The itinerant “fringe” or “experimental” theatre groups supported by the Arts Council of Great Britain can be divided into those concerned solely with esthetic expression and those that aim at social efficacy. The latter can be further divided into those with “political” intentions and those with “social” objectives. There are revolutionary socialist theatre groups, often comprised of Marxists, who play almost exclusively for trade union members at meetings and workingmen's clubs, attempting to raise political awareness with respect to the worker in a capitalist society and to stimulate discussion about political problems. And there are theatre groups that do not consider their work overtly political who make plays dealing with the problems of certain constituencies such as teachers, children, old people, prisoners, women, or gays, sometimes involving them in theatrical activities as a kind of therapy.

In 1976-77 the largest Arts Council subsidy received by a “fringe” or “experimental“ group went to the Welfare State Theatre, which refuses to be placed in any of these categories.

Except for Carnival, Bumba-meu-Boi, one of the most complex manifestations of Brazilian popular theatre, is the only festival that is still held throughout all Brazil. It is both a procession and a dramatic performance; its basic theme concerns the death and resurrection of an ox. Given the central theme of the Ox, it would appear that Bumba-meu-Boi should occur only in basically pastoral areas; however, it is performed in mining, fishing, and agricultural areas as well. It occurs during the “King's Day,” between Christmas and January 6, and during the Festas Juninas, the St. Anthony's Day, St. John's Day and St. Peter's Day celebrations, between June 13 and 29.

In parts of Brazil where life is still relatively traditional and provincial, the Bumba-meu-Boi maintains its primary structure, main characters, and the basic theme of the Ox.

Chinese theatre must be judged on its own terms—as a weapon of the revolution. “Content first, then art” is the dictum. The revolution has given the theatre an abundance of themes. In return, the theatre fulfills its purpose by helping to educate the people and by debating important issues. It is, after all, part of the state machinery. It is also a superb example of didactic art that is popular at all levels of society.

One of the secrets of the theatre's success lies in the sheer depth of involvement on the part of all concerned. In Peking, an instructor told a visitor: “We educate our artists not for art's sake, but wholeheartedly to serve the people. We don't lock them up in classrooms, either, but let them go out to the workers, peasants and soldiers to learn from them as well. If they're going to portray revolutionary characters on the stage, they must first learn to become good revolutionaries themselves.”

Among all the great personalities who, early in this century, created and established the modern concept of the director in the theatre (Antoine, Lugné-Poe, Gordon Craig, Stanislavsky), Max Reinhardt (1873-1943) is often dismissed as an eclectic who took his ideas from others and dabbled in all forms of theatre for the sake of personal commercial success. While there is a grain of truth in this view, it nevertheless completely misrepresents one of the greatest personalities in the theatre of this or any other age.

In the years 1943-1944, when the German High Command, despite alarming losses on all fronts, suddenly began to divert, precious fuel supplies, men, building material, and transportation facilities for the mass extermination of over six million European Jews; when, independent of any Nazi blueprints, vicious pogroms broke out everywhere in German-occupied Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East; when the British government found itself spending millions of pounds patrolling the Eastern Mediterranean, preventing escaping Jews from reaching sanctuary in Palestine; when the United States broke off secret negotiations with the Hungarian government and the Swiss Red Cross to save 100,000 Jewish children, who later perished; in the years 1943-1944, thought to be the most disasterous, by many historians, in the Jews’ nearly four-thousand-year-old history, an ancient community performance was being recreated in a small kibbutz in Mandate Palestine.

Thoughts come to my mind at any point, anywhere—I could be on the subway—and if I am alert enough and I have a pencil and paper, I write these messages that come. It might be just a thought, like a statement about something, an insight, or it could be a line of dialog. It could be something that someone says in my head.

I have a box filled with these scribbles. Some of them are on paper napkins or the backs of envelopes. These things are often the beginning of a play. Most of the lyrics of the songs that I write are based on these notes—as opposed to a play, which, once it starts, I make. I usually gather a number of those things that have some relation—again, I do not even know why I consider that they are related—and I put them together.

Peasant women are chattering. Young aristocrats dressed in three-cornered hats and Brandenburg jackets, but with their eyes hidden behind dark glasses, slouch around a little red ochre square, where some white sheets are drying. Patrice Chereau, eighteen years old, has gotten hold of a play by Marivaux, a little-known work, The Inheritor of the Village; he sees himself labeled with a trademark that will never leave him—insolence.

The insolence of a young dandy, rich, cultivated, who gets his kicks by drawing mustaches on family portraits, say his detractors. The subversive insolence of the poet who breaks down the doors of all the prisons, including cultural ones, say his supporters. Chereau receives the attacks and the homages with a cantankerous selfassurance, with the haughty disdain of a man who knows he is going to be king.

El Teatro de la Esperanza began as a student group composed of Chicanos attending the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1969. Then known as Teatro Mecha, the Teatro left the ranks of a student organization, called M.E.Ch.A., in order to get more fully involved in Santa Barbara's Chicano community, in the summer of 1971. This move proved to be an asset for both the community and the Teatro, for the group took part in the acquisition and remodeling of a 22,000 square foot warehouse which soon became La Casa de la Raza (The House of the People).

Prior to 1965, there was little unity of sociopolitical direction among Chicanos and Mexicans in the United States, and the Casa was a symbol of the effort to address the problems of this bilingual minority. The Casa maintains a line of communication with the barrio by offering over thirty programs ranging from a free health clinic to an office of information for undocumented workers, otherwise known as illegal aliens.

In April, just as the summer heat begins to reach its peak, the Philippines joins the rest of the Christian world in the observance of Holy Week (Semana Santa), recalling Christ's passion, death and resurrection. In rituals born of his Hispanic heritage, the Filipino mourns and celebrates Semana Santa, infusing it with a distinct pagan fervor. Local traditions and medieval rituals combine with modern day innovations to suit varying temperaments and locales.

From Ash Wednesday to Good Friday a piercing lamentation fills the air as the life of Christ is chanted in gatherings called pabasa. For seven weeks, at odd hours of the day and night, participants recite the passion and death of Jesus Christ from the Holy Book. There are as many versions of it as there are dialects.

Autobiographical work is the only thing that interests me, apparently because that is what I do best. I write about my family. In many ways I would like to break out of that, but I don't know how to break out of it. In fact I would really like to write more about the people who were before my own immediate family, like my grandparents and their family. I have two children, but I've never been able to write about them.

I feel overwhelmed by family problems and family realities. I see my writing as being an outlet for inner, psychological confusion and questions stemming from childhood. I don't know any other way. It's really figuring out the “why” of things—that is, if that is even possible. I'm not sure you can figure out the “why” of anything anymore.

Klaus Michael Grüber is one of Germany's most controversial theatricalist directors. He has been called elitist, esoteric, artificial, unpolitical and incomprehensible by many critics; his productions have often left the audience—in a half-filled house—thoroughly dismayed and perplexed. But Grüber has also been praised as Germany's most imaginative and original director, a man who conjures up unforgettable visions, a man who like no other director carries theatrical expression to its absolute extremes. This article intends to describe Klaus Michael Grüber's development and some of his major productions and to let a few people speak who have worked with him. Grüber himself has very seldom given public expression to his theories and methods.