. Under their clothes
they conceal animal organs-brains, hearts,
intestines, etc. The soldiers march through
the streets calling the student prisoners
"Commy bums," "fucking student trash,"
"Red agitators,"and any other insults that
come to mind. The students resist but are
severely brutalizedwith kicks and rifle butts
by the soldiers. The students are marched
through the streets until a large crowd gath-
ers. Anyone in the crowd who laughs at the
action is forcibly pulled into it and thrown
in with the students. After a brief announce-
ment to the effect that the students are Com-
munists, agitators,bums, and worthless peo-
ple who care more for politics than for
education, they are "shot" and the blood
is thrown over them. The students "die"
slowly, shrieking and pulling out from their
clothes the animal guts. The soldiers stand
guard over the dead students, refusing to let
anyone come and help them. Persons in the
crowd who laugh or argue or resist are
thrown onto the body pile.
(A variationwas done by Ortiz, in Washing-
ton on May 9 during the rally. The action
was a procession of people holding real ani-
mal heads, skinned and bloody, with tongues
and eyes.) On 8th Street, outside the student
environment of NYU, many people thought
the students were actually shot. When it was
RICHARD SCHECHNER
made clear (through audience word-of-
mouth) that this was a street play, people
were most responsive to the obvious mes-
sage: the war was home. The police arrived
to break up the performance.The cops were
angry that so much blood was spilled on the
street and sidewalk. Arguments broke out
between the police and some of the onlook-
ers. One of the police finally said, exasper-
ated, "People who mess up the public streets
should be shot." His remark was not well
received.
Later in the week, supported by extensive
organizing led by ChristinaWeppner at the
NYU School of the Arts, we began to go
out in teams of three or five to instruct peo-
ple in guerrilla theatre. Our aim was to
organize at schools and other places which
requested our help and to stimulateextensive
guerrilla theatre activity citywide, and later
nationwide. Scenarios were duplicated and
distributed; a city headquarterswas estab-
lished which could coordinate guerrilla
theatre activities; a succinct handbook of
guerrilla theatre was issued. Before I discuss
these organizing activities in more detail, I
would like to report on an action that took
place Thursday evening, May 7, at the Broad-
way theatres showing Plaza Suite, Forty
Carats,and Private Lives.
Membersof the NYU guerrillatheatre group
felt that an action directed toward (or
against) Broadway audiences was appropri-
ate. The action was developed during two
meetings on May 7-it involved about thirty
people.
BROADWAY THEATRE ACTION.
Tapes were made of a statement by Allison
Krause'sfather. He had appearedon TV the
night after Allison's murder and made an
eloquent, tearful plea asking whether or not
dissent was possible in this country, and call-
ing for a Congressional investigation about
why the National Guard was allowed to
carry live ammunition. It was a profoundly
moving statement by a shocked parent of
the middle class. We all felt that it should
be heard by other parentsof the middle class
-and not in the defended situation of their
evening TV broadcastsat home. The larger
group of thirty was divided into three sub-
groups. Each had a leaderwho carrieda port-
able cassette tape recorder loaded with the
Krause tape. Each group decided its own
strategy.
GUERRILLA THEATRE
The Plaza Suite group wished to go into the
theatre during intermission, wait until part
of the second act had gone by, and then rise,
go to the front of the theatre-or onstage if
possible-make a brief announcement, and
play the tape. But the man carrying the re-
corder was challenged for his ticket stub as
he tried to enter the theatre, and only two
of the group got in. They did not know that
the leader had not gotten in, so they sat out
the whole second act. ("That was a gruesome
experience in itself," one of them told me
later.) At the end of the second act, they rose
and went to the front of the theatre, said
a few words about the Kent State murders,
and distributed a leaflet which stated the
three national strike goals (End the war in
Southeast Asia; Free all political prisoners;
Get the war machine off campus); on the
reverse side, it had a complete transcript of
Mr. Krause'sstatement.
The Forty Carats group all got into the
theatre after intermission.About fifteen min-
utes into the act (at the start of the second
scene), the leader of the group rose and went
down the aisle. The other members of the
group responded to the cue and soon the
bases of both aisles were filled with the
eight demonstrators.The leader said, "Trina,
the girl in this play, is seventeen. Allison
Krause was just two years older than Trina
when she was shot. Her father wants to
speak to you." Then the tape was played. AU
members of the group wore black mourning
veils. All were dressed"straight,"so as to get
into the theatre easily. The tape takes about
three minutes to play. The actors onstage-
June Allyson and Tom Poston-froze as the
demonstrationbegan. They did not attempt
to compete with it. Most of the audience was
quiet. About halfway through the tape a
woman said, "We didn't pay $8 to hear this
kind of thing!" Another woman answered,
"This is more important than this trivial
play!" Some of the audience joined in the
dispute. Tom Poston said, "All right, girls,
you've made your point."The stage manager,
or maybe it was the house manager, came
down the aisle and tried to seize the tape
recorder. The demonstratorsleft the theatre
peacefully-the last thing on the tape, the
last thing heard,was Mr. Krausesaying, "Isit
a crime to dissent?"I did not participate in
the demonstration,so I stayed in the theatre
and listened to the manager apologize to the
165
audience for this "rude and unauthorizedin-
terruption." He asked the actors to pick it
up from where they had left off. They did,
but the fizz had gone out of the little comedy.
