THE SMALL STAGES THAT CHALLENGED OUR CONCEPT OF LEGITIMACY IN THEATER

Crespy, David A. Off-Off-Broadway Explosion: How Provocative Playwrights of the 1960s Ignited a New American Theater.  NY: Backstage Books, 2003. Foreword by Edward Albee. Illus, biblio, index. 192p.  ISBN: 0-8230-8832-4. Paper, $19.95

Bottoms, Stephen J. Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement. Ann Arbor: Univ of Michigan Press, 2004. Preface, illus., 2 appendices, biblio, index. xii, 401p. ISBN: 0-472-1140-0. Cloth, $35.00

Stone, Wendell C. Caffe-Cino: The Birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway. Carbondale: Southern Ill Univ Press, 2005. Illus, notes, index. xiii, 227p. ISBN: 0-8093-2644-2. Cloth, $60.00; ISBN: 0-8093-2645-0. Paper, $30.00.

McDonough, Jimmy. The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan . Chicago: Chicago Review Press (A Cappella Books), 2001. Illus, script excerpts, film & play lists,  sources, index.  xxiv, 375p. ISBN 1-55652-126-9. Cloth, $26.95.  Paper reprint, 2003, ISBN 1-55562-495-1, $17.95. [Publisher advises that both editions nearly out-of-stock, soon to be out-of-print.]

 Patrick, Robert. Temple Slave.  NY: Richard Kasak/Masquerade Books, 1994.  Author’s Note, 464p. ISBN 1-56333-191-8.  Paper, $12.95. [Out-of-print; used copies available at various prices from Amazon, etc, or from the author on a CD in Word for $15.00–go to Rbrtptrck@aol.com for details].

 Esslin, Martin.  The Theatre of the Absurd.  New York: Vintage Books, 2004, Third Edition. [first published London, 2001].  Acknowledgments, Foreword Forty Years On, Preface 1961, Biblio, Index.  480p. Vintage ISBN 1-4000-7523-8.  Paper, $15.00.

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                                     A Tragical-comical-historical-pastoral-critical-analytical

Commentary on Some Titles that Explore the Alternative Theater in the New York of the 1960s in a Prologue, three Acts, and a Coda

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                                                                        Prologue

 March 5, 1985. An exhibition opening at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.  The Vincent Astor Gallery has been transformed into a remembrance of things past,  twenty years past, to be precise.  There is an 8x8 foot stage near the back, covered with mannequins dressed in theatrical costumes.  There is a coffee bar near the rear wall, replete with vintage espresso machine, Christmas lights, and wind chimes.  On the back wall is a collage of a strange assortment of old film stills, posters, near-naked bronze Adonises, and tacky theatrical programs.  The walls are covered with panels illustrating the history of an era nearly a generation gone and large photo blowups of many of those who got their start in this place.

 The audience for the opening consists of many who had known the place well, and others too young to know the significance of this tribute.  The speakers include many who worked and played there;  Ellen Stewart (La Mama) said that it inspired her to start her own coffee house theater.  Helen Hanft, a regular at the place, said “There is nothing like it, and there never will be again.”

 The exhibition was called The Caffe Cino and its Legacy: An American Cultural Landmark.  I produced it, with the help of many of the Cino “family” and alumni.  It was one of the most noted and well-publicized of any exhibitions during my time at the Library.  It was thought that a book would result; one of the volunteers who helped with the in-house produced brochure/catalog for the  show had collected much Cino material–oral histories, articles, photographs, etc.–but she could not find a publisher for the story of the café theater that was, by almost all accounts, the real beginning of the off-off-Broadway movement.  Perhaps she tried in the wrong places. The first three titles under discussion here are from university presses.  Was it that the off-off, or underground theater movement, took almost another twenty years to become the subject for academic discourse and study?

 Crespy, Bottoms, Stone and McDonough are all too young to have experienced being at the Cino, or at any of the other venues they discuss for that matter (except perhaps La Mama); all their material comes  from archives, oral histories, mostly through interviews, and previously published accounts.

 Let us see how well they brought a long-gone theatrical era back to life.

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                                                                          ACT I

                                                                   A Motley Crew

 Crespy, Bottoms and Stone–sounds like a law firm–or more pertinently perhaps a 1960s rock group, with McDonogh as a guest soloist, with Patrick on board at times as lyricist and Esslin as an idea man for source material.  Neither law firm nor rock group, this motley crew is an ensemble of commentators whose works pertain in various ways to the rise, at least semi-demise, and lasting legacy of our chosen subject.

 

Crespy, Bottoms and Stone are academics, McDonough is a journalist, Patrick is a playwright-actor-director and Esslin was Head of Radio Drama for the BBC for many years, and an academic at the end of his life in 2002.  The titles under discussion are so intertwined that it becomes rather difficult to discuss them separately, but following the old adage that it is best to begin at the beginning, we  will start with the three professors in the order of appearance of their titles under consideration.

                                                                 

                                                                  Scene I–Crespy

David Crespy is Assistant Professor of Playwriting at the University of Missouri at Columbia ; his CV on the University website runs to six pages; suffice it to say here that he received his PhD from CUNY in 1998, has published several scholarly articles, and has had numerous plays produced in  a number of varied venues since 1984. In his acknowledgments, Crespy thanks Edward Albee for his continuing support of his research. (10).  Albee says in his Foreword, “This is, to my knowledge,  the first book to thoroughly and systematically examine perhaps the most important movement in  twentieth-century American theater.  As such, it is invaluable. . .March 12, 2003.” (9).

Crespy states his thesis and purpose  in his preface: “. . . between 1958 and 1968, a creative explosion introduced a new generation of young artists who wrote bold new plays, explored new ways of staging, and discovered new styles of acting, creating entirely new forms of theater.  These pages celebrate the brilliant playwrights who drove that off-off-Broadway movement, and the daring entrepeneurs who showcased them. . . .The canon of their work still exerts a powerful influence on the current generation of experimentalists; the challenges that faced yesterday’s playwrights in combating a complacent consumer culture also continue to our day, just as the constant need to reinvent remains  as important a goal for writers now as it did then. . . .It is my fervent hope that by learning more about the creativity and resilience of the 1960s off-off Broadway pioneers, young people will be inspired to jump-start their own careers as playwrights, directors, actors, and designers. . . .and feed  on one another artistically, discovering how to create theater that is innovative, dangerous, exciting,  and representative of their own generation. . . .To chart the future, one must often journey to the past. . . .” (13-15).

He sets about accomplishing his goal by dividing the book into seven chapters, beginning with historical antecedents and early venues, the influence of The Zoo Story ("...a play that many off-off-Broadway writers claim inspired their own careers”) [18], and the influence of Dadaism, Surrealism,  and Absurdism.  He credits Esslin (whom he misspells “Essin”) with labeling the Absurd genre “. . . in his 1961 book Theater (sic) of the Absurd.” [No “The” and wrong spelling of “Theatre”] (22). 

 There is a good deal of repetition in this chapter, as there is all through the book.  In this case it is mostly about Albee; the first US production and influence of The Zoo Story; the significance of Virginia Woolf, including the refused Pulitzer; and his influence on other young writers [he was all of 34 in 1962!]: “While many off-off-Broadway playwrights mouthed an anticommercial, anticareerist cant, all of them were acutely aware of the possibility of fame, and many pursued it–particularly fired by Albee’s great success, which gave American playwriting a burst of new life, excitement, and promise.” (31).

These quotes exemplify two important trends: first, in Crespy, the exuberant, gee-whiz quality of much of the writing, which should appeal to his targeted audience; secondly, the dichotomy between freedom of creativity (anticommercial, anticareer) and commercial success, a thread that is woven  through all the works under consideration.

There follow chapters on Caffe Cino, La Mama, Judson Poets’ Theater, and Theatre Genesis. [Note here that Judson is “er” while Genesis is “re,” which, as near as I can determine by checking many sources online, is as the groups themselves spelled it.  Throughout this book and the others, as well as most sources searched online, there seems to be a constant tug-of-war between the UK and US spellings of the word; thus,  in some sources, the spelling in referring to these two groups is reversed. I am going to try to be consistent here when using the word theater in general–maintaining the US spelling, except when quoting a source or referring to named group or a work that uses the UK spelling].

