In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Perpetual Saturdays Spalding Gray I never could relate to the term "avant-garde." When I see a term like that I automaticaly want to make my own American translation. I want to translate it into, "The Theatre of the Backyard," or even more American, "backyard theatre." As a boy, growing up in America, I loved Saturdays. Saturday was my favorite day of the week and my secret ambition was to make every day into Saturday.With this attitude, it took me fifteen years, instead of twelveto get out of school but I did get out and I did eventually find Elizabeth LeCompte, Richard Schechner, the Performing Garage and the whole group. I found them. They found 'me. We found each other. To make a long story (The Drama Review, Autoperformance Issue, T81) short, I found my backyard. I found my perpetual Saturdays. Other than being a part of the human race, I have never been aware of being a part of any movement. The radical child in me searched for a place to play. I call it "radical" because the pursuit of play in our culture is a radical act. It is also a very political act as everything we do with any kind of full commitment is political. And by "play," I don't mean weekend leisure activity, I mean viewing one's life as a total act of constructive play. The abolition of weekend consciousness. The decline and downfall of Saturdays. Backyard theatre is an impossible kind of theatre to make without a backyard and the Wooster Group/Performance Group only grew up because it had the Performing Garage as its backyard. Also, the group grew up realizing how fragile a thing real adult "playing" is. We needed a special time and place in which to play and soon realized we had to work to preserve that place and time. So, Saturdays blended into Mondays and the whole thing took off into a really creative balance of work and play. 46 Liz LeCompte and I first began Sakonnet Point by playing with flashlights. Nothing more, nothing less. If we had any idea of being a part of the "avantgarde " we were not conscious of it. What we were conscious of was that we were inspired by, and wanted to imitate, some of the best American backyard theatre in the world. We saw the groups that Richard mentioned in his article. It was a wonderful experience for Liz and me. Before we came to New York, we never dreamed such things existed or could exist. Seeing it gave us the courage to do our own work. We quickly realized that when you do not make much money for what you do, you better be sure that you're doing what you want to do. In fact, that is the most positive aspect of a lack of funds. It makes you question yourself down to the bone. What is it we want? We kept asking and we made one piece that turned into four. We struck a rich well of personal imagery. We spread seeds. We got fruit but the seeds we spread were not in marked packages and that was all the better because the fruit was such a surprise. The radical child in me searched for a place to play. I call it "radical" because the pursuit of play in our culture is a radical act. I can't imagine wanting to work if I knew what it was I wanted to make before I made it. I can't imagine stopping a productive process in order to develop a system about a past part of that process in order to teach it. Try to develop a system about American backyards? Try it. Maybe a system about English, French or Dutch backyards but American? I don't want to slow down or stop in order to teach and yet I am teaching a course in autobiographic composition at New York University's Experimental Theatre Wing this fall. What I do when I "teach" is to bring ;n present work/play problems. I take what's on my desk or in my head or body and bring it into...

pdf

Share