Nancy, a historic city of 150,000 inhabitants, lies near the Meurthe River in the Northeast corner of France. One hundred and ninety miles from Paris and ninetythree from Strasbourg, Nancy is the capital and cultural, commercial, and university center of Lorraine.

Nancy became a model of eighteenth-century urban planning under Stanislas I, the last duke of Lorraine. The former king of Poland, Stanislas was given the dukedom in 1737 after his daughter married Louis XV of France. Under his patronage, Nancy was transformed into a city of wide avenues, imposing squares, a large public park, and many buildings that were considered by many to be among the finest architectural accomplishments of the eighteenth century. Nancy's center is still Place Stanislas, which contains a statue of its favorite duke.

“The Theatre of the Third World” was the main theme of the Seventh Festival of Arts that was held this year as in years past in the spectacular ancient environments of Shiraz and Persepolis in Iran. The festival, which was held from August 30 to September 9, presented a number of works by “Third World” theatre troupes in addition to hosting the Second Third World Theatre Conference.

Where is the Third World? The term Le Tier Monde (the Third World) was invented by a number of French writers during the late 1950's. To them, the Capitalist countries constituted the “first” world, while the “second” consisted of nations living under Communist regimes. Thus, the newly independent nations of Africa and Asia were termed “the Third World,” with some South American states, for little reason, also being lumped into this category.

Russia could hardly be said to have entered the 20th Century with all flags flying. Indeed, all was not as gold as the glitter of her domes. A scant five years later she became embroiled in a bloody civil war, and while that insurrection was put down and relative calm ensued for the next decade, it should have been clear to any sensitive observer that the old order was on the brink of collapse, that horrendous violence was seething just beneath the surface.

All the more astonishing is it, then, that those years can be—and frequently are—referred to as Russia's “silver age” of arts and letters.

For the last decade, the most important workers in experimental theatre have been investigating certain aspects of performance: altered audience-presentation relationships, spontaneity and the physical resources of the actor, group creation, the release of “forbidden” political/sexual material, and so forth. Energetic forms of expressionism have been the main preoccupation. The Ontological-Hysteric Theatre of Richard Foreman is, despite its name, almost diametrically opposed to these tendencies. It uses the traditional viewing arrangement; it extremely reduces and limits the activity of the actor; it does not attempt didactic socio-political statements; and it is quite clear that Foreman is both the playwright and the director of his theatre.

Of course, these differences would not, in themselves, be enough to make Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theatre important. If, however, the value of experimental theatre is to mark out new areas of performance for investigation and to develop previously unused techniques, then Foreman's theatre can be seen to have great significance.

The phenomena called either/all “drama,” “theatre,” “performance” occur among all the world's peoples and date back as far as historians, archeologists, and anthropologists can go. Evidence indicates that dancing, singing, wearing masks and/ or costumes, impersonating either other men, animals, or supernaturals, acting out stories, presenting time at time, isolating and preparing special places and/or times for these presentations, and individual or group preparations or rehearsals are coexistent with the human condition. Of countless examples from paleolithic times none is more interesting than the cave at Tuc d'Audoubert:

On the 20th of April 1922, having rehearsed with a scratch cast of actors for less than a week, Meyerhold mounted a production (his fifth version) of Ibsen's “Nora” (A Doll's House). The performance took place at the Actors’ Theatre in Moscow (formerly the “Nezlobin”) and the set consisted of old Nezlobin flats with their painted surfaces reversed, arranged in a fairly indiscriminate manner against the back and side walls of the stage.

A few days after this, on the 25th of April, this time with a fully trained cast of actors from his own Workshop, Meyerhold staged a production of the Belgian dramatist Fernand Crommelynck's lyric farce in three acts, The Magnificent Cuckold (Le Cocu Magnifique) with Constructivist decor by Liubov Popova.

Robert Wilson first came to public notice when he staged The Life and Time of Sigmund Freud at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1970. He began to acquire his growing international reputation the following year when Deafman Glance transferred from Brooklyn to Paris, via the Nancy Festival. In Paris, he provoked as much adulation as dismissal, both public and critical. One convert to his theatrical style was Louis Aragon, who saw in Wilson the logical heir to the Surrealists. Aragon once belonged to the Surrealist movement but turned his back on it. It now seems he is willing to take it seriously once more, thanks to Wilson. If Wilson achieves nothing more, that alone would be worth the effort.

His Paris success at the Théâtre de Paris and a newly devised companion piece in a radically different manner called Prelude that was centrally staged in one of the auditoriums of the Espace Cardin earned Wilson an invitation to the Shiraz Festival in 1972 in Iran.

In many ways, the theatre of the Blue Blouse (Sinaiaia Bluza) was typical of Russian performance in the post-Revolutionary period. Using whatever materials were available, it attempted to create a new type of performance. Overtly political, it employed avantgarde as well as popular techniques. Energetically (and successfully) striving to reach a mass audience, it was created by both theatrical specialists and previously untrained personnel. Socially, if not artistically, Blue Blouse could almost be considered a “movement”: At its height, it probably involved more than 100,000 people. Before it was officially disbanded in 1928, the Blue Blouse had achieved an international reputation and was being emulated in other countries. Today it is almost forgotten.

We had flown to Tehran and motored for two days across the vast country of Iran to arrive just in time for the royal opening of the Arts Festival in Persepolis, featuring the Kathakali Dance Theatre of India. The following day was hot and I was already tired, but I was there to see the Festival, and the next event was Robert Wilson's Overture to KA MOUNTAIN and CUARDenia Terrace, performed by the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds. My host in Iran had told me a great deal about the importance of Robert Wilson's work in the theatre. He said it was “significant,” “avantgarde,” and “new.” But I was not impressed. I had never heard of Robert Wilson.

I have spent some 45 years in the theatre as an actor and a director, and I like to think that I have not only seen everything that is new in the theatre, but I have also done what is new.

The Easter ritual of the Yaqui Indians in Arizona is nearer than most other Indian ceremonials, in concept and impact, to the ritual of the theatre. Even that celebrated paradigm of American Indian observances, the Corn Dance of Santo Domingo Pueblo in New Mexico, whose power to move the spectator has been lauded by artists and anthropologists alike, must, in several elements of theatre, allow precedence to the Yaquis.

A progression of action, from a beginning situation to a development of forces and finally to an inevitable resolution, is implemented by the Yaquis, while this dramatic progression neither prevails nor is it called for in the Pueblo. Besides, an interweaving of several themes and of group and individual characters is masterfully demonstrated in the Yaqui ceremonies. A distinctive style also emerges; and it is based in unique ways upon features of the Indian and the Spanish styles.