The sixth chapter is a roundup  of what Crespy names a “Second Wave,” concluding with a “Finale,” at the end of which he indulges in another of his annoying habits–he foretells us, as he often has before, of what is coming  next; in this case a final chapter on today’s experimental theater, preceded by a do-it-yourself section on how to start your own theater group.  Crespy here cites his own considerable workshop and conference experience, as well as, not unsurprisingly, Albee’s past and continuing influence and support, but not, surprisingly, the work of the Edward F. Albee Foundation at the Montauk “Barn.”

How well does Crespy succeed in achieving his goal?  On the whole, within the limitations of his  source materials and the information gleaned from his many interviewees, he does a more than adequate job of bringing the period to life.  The work of the individual playwrights who received most of their early experience in the venues under discussion is examined mainly through quite revealing interviews or published articles.  The Acknowledgments lists veterans of the 60s whose work I know first hand, as well as many “Cinoites” who I got to know personally in connection with the 1985 exhibition.  Although he does not probe deeply into the interpersonal relationships of the Cino “family,” which make the saga of the Cino much more fascinating, he gets most of the story right. 

Although I saw many of the productions presented in most of the other venues discussed, especially La Mama, where Ellen Stewart used to say, “Honey, I think you must sleep in the hallway,’ I am not an expert on the types of theater produced in them.  I know he has it right that the Cino was the most gay-friendly, followed closely by the Judson Poets’ Theater, especially in the person of Al Carmines; and that Theatre Genesis, under the powerful influence of Ralph Cook, became a more macho, heterosexually oriented venue, with work typified by the plays of Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi and Murray Mednick. 

 

Shepard, along with Lanford Wilson, Tom Eyen, and a few others were among those who were able to transfer successfully into the commercial theater.  As Crespy rightly says, there was considerable pressure by commercial producers to move successful productions from the off-off venues, but it often did not work , “. . . because the spirit of art created for its own sake was lost in transition. . . [and] their loyal following. . . was inevitably left behind when plays were restaged for the tourist-based audiences of New York’s commercial theater.” (129).

There is a good, but sparse, selection of photographs.  The font size of the index is much too small, about half the size of phonebook print.  This was probably done to save space, but it does a disservice to the serious user of the book.

So, for anyone who wants a quick, quite breathtaking, overview of the alternative-- to some, avant-garde-- theater of the 1960s; and those who would like pointers on how to establish their own grass-roots alternative theater, political or otherwise, this is an excellent work to own and mark  up with plenty of marginalia.

But as a study of the off-off-Broadway scene in the 1960s it is only a beginning.  In his chapter on the Caffe Cino, Crespy states: “Several scholars are currently researching its history, among them, professors Stephen Bottoms of the University of Glasgow and Wendell Stone at Ohio State University–but no detailed , conclusive studies yet exist.”  He then cites the 1985 Cino exhibition: “It faithfully depicted the café as a place artists could create their work in an atmosphere of ‘positive reinforcement, faith and freedom’ “ (35). 

                                                                Scene II–Bottoms

At the time Playing Underground was published, Bottoms was at Glasgow; he is currently the Wole  Soyinka Professor of Drama and Director of the Workshop Theatre at the University of Leeds.  He has an impressive CV and a 5 ½ page listing of “selected publications” on the Leeds website, including book-length studies of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? (as a critical production history) and the works of Sam Shepard, both published by Cambridge UP.

The book is dedicated to Michael Smith for “keen inspiration.”  Smith,  the young Village Voice critic who, in the early days, nearly single-handedly, gave the off-off-Broadway theater a credibility  and a standing in the aboveground world (somewhat to his regret later), became Bottoms’ guru during the work on this book, and is cited 84 times in the index, either as critic or playwright and director. [In the interest of full disclosure, I am in pretty much constant e-mail contact with Michael as I am with Robert Patrick; both have been invaluable in untangling the web that interconnects the parts of the story of off-off-Broadway.]

Bottoms states his purpose in his preface: “My research for this book has . . . been an attempt to explore and document a movement that offered real alternatives to institutionalized professionalism. In today’s theater scene, often intent on recycling familiar formulas–whether big-money commercialism, subsidized classicism, or purportedly avant-garde gimmickry–a new injection of anarchic, underground energy is devoutly to be wished for.” (viii).  He acknowledges his collaboration with Smith extensively, to the point that he “stepped in as an indispensable critic and  editor of my writing.” (x). [ Crespy cites Smith in his index eleven times; Stone, 35].   All emphasize his importance in promoting off-off-Broadway.  To read Smith’s review of Bottoms’ book go to http://thebrooklynrail.org/theater/oct04/playingunderground.html.  It’s quite good.  There is also a review online from the Voice, by Charles McNulty in “Romper Room,” dated January 30, 2005.  It should be at http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0502,mcnulty,59922,11.html .  He uses accolades such as “written with enormous intelligence, dexterity and passion, [it] should be read by the current generation of radical theater makers– . . .who, in the service of innovative theatrical truth, once more dare to go against the cultural grain.”  Very favorable.

Bottoms begins his very thoughtful, probing, sociologically and politically perceptive, and quite elegantly written analysis with an overview of what the scene was like in the 60s, followed by a look at the 50s.  Thus the cultural climate that made the pot boil is placed after the boiling pot itself; but never mind, Bottoms is not one for straight-arrow chronology.  In the 60s overview is an eye-opening discussion of underground vs. avant-garde, and why what we are concerned with here was not avant-garde in the way it was defined by TDR and by Robert Brustein in the New Republic; the argument being that TDR's  championing of such groups as  Grotowski’s Polish Lab Theatre, while ignoring the off-off movement, and Brustein’s condescending review of works such as Rochelle Owens’ Futz, indicated that what  they considered avant-garde was not these grubby vaudevillians showing visceral emotion in coffee houses and church basements.  Although some sources describe off-off as avant garde, Bottoms  cites several sources that indicate that the avant-garde is elitist and needs the ruling elite’s money to survive, while the underground can provide an adversarial alternative “because of its absolute disinterest in following any dictates but those of creative freedom.” (11).

In one of his many quotes from Robert Patrick, Bottoms cites his statement used by all these authors,  at least in part: “One of the most American things about the off-off-Broadway movement was that there was no movement–no manifesto, no credo, no criteria.  It just happened.” (15).

Interestingly, the look at the 50s section, has, after setting us up with the usual Summer and Smoke  revival at the Circle-in-the-Square story, a long passage on The Zoo Story & Krapp’s Last Tape [he has them opening at the Cherry Lane instead of the Provincetown Playhouse–one of the few factual errors I found], quite a bit on Beckett (how Waiting for Godot influenced The Zoo Story, etc.), and Esslin labeling the new European theatre movement as “The Theatre of the Absurd.”  (21-22) He then shifts back to the 50s and the Living Theatre, etc.  Indeed, he’s not long on chronology, but this is more a study of ideas and themes than individual entities.

Part One-- finally-- page 39: This covers in considerable detail the beginnings of Caffe Cino, Judson Poets’ Theater, La Mama and Theatre Genesis-- the same venues covered  in detail by Crespy. These sections are followed by an excellent disquisition on the aesthetics of the one-act play.This is very good for anyone who worries about a work being too short, if Beckett hasn’t made that obvious to you already. Here he discusses several landmark one-acts thoroughly, including Bob Heide’s The Bed,   H. M. (Harry) Koutoukas’ Medea [of the laundromat–one baby son, killed in washing machine], and David Starkweather’s You May Go Home Again, as well as several others by the like of Rochelle Owens, Maria Irene Fornes, and Claris Nelson.  Here he overemphasizes his bad habit of using “as said previously,” and “as we shall see” with too much of a muchness.  There is also considerable ruminative philosophizing, as in “.  . . Fornes’s desire to ‘take the subconscious by surprise’ can be seen as implicitly progressive–an attempt to discover what she did not realize she knew, rather than assuming that what she already  ‘knows’ defines the limits of the possible.” (144) This sounds to me like a Donald Rumsfeld press statement.

In this part,  the four key venues are discussed, basically following the same scheme as in Crespy–how they started, description of the audience-play space, highlights of early activities, key players and playwrights, etc., but at a certain point at the height of activity, usually sometime in 1966, he breaks off and picks up their stories later, often as particular thematic manifestations of the underground.

