ABSTRACT
The avant-garde was a product of the romantic sensibility. It grew in part out of a belief in a Utopian future arrived at through a spiritual quest led by those inspired individuals who forged new paths or tore down the old structures of society. The production appropriated the environmental staging of the Performance Group and Abdoh, but there was no iconoclastic aesthetic or political message the audience was encouraged to dance with the performers, who gently parodied the disco world while presenting an exuberant, updated, and loving if highly condensed version of Shakespeare's play. The annual productions of the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre and near-annual works-in-progress of the Wooster Group, and the periodic creations of Robert Wilson draw regular audiences some of whom were not even born when these theatres began to produce equivalent, in a way, to audiences who attend Shakespeare festivals.
