Although Chaikin of the radical Open Theater is spiritual kin to the LivingTheaters Becks he has written a vastly different sort of book from JudithMalinas rece... » 

Although Chaikin of the radical Open Theater is spiritual kin to the LivingTheaters Becks he has written a vastly different sort of book from JudithMalinas recent journal The Enormous Despair p. 379. Whereas hers wasresponsive to the moment and consequently a vital record of a period and agroup his exists at a tranquil remove from the strife of theater politicsand his own career. These are the focuses nonetheless of reflections distilledfrom what has evidently been a long and uncompromising inquiry into thebusiness of acting the relationship of theater to the rest of our affairs andultimately the conditions of living in postindustrial mass society. While hemakes his points plants his suggestions with the simple functional clarityand sometimes the gnomic compression of a great teacher he does not seem tobe wing for that role. If someone else has said it well he quotes withoutelaboration and he does not assert his own presence in discussions of otheractors and theorists. What seems to matter is the idea which has multipleorigins and statements Brecht Laing Goodman etc. but accrues somethingpositive here. This may well become a cult book and not undeservingly. KirkusReviews «