The Private Lives group waited until the
house lights were down as the second act
began. Then they got onto the stage and as
the lights went up-there they were. The
actors did not interfere as they played the
tape. Most of the audience listened, but some
were very angry that their evening had been
thus interrupted. A shouting match broke
out in the audience-but the tape was played
to the end, and leaflets were distributed to
the audience.
Other actions originating at NYU, but not
disruptive in nature or intent, occurred dur-
ing the intermission at several theatres, in-
cluding the Brooklyn Academy and the City
Center. One of these actions centered on a
brief dance commemorating the Kent State
murders. A plan was made to move the
scheduled student performance of Johnny
Johnson to the Lincoln Center mall-but
nothing came of the proposal. (The week of
May 11 some City University students car-
ried their protests into several Broadway
theatres. I do not know what they per-
formed.)
The week of May 11 was also the week
when we organized guerrilla groups at
Lehman College in the Bronx (part of the
City system), the New School, the NYU
School of Law and School of Education, and
City College. I did not participatein all these
organizing efforts, and will report exten-
sively only on the three I was present
at. However, the team of organizers was
"trained" (if that word has any meaning in
such a swift program) under my supervision
and we all followed the same plan. It is a
very simple plan, and I commend it to every-
one who is interested in guerrilla theatre
organizing. A team of us go to a group, talk
to them, tell them about guerrilla theatre,
find out exactly what issues are important
to them, organize a scenario, rehearseit with
them, and stick around until it has been
performed once or twice. Then we leave,
and hope that the group will continue on its
own-as the Lehman and New School groups
have done. If we stay too long, the group
will not develop a sense of self-sufficiency;
if we leave too soon, it will dissolve.
166
FROM THE GUERRILLA THEATRE
"HANDBOOK." There are three kinds of
guerrillatheatre. (1) That which makespeo-
ple aware that a problem exists. This kind
takes place in "new" areas-places where so-
cial and political awareness is at best rudi-
mentary. The Broadway Theatre Action de-
scribed before was of this sort. (2) That
which shows the workings/results of a prob-
lem. This kind is performedin "middleareas"
-places where people know of a problem,
are sensitive to it, but have not viscerally ex-
perienced it or fully understood it or its
consequences. For example, the "Kent State
Massacre"-especially as performed at the
corner of MacDougal and 8th Streets-was
this kind of guerrillatheatre. The object was
to show people that government oppression
exists, is systematic,will attack all who forci-
bly oppose the government and its policies,
and that the government will not hesitate to
use maximumforce. It exposed the myth that
brutality is the result of "ignorant"people,
or of "maniacs."It was a direct answer to
Nixon's telegram to the murdered victims'
families in which the President noted that
violent dissent leads to tragedy. We wanted
to make it clear who was responsible. (3)
That which shows the solution to a prob-
lem. This kind of theatre is done in "so-
phisticated"areas-where people are already
aware of a problem and its dynamics-e.g.,
certain elements of the "Kent State Mas-
sacre" as performed in front of Loeb. The
soldiers shouted to the students-"We will
kill you in small groups until you band to-
gether against us!" And the soldiers then
seized a person from the audience and threw
him/her onto the body pile. Soon the NYU
students began resisting the soldiers, and or-
ganized against them. Several students at-
tacked a soldier and grabbed his gun.
You must know the differences among
friendly, neutral, unfriendly, and hostile
places/audiences.And you must be prepared
to cope with what you expect-that is, be
ready to split quickly after an action in an
unfriendly place; or, on the other hand, be
ready to stick around and rap for a long
time in a friendly place. Don't bring the con-
ventions of illusionism from the old theatre
into guerrilla theatre. Guerrilla theatre is,
in many ways, like wall posters or pamphlets.
To people who distrust reading and who are
RICHARD SCHECHNER
accustomed to less linear means of com-
municating, guerrilla theatre is a succinct
language.
Friendly: At school, in many churches,
among friends, before a striking group, etc.
Even though everyone will not agree with
you at a friendly place, you will be allowed
to finish your action and people will be eager
to discuss it with you. If there are disagree-
ments, they will come over emphasis and
tactics, not goals.
Neutral: Supermarkets,streets in neighbor-
hoods where you are personally known,
theatre lobbies, parks. Here there will be
arguments,maybe even some heckling. There
will probably be city and possibly private
police on hand, or nearby. The crowd will
be divided between those who want to hear
you out and those who do not. Be ready to
stop the performance and disband. Or, de-
pending upon the heat of the argument, to
defend your right to public dissent.
Unfriendly: Places where people strongly
disagree with your politics, but have noth-
ing against you personally-Broadway the-
atres, hotel lobbies, uptight neighborhoods,
etc. In an unfriendly place people will argue
with you, heckle, call the police, and
threaten violence. If you keep your cool,
usually nothing will happen.But if you show
fear or extreme hostility an unfriendly place
can swiftly transforminto a hostile place.
