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The Wooster Group is a New York City-based experimental theater company known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group (1967-1980) during the period from 1975 to 1980, and took its name in 1980; the independent productions of 1975-1980 are retroactively attributed to the Group.
The Wooster Group is still one of the most important theater companies in America today. Elizabeth LeCompte founded the group at the time of the dissolution of another group of players called the Performance Group. Richard Schechner, a theatrical director who studied the social aspect of performance, established the Performance Group. The group performed in a venue called the Performance Garage, which is a very well known performance space in present day. This space continues on as an outgrowth of the performance group’s identity.
Performing Garage is located at 33 Wooster Street between Grand and Broome Streets in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. At the postmodern time it was part of the downtown theater clusters operating in poor theater aesthetics. Poor theater meant that all that was needed for the performance to go on was the performers and the performance, not the fancy costumes, set, or lighting design. The original use of the space was a mechanic’s workshop, which was then appropriated as the performance space for the Performance Group, and then later the Wooster Group.
Schechner is looked to as the innovator of environmental staging. The Wooster players in the Performance Garage used the infrastructure of what was originally there, such as metal rods, metal catwalks, and ropes that they would zip line from in order to get from one side of the stage to another. These ropes could also be raised and lowered from one side to another. This environment became a playground for the Wooster players to tell their story, and although it was unconventional of how theaters ran in their time, it became a staple of the Wooster Players and the Performance Garage.
LeCompte was the chief director and manager of the group that performed many adaptations and original works. When the Wooster Group operated in the postmodern time, the hallmarks of modernism, such as adaptations, were seen in several of their performances. While the Wooster Group performed many performances from its birth in 1980 to the present day, there are a few performances that are extremely noteworthy of this group of players.
In 2006, the Wooster players repurposed the 1964 Broadway production of Richard Burton’s Hamlet as their own original adaption. The production, which shows its post modernism in the fact that it is an adaptation, performed the piece through a present day lens. The play is performed scene by scene where the actors stand in front of a production screen that shows their character from the 1964 version as well as a screen with the live video of the performance occurring. This element was meant to be intentionally confusing in order for the audience to assess where they are with the narrative, while also thinking about all the past productions of Hamlet. Not only do we see characteristics of postmodern theater in the adaptations, use of technology, and as well with mediatization, we also see Brecht’s distancing effect in action. This intellectual exercise is meant for the audience to distance themselves from the preconceived notion of the original productions of Hamlet with the present day version.
Another production of the Wooster Group that is of great importance, as well as controversy, of the Performance Garage is its adaptation of Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible. The adaption took the name L.S.D.(…just the high points). The piece was framed around political issues, such as the political repression that America was dealing with at the time. The artistic variations and adaptations that occurred during this performance was that the actors read the dialogue at lighting speed, making it indistinguishable for the audience to truly understand what the actors were saying. Also, some of the players were in the original pilgrim garb, but others were in contemporary clothing.
Miller believed that this adaptation went against his principals and was not happy with the theater company’s work. However, when Miller went to take legal action against the Wooster Group, the Wooster Group was able to escape a law suite by saying that they were just appropriating the play. The Wooster Group successfully took The Crucible and turned it into a new contemporary form by taking the text and turning it into something else. This can be linked to Dadaism in that the fact that it took the text and made it indesignishable, taking the meaning of words away from the audience.
One of the most prominent and well-known players of the Wooster Group is Kate Valk. Valk is an extremely talented blackface actress whose work in the Wooster Group allowed blackface performance to be performed in a way that no other theater was able to do at the time. To this day, it is still difficult for an audience member to watch someone go on stage in blackface. However, the Wooster group espouse the point of view that they are not perpetuating the stereotype but are instead throwing history at the audience’s face. Thus, when Kate Valk of the Wooster Group performed Emperor Jones, which highlights racial inequality, she did so in a way that caused people to think. Through the use of linguistics traits of the time and the blackface paint, the audience is forced to feel uncomfortable. The audience is asked to think about the days where people used to laugh at this inequality and then reassess their own personal distance from the original play to the present day adaptation.
The experience that the Wooster Group creates in order for the audience to form their own perspective (the experience is in the eye of the beholder) has created fame for the group, as well as their performance space. The Wooster Group still stands today as one of the most influential experimental theater companies in American history.
As of 2014, the company consists of 16 members. In addition, there are 29 "Associates". The Wooster Group is a not-for-profit theater company that relies on grants and donations from supporters. It has received multiple grants from the Carnegie Corporation. The group has launched the careers of many actors, including founding member Willem Dafoe.
Founding members
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Awards and honors
The Wooster Group has won numerous awards, among which are nine Obie Awards, six Bessie Awards, the 1993 Edwin Booth Award for Significant Contributions to New York Theater, and the 1985 National Endowment for the Arts Ongoing Ensembles Grant.
References
Notes
- Wooster Group, "Production History since 1975".
- ^ "Ron Vawter Papers, 1963-1994". New York Public Library. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
- "About the Company:Founding and Original Members" on the Wooster Group website
- "History:Selected Awards" on the Wooster Group website
Further reading
- Quick, Andrew. The Wooster Group Workbook, London: Routledge, 2007. ISBN 978-0-415-35334-2
- Savran, David. Breaking the Rules: The Wooster Group. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1990. ISBN 0-930452-82-8.