Q. Your type of approach to what should go on in a theatre has included a rejection of most of the trappings of the traditional theatre. The Serpent is performed on a relatively bare stage with no costumes and a minimum of props and lighting. In the new productions. what have you done about these type of things?

A. The physical and visual aspects. such as costumes and sets, have been evolving since the Serpent. In the Serpent we considered images very much. We've expanded somewhat to consider what the visual thing is in an image. In Terminal it is not claborate by anyone else's standards but for us it is extremely claborate on the technical end. And Endgame makes use of what someone would call a very sparse set, and we make use of lighting in both of these pieces in way we haven't in the past. And these things seem to be important and it is important to come at them in a very spare way and not to get into that thing of overload - of making up for what's not there through sets and costumes and stuff. But, rather, to start with the content which may in some cases be the actor and sometimes it may be the script or whatever and to expand from there, very sparsely, very slowly and only use what is really necessary.

Q. Critical response to these kinds of theatre is always a problem. Though crities may claim that their role can be a creative one, in fact theatre criticism is almost always on the level of sitting back and judging-really marking-thereby stopping any attempt at communication.

A. I'm very interested in the role a critic might play. To me, there's no doubt that a highly intelligent person interested in the theatre but not interested in producing. in a sense, within the theatre, can have a value, a realvalue. a meaningful one to the theatre and to the people in the theatre but what that value is is in a kind of flux. For example, every piece we've done in the last three years we've found it necesary to play in Europe before we play it in the United States. One reason is because we're very, very involved with the question of the interaction between the performance, the performer, and the spectator. And when you play in the States the moment you're reviewed the only way a critic can approach you is good-bad. There is no sort of room for what we would call a work in progress.

Q. It would be as if after talking to you now I would go home and write a review of your comments. The actors can be seen as having a discussion with the spectators.

A. Exactly, that's exactly it. We find that for most of our pieces it is necessary for us to go through a period of time in which we further evolve the work in relation to the audicnce. And as I say, in every case in the last few years we've gone to Europe to do that. Part of our reasoning is that you get sat upon by the crities even if the crities say your work is terrific it is still being sat upon. So you say-Wonderfull I have nothing more I have to do with this because I've been flattered from N.Y. to Chicago. If it's booed you say-Well, there's nothing more I can do with it, it's been put down. I might as well just put it away and go on to something else. There's just not space. And even if you. as we tried to do. have made yourself as invulnerable to the reviewers as possible, the world you live in still affects you. What you reject can still be shaping what you are doing.

Q. It can shape the way the spectator sees your work too.

A. Absolutely, this is it. This is a massive thing. You say I don't care what so and so wrote in the New York Times. I'm going to change it or not change it as I will. But the spectator comes now, with this point of view or some position that's been given him from the newspaper.

Q. But if your own publicity department just gave me a copy of a Times review as promotion for your Cambridge performances.

A. Unfortunately, that's not our publicity department.

Q. Oh. that's the Locb's publicity department?

A. Exactly. Our thing is we never send out anything like that-we never even send out newspaper releases. And one of the reasons why I am here and willing to spend a day here is tosort of counteract that kind of bullshit because it is bullshit. Like the thing in the New York Times was the most non-reflective piece that you could have. You have someboly implying that we are an apolitical theatre that now wants to go political. you know. This is after the most political activities that we've participated in in five years.

Q. It seems to me that the problem is such that even student crities get into this same kind of mental bind. It's somehow very much harder. as someone was saying to me, to communicate with the student reviewer or someone with that attitude than someone who would be totally against the kind of polities we were trying to put forward in Marat-Sade.

A. Right.

Q. If theatre is going to be a communictation and the name Open Theacertainly emphasizes that. then to go in with a certain kind of critical framework-you sit back and watch knowing you are going to judge on what basis are you going to judge? It doesn't matter whether it's good or not. It matters whether you learn something you see something whether you communicate with the actors: and so it's just as much your performance as it is their performance . . . and you thank them or you didn't get much from them or something, but to go in and think you are going to critianaly?e it, that you are going to criticize it is self defeating for the critic or the spectator.-This bring me to the relationship betucen the actor the acting company and the spectator.