Part Two, which for some reason he calls “Present Collaborations, 1963-1968,” covers the Judson Musicals, emphasizing Al Carmines' sublime ridiculousness; The Open Theatre; the La Mama Troupe, led by Tom O’Horgan; the Play-House of the Ridiculous and the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, with all the wildness that they both brought to their stages; and in a section called “Other Kinds of Cruelty,” seemingly taking his cue from Artaud, he takes on the Living at BAM (Paradise Now), the Performance Space (Dionysus in 69), and a long section on The Hawk at Genesis (245-249) which is better than the one in Crespy. (130-132).  The section closes with such works as Promenade (which got a theatre named for it), and Dracula: Sabbat at the Judson, which is given such a detailed treatment that one would almost think he had been there.  His sources must have been extraordinary; I saw it and don’t remember it at all that well.                       

Part Three: “Changing Times,  1966-1973.”  Here we move back again to 1966, and cover, in the first section the beginnings of the raising of the public profile of off-off-Broadway.  We learn of the pincers being applied by Equity, including the enforcement of the Showcase and Workshop Code, which while demanding that performers be paid (considerably undermining the “pass-the-hat tradition of venues such as the Cino), was received with mixed feelings by those who found that it was good to be paid for non-commercially oriented work, and that the new “respectability” opened   possibilities for receiving public and private grants. The aesthetic struggles over whether to accept generous grants, thus losing at least a modicum of artistic freedom, or to stay “pure,” are exemplified by the different approaches of Ellen Stewart and Al Carmines.  Neither liked the idea of grants, but Ellen bit the bullet and became “institutionalized;” only La Mama remains of all the four ground-breaking groups, while the Judson, though it finally tried unsuccessfully for grants, closed down its Poets’ Theater in 1981.

The “Death and Disaster: Leaving the Caffe Cino” section of Part Three takes the Cino from early  1966 to the final closing in 1968.  Somehow in his ignoring of chronology, Bottoms doesn’t even mention the Ash Wednesday fire of 1965, which was a truly defining event in the life and eventual death of both Joe Cino and his café.  In any case, he picks up the story in early 1966, which year many feel was the height of the cafe’s success, mostly because of Dames at Sea, the saga of which is well covered.  After Dames, the drug-influenced productions began to permeate the atmosphere of the  Cino, epitomized by Soren Agenoux’s Chas. Dickens’ Christmas Carol, in December 1966.  Michael Smith directed a cast almost entirely high on speed–he was attracted by the fact that the play  “teetered on the verge of the unutterable.” (285) Things pretty much went down from there, to the death of Joe’s lover Johnny Torre (or Torrey) in January 1967, to Joe’s suicide in March, and Smith’s  unsuccessful attempt to operate the café and finally closing it in March 1968.  There follow  mentions of Hair going to Broadway, The Boys in the Band beginning its long run off-Broadway,  and the move of Dames at Sea to off-Broadway for another long run.  The underground ethos was indeed going commercial.  The section ends with the story of Circle Repertory Company, founded by career-minded alumni of the Caffe Cino, most significantly Lanford Wilson and Marshall Mason. Inexplicably, he does not say that Circle Rep no longer is in operation. His Appendix A Chronology ends in 1981; Circle Rep ended in 1996–the guide to the company records are online from NYPL on the internet

The final three sections of Part Three cover the changes in sexual and governmental politics; the more creative autonomy of directors such as John Vacarro, writer-directors Tom Eyen, Charles   Ludlum; and multi-talented creators such as Julie Bovasso, Jeff Weiss and Andre Serban, whose Greek Trilogy was finally presented at LaMama in 1974 to great acclaim, and full houses of “uptown” theatergoers.  The final section, on the afterlife of the movement, begins with a quotation from Smith in the Voice, January 1974: “The disbanding of the Open Theatre seems to mark the closing of that era [of ensemble experiment], as the departure of the Living Theatre in 1963 ended the possibility of a committed poetic theatre Off-Broadway, and the end of the Caffe Cino after Joe Cino’s death in 1968 broke the new wave of playwrights.  A busy, compulsively productive scene  sprang up in the wake of all that, but it’s continuing now mostly on administrative momentum and  vague careerism.” (344).

Bottoms continues: “As the older companies and venues adapted for survival or simply closed down,  new theaters were springing up at an exponential rate.  In most cases, however, these were speculative ventures that folded swiftly, unable to make ends meet in an environment where too many groups were scrambling for too few resources.” (344).  Here we have the new “generation” of some of the old venues and the attempt to establish new alternative theaters.  Of all the new ventures discussed, only the Theater for the New City (TNC) seems to have survived with the anti-establishment spirit with which it was founded. 

Bottoms does not attempt any kind of current survey of alternative theater around the country; one has to go back to Crespy for that.  He does say that in the academic year of 1993-94, when he first decided to research the off-off-Broadway movement, he saw three “standout” theater productions that owed their conscious creativity to the New York scene of the 1960s, the third of which was the “mind-blowing” Angels in America, all seven hours in one day.  He quotes William M. (Billy) Hoffman: “The flamboyance, the out-front-ness, the challenge, the ‘dare me’ [of Angels] –that sensibility is very Cino.” (365).  Bottoms goes on: “Joseph Cino may have died in tormented despair in 1967, but more than three decades later, the movement he kick-started stands as one of the most significant influences on the subsequent evolution of contemporary American theater. It is long past time to acknowledge this” (365).

The Appendix A Chronology runs from 1949 to 1981, and is quite helpful, but perhaps should have gone a few years longer.  The Appendix B lists all of those people with whom he spoke or corresponded; it is quite comprehensive.  The extensive bibliography cites seven “soundtrack” albums, which are, of course, “original cast” albums, except that the Hair and Dames at Sea albums are the Broadway and off-Broadway revivals, respectively.  They are as original a cast as one can find of these shows, unless one had a tape recorder at the Public Theater  or the Cino.  Surely some did, and they are out there somewhere in private collections.

There are thirty-two pages of very well chosen and reproduced photographs, illustrating venues, productions and individuals, that help bring the period to life for those who were not there and bring back memories for those who were.

So–who should read Playing Underground?  Anyone who wants an in-depth coverage of the movement that treats the underground more philosophically and seriously than Crespy.  Ideally, one should read them both and compare their treatments of the same events and themes; it can be very rewarding,

But there is more yet on the venue that is credited with starting it all.

                                                               Scene Three–Stone

Wendell C. Stone has been an Instructor in theatre studies at the University of West Georgia since 2002.  The title under consideration was published in the summer of 2005, and its appearance is the genesis of this article.  The date is apt, coming forty years after the 1965 fire at the Cino, and twenty years after the 1985 Cino exhibition at NYPL.  His 10-page CV on the West Georgia website includes papers, guest lectures, “production experience,” and five articles concentrating on off-off-Broadway.  The title of his doctoral dissertation (2001), “Theatre at Caffe Cino: The Aesthetics and Politics of Revolt, 1958-1968,” was most surely the inspiration for the present work.

So, what has Stone carved out of all the voluminous research and personal interviews that constitute the basis of this, the so-far definitive full-length work on the Caffe Cino?  Basically, the results are excellent–smoothly readable, often eloquent, sometimes effusive–but with, I think, a bit too much  philosophizing and psychologizing for all but the most determined academically-oriented reader. Parts of it remind me of the kind of papers that are read at ASTR and ATHE conferences, i.e., it is easy to lose one’s concentration on the thread of thought.  An example, commenting on the space:

“Cino artists contribute to a process of reinterpreting and rewriting space.  Because bodies exist within space and use and manipulate space in the performance of identity, we revamp, reinvent, and rewrite space to reflect our own interests, beliefs, values, and being.” (179).  Or as Joe Cino put it much more simply, “Do what you have to do!”

On the other hand, the thumbnail quotes on the publisher’s website  are glowing even as the Christmas lights of the café. They are all from Cino alumni, except David Crespy, who says “Stone’s definitive history provides not only a detailed chronological production history of Joseph Cino’s café theatre, but also broaches the subtle social, economic, political, and theoretical contexts that gave rise to the Off-Off-Broadway world of coffeehouse theatres.  This study will delight scholars of American theatre and also serves as inspiration for emerging playwrights, directors, and actors who are searching for a (sic) historical context for their own careers.”  Well, yes!  Note the UK spelling of theatre and the U.S. use of the article before “historical.”  At least he’s right about the contexts and the scholars.

