“As long as you have people working for money and not love, there will be violence.”

In light of current events, I believe this message from the Living Theater‘s Paradise Now carries some weight. Released on DVD earlier this year by Arthur Magazine, this 1968 performance has been on my mind. Perhaps I have been reading too much Antonin Artaud, whose Theater of Cruelty was the impetus for the company, or perhaps the truth we’ve been ignoring is finally being revealed.

On this revelation Julian Beck writes, “Collective creation is the secret weapon of the people…This play is a voyage from the many to the one and from the one to the many. It’s a spiritual voyage and a political voyage, a voyage for the actors and the spectators. The play is a vertical ascent toward permanent revolution, leading to revolutionary action here and now. The revolution of which the play speaks is the beautiful, non-violent, anarchist revolution. The purpose of the play is to lead to a state of being in which non-violent revolutionary action is possible.”

Of course, young naked bodies writhing to the tune of distant drums make the process more palatable. After all, when Bernardo Bertolucci chose to work with the Living Theater in his piece for Amore e Rabbia (Love and Anger) the result looked like American-Apparel-ad-meets-Feist’s-1234-video-meets-Animal Collective-hoots-and-screams. It was this piece of glorious vibrancy that began my obsession.