Mysteries and Smaller Pieces

At the beginning of Mysteries and Smaller Pieces, a lone actor essentially dares the audience to a 15-minute staring contest. Amid this still silence, it won’t take you long to learn whether or not the Living Theatre is for you. Testing the boundaries of performance has been the company’s hallmark since the 1950s and ’60s, when Peter Brook praised it as an exemplar of “holy theater.” Forty years later, 81-year-old cofounder Judith Malina and her colleagues are still keeping it sacred.

Unlike The Brig, the troupe’s recently revived classic, Mysteries (1964) is less a play than a happening. Some of its nine unconnected, mostly wordless episodes of structured improvisation unfold like simple acting-class presentations (passing around sounds and gestures). But the beginning and ending sequences are still riveting and transcendent: the creepy collage of recitations from U.S. currency with soldierly stamping; a hushed vigil of burning incense sticks in the dark; and the closing “die-in,” where the performers succumb to violent plague and symbolically bury each other in a pile. Audience participation abounds, but not for the fun of it. Whether forming a ring of contemplation with the actors or contending with plague victims clawing at our feet, we are constantly forced to uncomfortably confront our own complacency in the face of suffering. Legally Blonde this is not.

Seeing this legendary company—and Malina herself—onstage reminds you of a time when theater mattered as a rebellious activity. If you go to Mysteries you may be confused, embarrassed and even pissed off. But you’ll never forget it.