ABSTRACT
Since the early 1960s, Richard Schechner’s work has engaged with the alternative theatre through theory, critical writing and performance practice. As editor of The Drama Review from 1962 to 1969, Schechner was instrumental in giving voice to the new avant-garde performance. In 1967, while teaching in the Drama Faculty at New York University, Schechner established The Performance Group, whose members came to include Spalding Gray, Elizabeth LeCompte and Jim Clayburgh, founding members of the Wooster Group. Schechner’s work for The Performance Group included Dionysus in 69 (1968-69), Makbeth (1969-70), Commune (1970-72) and The Tooth of Crime (1972). His account of the Group’s working process and performances, Environmental Theatre (Hawthorn Books, New York: 1973), advocated a participatory theatre in which the transactions between audience and performer, and the relationship of performance to text, would be redrawn. In his subsequent and highly influential writing, Schechner came to define notions of performance theory and theatre anthropology, and his volumes include Essays on Performance Theory (Drama Book Specialists, New York: 1977), Between Theatre and Anthropology (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia: 1985) and most recently The Future of Ritual (Routledge, London: 1993). In 1986, Schechner returned to The Drama Review as editor, bringing with him a new emphasis on performance studies. While he publishes widely, Schechner’s theatre practice also continues unabated, most recently with Faust Gastronome (1993) presented in collaboration with the theatre company, East Coast Artists. This interview, which concerns the developing relationship between Schechner’s theory and practices since the 1960s and the various influences acting upon his work, was recorded in October 1988 in Leicester, where Schechner was contributing to the conference Points of Contact: Theatre, Anthropology, and Theatre Anthropology.
