Dionysos in 1915: A Pioneer Theatre Collective

Abstract

In an essay on ‘Collective creation,’ Theodore Shank observed that emphasis on the ‘cooperation of a creative collective,’ sometimes in combination with group living, is a response to ‘the fragmentation of established society,’ and as such, an essential distinguishing characteristic of the ‘alternative’ or ‘new’ theatre. Social fragmentation and individual alienation from society are not, of course, products exclusively of the nine-teen-sixties; the idea that individual survival is possible only within a group structure has emerged in previous generations that have felt threatened by a cult of individualism—a salient characteristic of Western civilization that has been carried ad absurdum in the United States.