So what does this unscholarly, non-PhD think of Stone’s Introduction and six chapters, all with enticing headings?  The excellent seven page introduction well summarizes the basic story of the Cino–its beginnings, its ambience and aesthetics, its playwrights and influence, its political-apolitical tension and the reasons for the lack of documentation that led him to recollections of the alumni and the few scattered clippings from interviews and reviews. As he rightly states, citing Albert Poland and Bruce Mailman’s 1972 Off-Off-Broadway Book, “. . . even our most important and extensive archive of theatre , the Billy Rose Theatre Collection of the New York Public Library, contained only a few items about the Cino: an obituary file and a small file of notes.” (5) True for 1972, except that the files on individuals and productions relating to the café were very extensive even then.   However, it is surprising that though Stone uses extensively the very large scrapbook box (MWEZ+ 27646) that I prepared after the 1985 exhibition, he does not mention it in the introduction.  There are dozens of citations to that scrapbook in the Notes section of the book, vindicating its exhaustive content.

[A  note on the Notes: The twenty-five pages of carefully cited notes take the place of any other sort of bibliography and, for anyone constantly consulting sources, are very difficult to use.  Random examples: Chapter 4, note #79 (209), cites the full entry for the exhibition scrapbook; Note #92 on the next page, cites simply ‘ “Scrapbook,” 113" ‘.  In the notes for Chapter 5, the citations become quite arbitrary and erratic: #16, the full entry; #63, using the scrapbook number, calling it “correspondence file” (the correspondence file is part of the scrapbook); #106,107 and 115, “Scrapbook;” #121, citing an item inside the scrapbook with the MWEZ number, but not calling it a scrapbook, and then #131, simply “Scrapbook.”  And so it goes, starting the next chapter with the full entry at #35, but  citing a letter to me inside the scrapbook number, when not citing it as a “Scrapbook.”  Many other sources are reduced to a single word or two after the first citation in a chapter, but since there are at least four or five pages of notes per chapter, flipping back to find out what a source really is becomes an eye-straining chore.  There must have been a better way.]

In the introduction, Stone sums up the significance of the Cino: “Though it was soon joined by Judson Poets’ Theater, Café La Mama, Theatre Genesis, and others, the Cino is generally considered to have featured a regular schedule of productions of new plays before any of the others, thus earning its reputation as the first off-off-Broadway theatre.” (2).  In just a few pages he touches on most of the themes that will be expanded upon in the chapters that follow, including Freddie Herko’s naked jump to his death in 1964, Frank Thompson’s infamous gallery of salacious artwork across the street, the coffee house wars, the licensing harassment, the suspected Mafia influence, the gay-friendly ambience, the artistic freedom allowing great creativity, and how Jimmy McDonough’s book on Andy Milligan adds importantly to the story of the Cino.

His soundbite evaluation: “Ultimately the story of the Cino is bound up tightly with the history of the cultural and social changes that occurred in the United States during the sixties.  Caught between  the various factions in the coffeehouse war, the tiny Caffe was at once very nonpolitical, only occasionally echoing the radicalism of the period, and exceptionally political, foregrounding issues of sexuality and gender that were quite radical.” (7).

The six chapters then follow in a mostly chronological flow, rising to a sort of crescendo with the devastating fire on Ash Wednesday, March 3, 1965, followed by two, probably too successful seasons culminating with the astounding success of Dames at Sea, and descending into drug-soaked chaos after John Torre’s death, which most surely was a factor leading Joe Cino  to  attempt to stab himself to death on March 31, 1967, and to his dying of peritonitis three days later in St. Vincent’s Hospital, on April 2, which happened to be Torre’s birthday.  The story of the greatness and the tragedy of the Cino is worthy of Italian opera; which, since he was a romantic Sicilian, was Joe’s favorite form of classical entertainment.  That his favorite forms of popular entertainment were the songs of Kate Smith and  the dancing of the  Rockettes, is a perfect range of the aesthetics of one with his gay-oriented personality.

Many of the aspects of the saga of the Cino, such as the ambience of the “room;” the closeness of the Cino “family;” the rise of the talented playwrights, performers and directors (some of whom went on to great fame, others who went on to unheralded fame, and some who chose to seek no fame at all); the fun and freedom of the early years and the drug-riddled agony (and ecstacy) of the later years (as epitomized by the “invasion” of the denizens of Andy Warhol’s Factory after the success of Dames at Sea, who are blamed by many for the collapse of the Cino); the immediate and long-range influence of the Cino on theater in New York City, the United States and, indeed, the world had been covered in lesser detail and from other angles in Crespy and Bottoms.  However, Stone is quite thorough and amazingly detailed on most aspects of this previously half-buried story.

 The last chapter, “The Magic Lives On,” receives its title from Joe’s announcement of the commencement of performances, by agitating the wind chimes and announcing from the front of the espresso bar, “It’s magic time.”  Stone ends the chapter with several anecdotes.  One is the request of the U.S. Overseas Information Agency to film the café as part of a documentary on “our cultural assets and the freedom of the Arts in our democracy.” But the café closed before the filming. “Though [the request] was too late to film the Cino, the memory of a short, fat dancer and his cluttered coffeehouse remains fresh, their legacy  influencing and inspiring artists who have never heard of either.  Now that since nearly four decades have elapsed since an actor has appeared on the stage at 31 Cornelia Street, perhaps we can begin to assess Joseph Cino’s contribution to our theater. (188-189).  A second anecdote is a quote from Ellen Stewart at the Opening Night Ceremonies of the 1985 Exhibition: “Remember that what came from his soul, what came from his heart, what came from his mind contributed in a large degree to everything that we are doing today.” (188).

 Other than the Notes problem, my main quibble with Stone’s format is the lack of intrachapter headings to help highlight sections of the narrative.  Also, the typeface is quite small.  Both of these  situations are likely due to the publisher’s desire to lessen the cost of printing; compared to the near “grandeur” of the Bottoms’ title, granted him by the University of Michigan, SIUs production of this volume of its “Theater in the Americas” series seems almost niggardly.  Maybe the whole series looks like this; I have seen none of the others.  If such is the case, $30.00 for paper and $60.00 for cloth is getting into the Greenwood Press range, which is beyond the cost of a personal purchase for many.

No matter; this title should be in all theater collections, as should Crespy and Bottoms; and this one especially should be in the personal collections of as many theatre afficionados as possible so that it can be marked up and underlined liberally.

But–there is another side to the Caffe Cino that none of these academic authors explores in detail. It takes a pop culture journalist to dig into the darker side.

                                                             Act Two–McDonough

Jimmy McDonough is a professional journalist.  His CV is elusive, but an author note near the back of The Ghastly One indicates that he has written extensively for the Village Voice, “writing intense, definitive profiles of such artists as Jimmy Scott, Neil Young, Gary Stewart, and Hubert Selby, Jr. He is also the author of Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography.”  His writing has also appeared in such publications as Variety, Film Comment, and Spin. (361) Admittedly, I was only slightly aware of either McDonough or Andy Milligan before I began reading the three academics on the off-off-Broadway theater.  Crespy doesn’t mention McDonough, nor does he include The Ghastly One in his bibliography, but he has three reference to Milligan’s work as a director in the early days of the Cino, most significantly: “Neil Flanagan. . . and Andy Milligan, later a porn filmmaker of great infamy, were rehearsing the muffin scene in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest.” (49).  This  hardly piqued my interest to seek further, but when I got to Bottoms, who has four references to Milligan, usually citing McDonough’s biography, this made me prick up my ears: “Milligan’s productions were either unforgivably sick, or chllingly beautiful, depending on one’s point of view,  but it was he that first gave the Cino a reputation for genuinely risky, deviant theatrical experimentation.” (48).  This was more intriguing; I made a note to read McDonough’s book.  Stone  has  nine index references to Milligan and four to McDonough. The first reference to McDonough reads, “Jimmy McDonough recently added significantly to the story of the Cino in his book about director Andy Milligan, though his narrative focuses on the drug abuse, sexual escapades, and darker side of the history.” (6).  The third reference to Milligan reads: “Many productions foregrounded issues of sexuality even when the original work was not specifically a ‘gay’ play.  Exemplifying this style is the work of Andy Milligan, often considered one of the key directors of this period; according to Robert Patrick, Milligan’s ‘Deathwatch was done near nude, The Maids near-porno.’ “ (43).

