It has always been part of the tradition of the Open Theatre to do bencfs for certain radical causes that either are in great need or are not being noticed or something like that. We moved more and more towards doing things such as dedicating our performances as a means of spreading information in relation to various things that were going on. Like in relation to the draft. And in the last year almost all our work has been in relation to the Panthers, particularly the New York 21. About a week after we went on our last tour, Fred Hampton was killed and David Hilliard was arrested and accused of threatening the President's life. The juxtaposition of the whole thing that was going on just blew our minds and we found ourselves dedicating our performances in Europe to the Panther struggle in the United States, and at each dedication we would give a list of the events which were going on, which was a very small way of informing the audiences. But in the process of doing this every night, these same things repeated, you change. You feel committed to what you are saying and then it also moves your mind somewhere else. By the end of the tour there was a very firm commitment to giving support to the Panthers. Since we came back to New York almost all our performances have been benefits with procceds going to the 21, who are really in a ghastly situation. But, that's just one route one could take.
Q. You're talking about what you in the Open Theatre are doing as individuals. What place do you think theatre itself can have-that is what you are doing on stage? When you made an announcement every night about the Panthers that became a part of your dramatic ritual. How do your polities affect your whole presentation?
A. All of these things inform the presentation. We have never been interested in developing a piece that has as its content a partciular cause-I take that back-
Q. It could be a particular consciousness.
A. What we've been involved with is a particular consciousness. We did talk about and begin working on a picce that would contain direct and immediate information concerning draft resistance. But that is not the main thrust of political activites we see for ourselves nor that we see for the theatre as a whole. There's a place for that knd of theatre but it seems to us extremly limited. However, the kind of things I was describing and the dedication of work informs that work in a certain way. It is something I would rather have you see for example in Terminal than outline verbally. When you see the three pieces that we have I think you see a progression in terms of political behavior on the stage.
Then there are other things. For example, Endgame was played at a prison and will be played at prisons again in the fall. Endgame itself looked at in a kind of isolation could be seen as a completely apolitical piece, although I don't see it that way. I know it would be very easy to see it that way. However, the use of it is a whole other question and you take Endgame and you put it in the context of men being forced behind walls by other men and it takes on the most incredible anti-establishment ramifications that are imaginable. It's an important thing-how you see what you do puts it into a political-
Q. You're not going to do a threemonth run on Broadway?
A. Well. what do you think? That kind of thing has become, now, thankfully, completely out of the question. We have moved a whole other route. Joe Chaikin whose notes I was reading a few weeks ago about the days they did America Hurrah which did do through a commercial stage off-Broadway realized that we were investigating many things with that run. We realized later tht one of those things we were investigating was could we make it? We discovered we could.
One of the things about freedom of choice is that if you discover you can make it you have the choice to reject it. Making it in their terms is something we're not interested in anymore. One finds there's a constant attempt to be seduced by the society and it's a falschood to say it doesn't interest you completely. I think you can't live in this culture without being attracted to some aspect of what the culture calls making it. It's what you do with that attraction that counts. I mean, you can be attracted and say I reject that attraction. You can also say I can't help it I'm going to follow it and try it on their terms. I think there is a false purist point of view that says it never interested me-I'm not looking at it, I never have, and I never will. That's not a very useful lie.
Q. Do you consider that a kind of political struggle too?
A. Yes, I do very much so. I find that for people in the theatre that is one of the real political struggles that a person, as an individual, has to be confronting himself with-because if you're talented and if you're creative, you will be bought. You may only be bought for a month, but you will be bought and you will be attracted to what looks like the fruits of the being bought. You have to do some kind of battle with it. Sometimes, the battle may include going with it fosome portion of time. The ideal thing is to able to reject it before having to accept it. The next possibility is you may have to accept part of it before you can reject it. I can't sondemn that. One very often must seek success before one can say no to it.