Performances are being held at different locations (for now) around San Francisco. The latest one took place at Bannam Place Theater , 50 Bannam Place, North Beach, between Union and Green and between Grant and Stockton.
More important at this point is the question: why here? Why in America? The simplest answer (and almost a correct one) would be: because America needs it the most. The problem (as usual with those who need something is that Americans are unaware of that need. Well, this is not the first time something like this is happening in the course of World's history.
You see, theater in America at this point is pretty much at odds with a perception of theater that Oscar Brockett had:
"Through role playing, either in daily life or in the theater, we come to understand who and what we are and to see ourselves in relation to others. In a world given increasingly to violence, the value of being able to understand and feel for others as human beings cannot be overestimated, because violence flourishes only when we so dehumanize others, that we no longer think of their hopes, aims, and sufferings but treat them as objects to be manipulated or on whom to vent our frustrations. To know what it means to be human in the broadest sense ought to be one of the primary goals of both education and life. And in reaching that goal no approach has greater potential than theater since man is its subject and human beings its primary medium. But the theaters great potential is not always or automatically fulfilled. Those working in theater often are preoccupied with the immediate process or with egotistical goals, while audience, often concentrate only on surface qualities and students of theater may fail to see anything in their study of the past that is pertinent to them."
See? Theater in America is turned very much inward, towards the individual, towards a poor self.