By the time I finished Stone’s book, and had read Patrick’s Temple Slave, I began to understand the answer to a question that had been intriguing me ever since I had begun to find these references to the significance of Milligan in the early days of the Cino: Why hadn’t I known more about him during the many months of preparation for the 1985 exhibition?  Neither my research assistant on the staff of the NYPL Theatre Collection, nor the many Cino family alumni with whom I was working, seemed to find in the first case, or speak about in the second case, any background on this obviously important innovator during the first days of the Cino.  We did have posters of a couple of productions he directed, plus some of those precious mimeographed programmes from the archives, but I was never told anything about the person.  True, toward the end of 1961, a few months after the two Genet plays, he was helping Ellen Stewart turn 32 East 9^th Street into the first La Mama, and by early 1962 he was, mostly unsuccessfully, trying to produce and direct elsewhere.

Now that I have read The Ghastly One, and spoken to some others who lived through the period, I think I understand what happened in 1985.  First, we were emphasizing the playwrights, especially  those such as Doric Wilson,  Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, Tom Eyen, William Hoffman,  H. M. Koutoukas, and Robert Patrick, and the like, who were the core players in the three-year period from 1963 to 1966 when the Cino was at an artistic peak, and Milligan was not a part of that; secondly, I have come to the conclusion, that although the Cino family alumni with whom I was working knew full-well about Milligan’s importance, they also knew about what he later became in “the sex-gore netherworld,” and had just rather not talk about.  I am rather bemused now when I think that Magie  Dominic, a Cino regular and Associate Curator of the exhibition, who appeared in two of Milligan’s horror-slasher epics in 1968, and that Kenny Burgess, Charles Loubier,  Joe Davies and others, who worked with me several months on the preparation, all knew Milligan well in his Cino days, and some a bit more than well.

McDonough, who became a close friend and confidant of Milligan in his last years, and during the filming of the unreleased Monstrosity in 1987, sat with him in the evenings, and made many hours  of audiotaped interviews.  Before he died on June 3, 1991, Milligan subjected himself to many more hours of taping.  He knew they were to be part of a biography.  The edited tapes are interspersed with McDonough’s narrative and they are–priceless.

On his days at the Cino and the 1985 exhibition: “It was exhilarating.  Now it’s copied. . . everything’s deja vu.  Face it, we were the forerunners of everything in that period.  Everything that’s done in TV and movies, we did at Cino and La Mama. And we did it better.  Cino was all original.  Ellen Stewart was really a copy of Joe–later overshadowing Joe.  But she’s no original, never has been.  Joe was the father of everything.  That Lincoln Center thing was a wake, a bunch of dead bodies.  They only push Lanford Wilson, Marshall Mason, Bob Heide, Bob Patrick, Harry Koutoukas–they took credit for everything.  They were very cliquish.  Looked down on me, nose in the air.  I’d say hi and they didn’t even answer.  They were very competitive, everybody was.  Nobody ever talked about anybody’s project but their own.   To me, they’re just shadows of what they once were.  See, the whole Cino crowd is really a loser crowd. They don’t want to make it.” (70-71).

After the aborted film Compass Rose, a sort of satire on the Cino/La Mama/Warhol crowd, which  Milligan disowned: “I never thought I’d live it down.  I’d go into the Cino, and Harry Koutoukas would say, ‘Here come the porn king.’ You got that sort of shit.  Bob Patrick used to do that all the  time.  When he’d introduce me to somebody on the street, he’d make a point–‘Oh, hi, this is Andy, he’s the porn king.’  Now I’m not known as that. I’m known as a horror filmmaker.” (184).  After viewing several of Milligan’s slasher/horror epics on DVD, I agree with him.  There is really very little that can be considered porn, except of the softest kind, and most of that was spliced in by the distributers to appeal more to the 42^nd Street grind house trade.

But what of Andy at the Cino?  Having arrived late in 1960, he directed at least nine productions before leaving to strike out on his own.  As described by McDonough from the Milligan interviews and from reminiscences of such Cino alumni as Johnny Dodd, the genius lighting designer, Joe Davies, Kenny Burgess, and Charles Loubier, three of the closest members of the Cino “family,” and others, including Robert Patrick, most of Milligan’s shows were sadistic; violent to the point of physical injury, especially to female actors; shockingly disturbing to some audiences [and some of the staff–Johnny Dodd said, “The Maids made people leave the room, including me.” (39)]; and ultimately set “. . . a standard for how far you could go–which was nearly killing people.” (41).

 While Milligan was active in the theatrical aspects of life at the Cino, he was also very active as a more than willing participant in orgiastic sexual activity that went on after the audiences went home and the doors were locked.  Although it does not take place at the Cino, but at the Actors Playhouse, McDonough describes a scene of S&M sexual sadism involving Milligan, as told him by Joe Davies, that makes one’s flesh crawl. (38-39).  As I read, it became more clear all the time while those now middle-aged Cino regulars did not want to regale me with the exploits of their youth.   For a biographer of Milligan, apparently, their rules were different.

 McDonough spends little time on the “good years” from 1963 to 1966, except to emphasize the arrival of Johnny Torre (as Bob Patrick says it should be spelled), and his tempestuous relationship with Joe Cino, one Cino regular calling him “the devil who came into paradise.”(49); and the arrival of the “Warhol people,” more strongly implicated here in the drug-drenching of the Cino than in Crespy, Bottoms, or Stone.  When McDonough interviewed Ondine, the Warhol superstar( and the  star of the Cino’s methedrine-ridden 1966 Chas. Dickens  Christmas Carol),  in 1989, he turned the usual story around, claiming that everybody took drugs, that he went to the Cino to buy his peyote, and that: “The ‘Warhol People’ were an infusion of blood when the Caffe Cino needed it.    I brought in an audience that was pretty spectacular.  It wasn’t just created to be pocket theater for a bunch of old faggots.” (63).  So the interpretation of the decline after 1966 depends on one’s viewpoint.

 The outline of the facts are basically agreed upon by all the authors.  Johnny Torre, the electrical genius who had wired the Caffe Cino directly off the New York City power grid, died of an electrical accident, on January 5, 1967.  Joe Cino went berserk for awhile, began to move more heavily into drugs, and after attempting suicide, died at St. Vincent’s three days later.  McDonugh repeats the same story as the others, in almost the same words.  So “Amen” to that part of the off-off-Broadway story.

 The rest of McDonough’s liberally illustrated biography of Andy Milligan covers his filmmaking years, and it is a fascinating read, recommended for anyone interested in the direction, production, distribution, and promotion of this facet of film history.  I recommend that you search the author and title in the web, until you find http://www.time.com/time/sampler/article/0,8599,186531.00.html.  There you will find a 21-page review of the book posted by Richard Corliss on November 30, 2001 in the TIME Online Edition.  He calls the book a “masterpiece. . . a work of art to be proud of.”  Try it, you’ll like it.

      Act Three

                                                  Scene One–Patrick, the Temple Slave

 Robert Patrick was part of the Cino family from 1961 to the final closing in 1968.  Until his first play, The Haunted Host, was presented in 1964, he was one of Joe Cino’s “temple slaves,” being everything from doorkeeper to waiter and more.  His full-length play, Kennedy’s Children (1973), is based on his experiences of the previous decade, much influenced by the Cino.  Bottoms says, “it provided a bleak epitaph for the decade passed. . . .and is a harrowing attempt to map out the ‘enormous despair’ felt by many in the 1970s–the numb disillusionment that inevitably followed on from a period of such heightened idealism and creativity. . . [it] reached Broadway in the fall of 1975, but its run was brief, and in hindsight it is easy to see why: this is no ‘feel-good’ play for commercial audiences.” (347).  Bottoms discusses the play at considerable length, and rightly places it in that time when many were feeling a great sense of loss, while others were looking toward new venues, at least partly based on the off-off-Broadway model of the 60s. (349). 
Patrick’s four-page resume is at http://members.aol.com/rbrtptrck/myhomepage/resume.html
and a ten-page comprehensive coverage is on the Knitting Circle site at
http://www.knittingcircle.org.uk/robertpatrick.html. He is alive and well,  living in Los Angeles,   and accumulating a large pictorial archive of the 60s off-off-Broadway era, with emphasis on the Cino.  His e-mail address is listed above; he is an excellent source of factual and anecdotal information for anyone studying or doing research on off-off-Broadway.

 Robert has asked me to say that the author affirms that Temple Slave is ENTIRELY fictional.

 Done.