Hostile: Places where violence is likely and
therefore where your action has to be swift,
cunning, and planned for impact and escape.
A KKK meeting is a hostile place, or a rally
of construction workers, or the Police Acad-
emy. Here people not only hate what you
say, they hate you because you represent a
way of life they cannot understand and do
not accept. If they catch you they will prob-
ably beat you up. You are quite literally
thought of as "the enemy." In these places
guerrilla theatre is most like guerrilla war-
fare. Your goal here is not to convince or
change minds-but simply to let people know
that you have penetrated a highly defended
headquarters.And once you announce your
presence you have accomplished your mis-
sion and should get out as quickly as pos-
sible. More than in any other kind of action,
forays into hostile places should be planned
in detail. Only the most experienced groups
should attempt a raid into hostile territory.
GUERRILLA THEATRE
Guerrilla theatre scenarios should be (1)
simple and direct, (2) clear and visual, (3)
striking and theatrical-that is, even if peo-
ple can't see or hear everything they should
know what it's about, (4) meaningful to
you-something you believe in. There is no
reason to perform a piece because of some-
one else. Where there is little traditional
aesthetic justification for a piece there must
be a great deal of political and social con-
viction. If dialogue is used it should be very
direct and simple. Because streets are noisy
it is good to have the dialogue shouted and
some of it repeated chorically. The use of
choruses can be very effective.
A crowd should be leafleted immediatelyfol-
lowing a piece (not during, because that will
distract). The leaflet should not only carry
the message, but give precise information
about what the onlookers can do. For ex-
ample, the leaflet accompanying BUSINESS
AS USUAL told how blacks and Latins
could organize their communities and gave
the time and place of an organizing meeting.
In liberal rather than radical settings the
names and addressesof legislators,and a sug-
gested form for writing, should be provided.
The leaflet, in other words, is never simply
a statement but always a program, how-
ever fundamental.
BUSINESS AS USUAL. This scenario
was developed during the evening of May 13
at the New School in NYC. About fifteen
people participated. It was performed that
evening along a route that went across 14th
Street from Fifth Avenue to University
Place, down University Place to 8th Street,
along 8th Street to Sixth Avenue, and up
Sixth Avenue to 14th Street. About twenty-
five performanceswere given that night. The
piece was repeated on May 15. A group of
people walk down the street in a disorganized
fashion. Four people in the center of the
group suddenly scream and drop to the
ground. The group immediately forms a
circle around the fallen four. A man rushes
into the center, as a crowd of bystanders
gathers. "Four people have been shot!"
shouts the man. "My God! They're white! !"
The encircling crowd choruses, "White?!
White?! Let's have a national strike!!" The
man in the center shouts, "No, wait a min-
ute! Look! Two of them are niggers! And
two of them are spics!" The crowd choruses,
167
"Niggers?! Spics?! Fuck them! Business as
usual!" Then a brief statement is read con-
cerning the different reactions in America
elicited by the shooting of white and black
or Latin people. The crowd is leafleted, and
the performers move on. The piece is done
two or three times in every block. On the
night of May 13 it was enthusiastically re-
ceived by people in the street (including
blacks and Latins) and by many who
watched from apartment house windows.
At the intersection of 8th Street and Sixth
Avenue a patrol car stopped when a cop
thought someone had been hurt. He was
very angry when he discovered that he had
gotten out of his car to see a street play.
On Friday, May 14, we went to organize a
group within the NYU School of Education.
These people had extensive theatre experi-
ence-they were theatremajorsand their pro-
fessors. They had performed rather compli-
cated pieces at rallies, and these pieces
showed sophisticationand theatricalabilities.
The problems were truly opposite those we
faced at Lehman and at the New School.
If anything, the NYU students were too
theatre oriented. The simplicity of guerrilla
theatre disturbed them. Also most of these
NYU students were liberals in the classical
sense. They were very hung up about the
reactions of their parents;they wanted what-
ever they did to be nonviolent in practice
and effort; they tended to be sentimental
and guilt-ridden.
We worked with them for about two hours
and developed a piece which I call BRING-
ING THE WAR BACK HOME. It is an
adaptation of Hed's Kill Viet Cong [T32]
which was performed in NYC in 1967. (It is
a mark of the antiwar movement, and of the
war itself, that a piece more than four years
old can still be relevant, perhaps even radi-
cal.) Three students were roped together.
One wore a sign, NIGGER; another, BUM;
another, GOOK. They were marched down
the street, shoved and abused by a goose-
stepping group of around ten people who
were singing God Bless America. When the
procession got to the crowded corner of
University Place and Waverly Place, the pro-
cession stopped and a straight-looking man
addressedthe crowd. He told them that the
war was expensive and that everyone de-
served to get a piece of the action. He told
 RICHARD SCHECHNER

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white Communistagitators.He said that the
government had donated one of each to his
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ing the three criminals.A volunteer stepped
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times. All gave the Hitler salute. At the end
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