What is it about?
Excerpts from a memoir by Anna Koos, cofounder of Squat theatre company who found their way from Cold War Hungary to New York City in 1976. This text reflects on how a theater company could function under house arrest back in the early 1970s, in Budapest,.
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Why is it important?
Those times seem to be gone when small theater companies performed to their audiences sharing their desires, thoughts, troubles, in other words, lives. This kind of theater cannot be recorded because its evanescent nature requires the presence of an audience to take form. Similarly to our lives it can only be remembered by telling stories about it. In the case of a company being under house arrest back in the times of Cold War with no silver lining on the horizon, performances took place against the backdrop of immediate censorship reinforced by secret informers posing as spectators and actors. The author finds their artistic situation somewhat similar to Moliere's and Bulgakov's fates and theater work.
Perspectives
It is an honor that excerpts of my book "Theatrical Stories: From Living Room to Storefront" are published in Yale School of Drama's "Theater" about our wanderings, artistic and real life, from being under house arrest in Budapest to the storefront on 23rd Street in the Chelsea area of New York City.
Ms ANNA KOOS
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Archives and Histories, Theater, January 2015, Duke University Press,
DOI: 10.1215/01610775-3111821.
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