 

Here is what our other authors say about it.  Crespy: “Patrick’s experience at the Cino became the subject of his evocative roman a clef Temple Slave, a fictionalized story of the Cino that is a must -read for anyone interested in off-off-Broadway.  In the novel, the Cino became the Café Buffo (sic).  Patrick embellishes what happened there in a joyful, erotic fantasia which, though not entirely true,  conveys what it was like to be part of that world.  It’s a world that freely mingles exquisite artistic and sexual freedom with the darkness of Joe Cino’s mysterious inner circle of friends, hedonists, and lovers.  Patrick not only knew that scene well–he was the model Cino temple slave.  Magie Dominic remembers Patrick at the Cino ‘on the phone at the door and beside a table and writing a play, all simultaneously.’” (48).  Bottoms, after discussing the 1966 Christmas Carol at length (and what a tale it is!):  “In Temple Slave, a fictionalized account of his Cino days, Robert Patrick, who belatedly took a part in the show as a favor to Joe Cino, suggests just how out of control the production became.  In his version of the events, the entire cast cook up a batch of speed backstage: ‘We took  one last whiff and parachuted onto the stage in a brain-damaged parody of professionalism. [Yet] we wired, screaming ganglia-shaped-like-showfolk apparently always gave a great show’(1994, 406)” (286). Stone: “Some time ago Robert Patrick stirred up more than a bit of controversy with his pseudoautobiographical romantic novel Temple Slave, in which he describes the gay orgies and drug abuse at Espresso Buono, a coffeehouse in Greenwich Village not unlike Caffe Cino.  The work is fiction and clearly should not be taken as an accurate portrayal of any real persons or events. But some who were part of the Cino scene point to the novel as an accurate portrayal of the atmosphere at the Cino, while others strongly reject the portrait it contains.  As Patrick has said (in an e-mail to Stone): ‘Except for the title character cooly observing Joe Buono’s suicide, everything that happened in Temple Slave really happened.  It didn’t all happen in one place, and it certainly didn’t all happen to one person.  There were as many Caffe Cinos as there were people who came through the door.  There is no one simple truth about the place.  No one knew everything that went on there. That is why my story is cast as fiction, and why I have encouraged each of its critics  to write about his Cino–each of which would, believe me, seem as fictitious to me as mine does to them.’”(92-93). [As another Cino regular once said, it was all very “Rashomon-like.”]  McDonough: “In the nineties, Patrick–best known for his play Kennedy’s Children–published a graphic novel based on the Cino entitled Temple Slaves (sic).  Milligan, who appears briefly as the character Nate, was outraged by the book, calling it a ‘cheap pulp faggot novel’ and decried Patrick’s ‘asexual sexuality.  He’s not involved.  It’s cold–there’s no heart, not pathos.’  As for being about the Cino, Milligan felt the book was ‘fantasy.’”(footnote, 37).

So–what does your humble servant think?  I was there a lot, as an audience member.  Though I saw the “room” night after night, I knew nothing of the interpersonal relations of the characters in the Cino saga at the time.  I knew many of them in 1985, including Bob Patrick, but what went on after the doors were locked was not discussed.  Many encouraged me to write about “my” Cino after the exhibition.  Now I realize that, even with all the archival memorabilia and possible interviewees right at hand, it would have taken considerable probing and cajoling to find any kind of truth.  They all saw what they wanted to see, or what they chose to see.  However, in reading Temple Slave after the other four accounts, I am able to put the real names to nearly all of the major characters in the novel.  It reminds me of the game of “Humiliate the Host” in Virginia Woolf when Martha says “Georgie said . . . it isn’t a novel at all. . . No, sir. . . it isn’t a novel at all. . . this is the truth. . . this really happened . . . IT HAPPENED! TO ME! TO ME!” (Collected Plays of Edward Albee, Volume 2, 246-247).  And then after all the illusions have been shattered in the Exorcism of Act Three, Nick says “Jesus Christ, I think I understand this.” (Ibid., 307).  We know, or think we now, that it was indeed not a novel, and that the truth must be faced, absurd though it may be.  So although Temple Slave is written as a novel, and Bob says it is entirely fictional, I think we can safely say that IT HAPPENED! TO HIM! TO HIM!

                                                                       Act Three

                                           Scene Two–Esslin, the explicator of the absurd

It is appropriate that references to Edward Albee lead us to Esslin’s definitive work on The Theatre of the Absurd, the third edition of which devotes four pages to Albee, covering the early one-act plays, Virginia Woolf, and Tiny Alice, concisely and with considerable perception.(311-314). The bibliography lists Albee’s published plays through Seascape (1976), and four critical works to 1978.(439).  The only other American playwrights covered are Jack Gelber and Arthur Kopit, and the only others of English “origin” are Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Norman Simpson.  Why then am I rounding out my off-off-Broadway disquisition with Esslin’s groundbreaking work on a mainly, it is said, European theatrical phenomenon?  Simply because the influence of the European playwrights whom Esslin labels as “absurd” had enormous influence on most of the playwrights of the 60s in America.  It is quite surprising to me that none of the titles under consideration here specifically reference the Theatre of the Absurd series produced by Barr and Wilder at the Cherry Lane in February and March of 1962.  The series opened with Endgame, and included seminal works by Genet, Arrabal, Ionesco, and the Americans Kenneth Koch, Jack Richardson and Albee. On February 12, 1962, The New York Times printed an article by Lewis Funke reviewing the opening night, including  the future schedule, and giving a concise evaluation of the movement.  After stating that “orthodox theatre men are inclined to regard the movement as a passing phenomenon,” he agrees with Esslin’s observation in The Theatre of the Absurd that “it deserves the most serious attention.” (Google “theatre absurd cherry lane 1962" to find the full article) Two weeks later, on February 25, 1962, the thirty-three year old Edward Albee wrote in the Times an article entitled “Which Theatre Is the Absurd One?” In it he acknowledges his participation in the Cherry Lane series and assures the reader that “. . . the playwrights of The Theatre of the Absurd have forever altered our response to the theatre.” (Google same terms as above for full article). In his preface to Crespy’s book, Albee says: “[In the 50s we were influenced by]. . . the production in New York City of the plays of the European avant garde–Beckett, Genet, Ionesco and (perhaps not exactly avant garde but important and almost unknown) Pirandello and Brecht.  An entire generation of young American playwrights saw worlds of creative possibility open to them. . . [in the] theaters and cafes of off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway in New York City.” (9).

As noted previously, Crespy discusses the absurdist influence at some length, specifically citing Esslin’s book, and also the influence of surrealism and homoeroticism, where he slots Genet, making him a sort of special category of the absurd, I suppose.(22-23).  He does cite one quite significant absurd influence–the impact that the Cino production of The Lesson had on the young Lanford Wilson in January 1963.  “He was utterly ‘blown away by the experience,’. . . calling the play’s brutal ending, when the professor murders the student solely by language, ‘ghastly’.” (57) [Milligan had left the Cino by then; I could find no source that indicates who directed this “ghastly” production, but the Milligan influence seems to have been there.]

Bottoms specifically cites Esslin’s book twice (86, 129), and discusses the influence of the absurd in several places, most significantly in emphasizing “a new wave of playwrights” that included Beckett, Ionesco and Genet; how Albee acknowledges Beckett as a key influence; and how Esslin labeled this new wave “theater(sic) of the absurd.” (21).  He also discusses Julie Bovasso’s short- lived Tempo Theatre, which presented, between 1955 and 1957, the first American productions of plays by Genet, Ionesco and de Ghelderode.  “Many off-off playwrights . . . went on to domesticate the inspiration of Genet, Ionesco, and Beckett in in very similar ways to those employed by Bovasso as a director.” (26-28).  The Lanford Wilson–The Lesson confluence is here rendered simply as:’. .he was astonished by the quality and immediacy of the January 1963 production of Ionesco’s The Lesson. . .” (52).

Strangely, considering all of his philosophical and sociopolitical emphasis on trends and genres, Stone makes no specific mention of Esslin or his book, at least not in the index–I  did not wade through the 25 pages of confusing notes, but “absurdist theatre” appears three times in the index.  “A great many of the productions were recent European hits, particularly those of the absurdist and other avant-garde movements.”(43).  He then mentions plays by Sartre, Giraudoux and Pirandello; and in a separate category of “gay men,” Gide, Genet, William Inge, and Tennessee Williams!(ibid.).  He later points out that “ [Albee’s] use of absurdist techniques pointed the direction for other playwrights in the United States.” (63).  Then, in discussing the work of Harry Koutoukas, he says he “creates in his plays an absurdist world devoid of meaning but always on the verge of meaning, a nonsense world threatening to achieve but never achieving clarity. . . This world,  in which basic signifying systems are sabotaged and understanding is always deferred, reflects the existentialist’s understanding of existence.” (87).  Here he is speaking much as does Esslin; I assume he must have read him, but I suppose I will never know unless I ask him. Finally, one finds a reference, that due to the vagaries of indexing. could be easily lost, because the word “absurdism” is not indexed.  Thus we have “. . . it seems likely that [Lanford ] Wilson first attended the Cino in January 1963 when Ionesco’s The Lesson was playing.  It was Wilson’s introduction to Ionesco, to absurdism, and to the fledgling off-off-Broadway scene that became his theatrical home.” (73).  

As to the general question of how much the young playwrights of the 60s were influenced by the European absurdists explicated at length by Esslin, the answer has to come from their absorption of the atmosphere of the productions of the work of those playwrights that could be seen in New York in the late 50s and early 60s and how it seems to have influenced their own work; but if the examples of Albee and Wilson are any indication, it was surely there.   I could find no specific reference to any of them saying that had actually read Esslin, but we know that absurdism was most definitely in the theater air.

The Caffe Cino playlist prepared for the 1985 exhibition cites over a dozen absurdist playwrights,  including two plays by Genet (the graphic Milligan poductions of Deathwatch and The Maids) and four by Ionesco.  Crespy, Bottoms and Stone have many absurd plays and playwrights sprinkled through their indices, and McDonough cites, in addition to the Genets, a Milligan production of Arrabel’s The Two Executioners that was, Johnny Dodd said,  full of “abstract violence, the color red, blood-red roses, a crucified Christ, and somebody being executed for no apparent reason.” (38).

It is clear that the European Absurdists were an influence through example but, considering the non-conformist, anti-middle class, anti-well made play attitude of these young Americans, that example helped them to develop a particular form of Absurdism, a fine representation of which is Jean-Claude van Itallie’s America Hurrah,  subtitled “Three Views of the U.S.A,” which was completed and presented  off-Broadway in 1966. It received mixed, but provocative, reviews that stimulated adventurous theatregoers to give it a try.  The play is discussed by Bottoms in considerable detail (181-185).  Though the word “absurd” is never mentioned in this lengthy coverage, many absurdist techniques are evident: dehumanized actors, verbal and visual assault on the audience, ritualistic condemnation of vapid middle class values, etc.  “Appearing at a pivotal moment in the mid-1960s, it blazed a trail for future marketing of “countercultural” material.” (185).

So whether or not the young off-off-Broadway playwrights of the 1960s had read Esslin’s elegantly argued discussions of the traditions, techniques, and playwright proponents of the absurd, they absorbed enough Absurdist atmosphere, both from the stage and the street, to entitle them to be considered the exponents of a particularly Americanized version of absurd theater.

The Theatre of the Absurd remains a landmark title in theater history and theory.  For those who have never read it, and for those who have not read this third and final edition, it is a must.

                                                                         CODA

            Where some Contradictory Statements are Examined and some Spelling Errors Exposed

                                                   Part I–Questions on Contradictions

Due to the capriciousness of memory and the difficulty of guaranteeing the accuracy of sources, there are some contradictions of both fact and theory in our tragical, comical, historical saga that need to be addressed.  Some are more important than others; I take up a few that I find quite intriguing.

 What was the seating capacity of the Caffe Cino?  Crespy: “Robert Patrick . . . recalled that the room could legally hold ninety people, but he regularly seated many more, squeezed in so closely that when the actors moved, audience members could feel the breeze of their motions.” (36).  Bottoms:  “A comfortable capacity of about thirty was thus expanded to accommodate a crush of up to ninety–although Robert Patrick. . . claims he could sometimes squeeze in many more for popular shows, by asking people to sit on tables and stand against the wall.” (51).  Stone: “Estimates of seating capacity vary from seventy-five to ninety, though many more people could be squeezed in for popular shows.” (25).   McDonough: “. . . whatever odd found objets d’art were tacked hastily to the walls of the long dark room–which might hold sixty at best–in some coffeehouse approximation of chaos.” (25).  Conclusion: Patrick’s recollection is undoubtedly most accurate. Although  I don’t recall that legal seating capacity signs were posted in the 60s, my own memory tells me that thirty is too few, that sixty was comfort level, but most nights at least ninety must have been there.  Since the entire “room” was approximately eighteen by thirty feet, and the “stage” was eight by eight, I don’t think a legal capacity of ninety would be allowed by today’s standards.

How did the Caffe Cino Comic Book plays originate?  Crespy: “Most famously, Robert Patrick is credited with starting the Cino’s tradition of performing material from comic books. . . Cino alerted him that John Guare’s company of actors weren’t going to make it for that night’s show. . . ‘O.K.,’ proclaimed Patrick, ‘send someone to the drugstore to buy all of the copies of whichever comic book they have the most of.’  The command was carried out immediately, and soon they had multiple copies of ‘Wonder Woman.’” (51). Bottoms: “The first [comic book adaptation] had appeared a few months before Cino’s death, in December 1966, when the scheduled show. . . was canceled at short  notice, without explanation.. . . director Donald Brooks suggested that Patrick run out to the nearest newsstand for whatever comic he could find most copies of.  He returned with Wonder Woman: The Secret of Taboo Mountain.” (289).  Stone: After a lengthy comment about which cancellation caused the crisis, he states that, “The exhibit in 1985 relied on Charles Stanley’s resume to give him credit,” citing my scrapbook prepared from the exhibition. (138).  He then proceeds to give a “more likely” scenario: “When Brooks proposed . . . a strategy to cover the absence of the Guare work, Patrick sent someone around the corner to purchase ‘whichever comic the drugstore has the most copies of.’  It turned out to be Wonder Woman.” (138).  The citation for the quote is an e-mail from Patrick to Stone, March 10, 2004.  In an e-mail to me, dated October 31, 2005, Patrick agrees with this scenario, stating that after Brooks “suggested a comic book.  I sent someone out to buy whichever comic book they could find the most copies of.  It turned out to be ‘Wonder Woman.’”

So, since I trust Patrick’s memory, he did not go himself, but sent somebody–but we still don’t know who that was or whether that person went to a newsstand or the drugstore.  Does it matter?  Probably not in the long run, but it is at least nice to know that an error in the 1985 exhibition catalog has been at last cleared up.

How significant is Lanford Wilson’s The Madness of Lady Bright to the history of the Caffe Cino and to gay theatre in general?  Crespy: He discusses it as “the play that defined Wilson’s experience at the Caffe Cino. . . [after a description of the play’s content, Crespy goes on] “[Wilson] called Neil Flanagan and asked him if Joe would allow having a ‘screaming, raging queen going hysterically mad onstage right before our eyes.’ Flanagan said yes, read the play, insisted that he play Leslie Bright himself, and the rest is Cino history.” (58-59). Bottoms goes further.  “Wilson’s most acclaimed and controversial Cino play was The Madness of Lady Bright (May 1964), which finally traversed the huge psychological barrier between making gay-friendly theater, and making theater about gay characters—a move that shocked even the Caffe’s clientele. . . [but] the production proved so popular with audiences that Joe Cino immediately extended the standard two-week engagement . . . and with repeated revivals over the next three years, Lady Bright eventually clocked up over two hundred performances . . . Lady Bright’s success encouraged other Cino playwrights to follow suit, and experiment with similarly ‘out’ gay material.  Wilson’s play was so significant to the Cino that its history can effectively be divided into periods ‘before’ and ‘after’ Lady Bright. [The program] “became devoted almost exclusively to new writing.” (53-55).  Stone; In his four-page analysis ot the play, he says that “the play seems to have offended relatively few audience members, because, Wilson argues, of how beautifully it was done.. . . According to Wilson, audiences seemed to get what he was trying to say: ‘So many older women came to me and said, “Your play is not about homosexuality, it’s about loneliness.” ’ ” (75-77).  This contradicts Bottoms’ statement that the Cino’s clientele was  shocked by the play, but he does equivocate, when he has Wilson say  “There were some outsiders [italics mine] who came and were shocked , but I decided they shouldn’t have come in the first place. . . “ (Bottoms, 54).  This leads me to believe that the regulars accepted and understood the play, and were not offended by the “screaming, raging queen” aspect of it.  Surprisingly, Stone does not go into the profound influence Lady Bright had on the future of the programming of the Cino; perhaps he accepts it as a given.  McDonough: After citing The Madness of Lady Brite(sic) [one of numerous  spelling errors in the book] as “Lanford Wilson’s much loved ode to an aging drag queen. . .,” there appears this footnote: “Milligan absolutely hated The Madness of Lady Brite.  ‘It was distasteful,’ he said, looking completely offended.  ‘Couldn’t stand sitting through it. . . a faggot going on about tricks.’” (37). To understand Milligan’s remark, one must realize that he was a sadist homosexual in denial, and despised “queers and queens.”  McDonough, in another footnote, regarding Milligan’s  sex life,  quotes John Rechy, author of City of Night regarding gay S&M: “[It is] the most honest form of self-oppression.  In it the only S is a heterosexual and the only M is a homosexual.  The dynamics of the playacting are, ‘I will now play straight and you will be the queer, and I will punish you for having desire.’” (49).  This too helps one understand why there are no happy homosexuals in Milligan’s slasher/horror films, and why he seldom went back to the Cino after the openly gay programming became predominant.

 Where and when did the first American production of The Zoo Story take place?  Crespy: “. . . in 1960 in Greenwich Village. . .  at the Provincetown Playhouse. . . .” (18).  He gives no specific date and does not mention the other half of the now-famous double bill, Krapp’s Last Tape.  Bottoms:  “It [along with Krapp] opened at the Cherry Lane in January 1960, and Albee became, by proxy, part of the European new wave.” (21).  Of course it was the Pronvincetown; how such a careful researcher as Bottoms could have made such an error escapes me.  Incidentally, the exact date was  January 14, 1960. (The Collected Plays of Edward Albee, Volume I, p 13).  

 Where did Dames at Sea have its long off-Broadway run?  Crespy: “. . . in December 1968 [it] moved from the Cino [NB:   Well, not directly, the Cino had been closed for months and this was an almost totally new production.] to off-Broadway, where it ran for 575 performances at the Bouwerie Lane. (157).   Bottoms: “Capitalizing still more directly on the Cino’s achievements, the off-Broadway production of Dames at Sea opened that December [1868].” (291). This doesn’t tell us much.  Stone: He rightly goes into considerable detail (121-127) on the conception and production at the Cino in the “summer” of 1966 [NB: It actually opened May 17]; the disagreements between director Bob Dahdah and the creators of the piece; and how neither Joe Cino or Dahdah “benefitted from the original off-Broadway run nor from subsequent productions, despite their investment in the piece.”(125). Although the reader knows that Stone knows the Dames chronology well, he cites a Stages article from September 1985 that states it “began as a small scale revue at the Caffe Cino in 1968.”!! (126).  From then he states the chronology like this: “In 1968, without Dahdah’s participation, Dames opened off Broadway at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre. . . then moved to the Theatre De Lys (now the Lucille Lortell).” (125-126), with no mention of the length of the run.  The correct information, which I take from the booklet in the “Orignal Broadway (sic) Cast album CD [NB: the back cover of the booklet adds the “off”.], and can be easily confirmed in any number of theater reference works, is as follows: “Dames at Sea opened December 20, 1968, at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre in New York City.  It moved on April 22, 1969, to the Theatre de Lys.  Closed May 10, 1970. (575 performances).”  The extensive  notes  in the booklet, written by Mark Kirkeby, gives some background on the origins of the show, and include this: “The premiere finally occurred in 1966 as a 45-minute, one-act cabaret at a long-departed Greenwich Village coffeehouse called Caffe Cino.” (CD booklet, p 5). The newest copyright in the booklet is Sony Music Entertainment Inc. in 1992, so it was available to all of these authors.  Bottoms is the only one of them who cites what he calls “Soundtrack Albums,” and lists the Columbia Records 1969 release of Dames at Sea (388), which if I recall correctly had very meager liner notes and was issued while the show was still running at the de Lys.  With a little more digging, how easy it would have been to get it right!

On Johnny Torre (Which Bob Patrick assures me is the correct spelling): A. Why did he leave the Cino and New York City in late 1966?  B. Where and how did he die?  A.  Neither Crespy nor Bottoms venture an answer.  Stone: Afer discussing the drug-drenched situation at the Cino, “[Joe Cino] convinced Jonathan Torrey that he too had to overcome his addiction by returning to his family in New Hampshire.” (140); and later, after Torre’s death, “. . . Cino seems to have felt guilty at having sent Torrey away to meet his death.” (151).   McDonough: “Jonathan Torrey, sent back home for some unnamed offense, or maybe to dry out from amphetamines . . .” (65).  So it seems  that, Joe to his later regret, had sent his violent, sex-obsessed, drug-addicted lover away to “clean up.”  B: Crespy:  “He died in 1966, electrocuted during the run of a play in New Hampshire.” (40).  Bottoms: “On January 5, 1967, his lover, Jon Torrey, was electrocuted while working on power cables in a New Jersey factory.” (286).  Stone: He researched the event more diligently, and dismissing previous stories of Torre’s death, cites an article in the local Jaffrey, New Hampshire newspaper, the Monadnock Ledger, dated January 12, 1967.  The true story is that he had returned to a job he had held previously, at the Bean Fiber Glass factory.  On January 7, he started repairs on one of the looms and crawled under the frame with a grinding device which shorted out when it was turned on. He was electrocuted by the malfunction, and was not able to be revived, either by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or a mechanical resuscitator. He died while still at the plant.  “. . . some people have argued that Torrey intentionally exposed himself to the live current.”(141). It is important to understand the true reason that Torre left town and how he died, because the Torre disaster was surely a contributing factor to Joe Cino’s death a few months later.  

                                              Part II–Spelling Errors and Inconsistencies

Of the works’s analyzed in this article, those of Crespy, Bottoms, Stone and McDonough have been scrutinized by me as if by a proofreader.  There may be typos or other errors in Temple Slave and  The Theatre of the Absurd, but since the first is “fiction,” and the second a classic work of theater criticism I have not attempted to second guess at this time any anomalies they may contain. 

So what did I discover?  All had some errors, mainly with names, but on the whole, except for McDonough, came out quite well.

                                                                        Epilogue

After learning that this article was to be published on the Theatre Library Association website, I decided that some significant links to some of the web sources relating to the subjects covered would be helpful to the reader.  Many sites are revealed when one Googles the names or subjects that  are related to the underground theater of the 60s; some such have been mentioned in the text.  Here I offer a few that are either difficult or nearly impossible to find by the usual search methods.

The most significant links are those to Robert Patrick; his e-mail address and two sources of biographical information have already been cited: rbrtparck@aol.com, http://members.aol.com/rbrtptrck/myhomepage/resume.html, and http://www.knittingcircle.org.uk/robertpatrick.html.  The direct address of his home page is: http://hometown.aol.com/rbrtptrck/myhomepage/ .  Every few days he sends e-mails to his list of “undisclosed recipients” with new tidbits of off-off historical information, usually with photos attached.  He seems to be working up a valuable pictorial archive of the underground theater of the 1960s.  I suggest that one e-mail him and ask to be placed on his e-mail list.  There are already 12 pages of a Caffe Cino gallery, each with a separate URL.  The first is http://hometown.aol.com/rbrtptrck/Dailypage1.html. At the top of that page, the address for the next  is given, and so to all twelve.  However, the full address must be typed into the address bar to get to each page.  He says he doesn’t know how to link them into a sequence.  More recently, this problem has been corrected with the creation of a blog page at http://cheeptheatricks.blogspot.com/  which includes special linking via a "GO TO" at the top of each page.  He announced in early  November that James Gossage, the photographer whose images of the Cino are used so generously in Playing Underground had sent him a large cache of images which he (Robert) is going to scan, and presumably post to the web.  This will be a spectacular source.

Another link, especially for those in the New York City area, is http://www.peculiarworks.org, which is the website of an organization celebrating, in 2006, fifty years of the New York underground theatre.  Click on “The Off Project,” and then on “schedule,” and find a list of planned revivals, running from January to June 2006, which includes more than twenty of the plays discussed in the  volumes reviewed in this article.  This is either serendipity or coincidence, perhaps both.

Doric Wilson was the first Caffe Cino “house playwright.”  He is still very active; his website is at http://doricwilson.com/  Click on “Caffe Cino” for a long personal reminiscence of his work at the Cino.