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Guerrilla theatre, or Guerrilla Performance, is a term coined in 1965 within the San Francisco Mime Troupe to describe its performances, that in spirit of the Che Guevara writings from which the term guerrilla is taken, were committed to "revolutionary sociopolitical change." The group performances were aimed against the Vietnam war and Capitalism, contained nudity, profanity and taboo subject that were shoking to some of the audience of the time.

Guerrilla (Spanish for "little war") describes the act of spontaneous, surprise performances in unlikely public spaces to an unsuspecting audience. Typically these performances intend to draw attention to a political/social issue through satire, protest, and carnivalesque techniques. Although the exact derivation of the term is yet to be identified, most scholars place its etymology around 1965-70, as many of these performances were a direct result of the radical social movements circa 1967-69.

Origins

The term Guerrilla Theatre was coined by Peter Berg, who in 1965 suggested it to R.G. Davis as the title of his essay on the San Francisco Mime Troupe actions, which will be first published in 1966. The term "guerrilla" was inspired by a passage in a 1961 Che Guevara essay, which read:

The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people.... From the very beginning he has the intention of destroying an unjust order and therefore an intention... to replace the old with something new.

Davis had studied mime and modern dance in the 1950s and had discovered commedia dell'arte. In autumn 1966 around 20 members of the San Francisco Mime Troupe broke off and started their own collective called the Diggers, who took their name from a group of 17th century radicals in England.

Guerrilla theatre in practice

Guerrilla theatre shares its origins with many forms of political protest and street theatre including agitprop (agitation-propaganda), carnival, parades, pageants, political protest, performance art, happenings, and, most notably, the Dada movement and guerrilla art. Although this movement is widely studied in Theatre History classrooms, the amount of research and documentation of "guerrilla theatre" is surprisingly lacking. The term, ìGuerrilla Theatreî seems to have emerged during the mid-1960s primarily as an upshot of radical activist theatres such as The Living Theatre, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Bread and Puppet Theatre, El Teatro Campesino, and the Free Southern Theatre. It also shares considerable roots in Allan Kaprow's "happenings". The first widely documented Guerrilla Performances were under the leadership of Abbie Hoffman and the Youth International Party (Yippies). One of their most publicized events occurred on August 24, 1967 at the New York Stock Exchange where Hoffman and other Yippies threw dollar bills to the brokers below. Creating a media frenzy, the event was publicized internationally. In his later publication, Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (1980), Hoffman refers to his television appearances with specially planned subversive tactics as "guerrilla theatre." Another Guerrilla Performance that helped bring the term to wide acceptance was the Guerrilla Girls. This group of feminist artist/activists was established in New York City in 1985 with the purpose of bringing attention to the lack of female artists in major art galleries and museums. The Guerrilla Girls began their work through guerrilla art tactics which broadened to include guerrilla theatre. Some common practices to their guerrilla theatre techniques that have been replicated by other groups include appearing in costume, using assumed names, and disguising their identity. The legacy of guerrilla theatre can be seen in the work of these political/performance groups:

• ACT UP
• Billionaires for Bush
• Billionaires for Wealthcare
• Bread and Puppet Theatre
• Church Ladies for Choice
• The Church of Euthanasia
• Circus Amok
• Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
• El Teatro Campesino
• Oil Enforcement Agency
• Reclaim the Streets
• Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
• San Francisco Mime Troupe
• Welfare State International
• Free Southern Theatre

References

1. Richard Schechner, "Guerrilla Theatre: May 1970", The Drama Review 14:3 (1970), 163-168.
2. ^ Gordon, Kelly Carolyn (2007) Guerrilla theater, in Gabrielle H. Cody, Evert Sprinchorn (2007) The Columbia encyclopedia of modern drama, Volume 1, pp.568-9
3. Peter Braunstein, Michael William Doyle (2002) Imagine nation: the American counterculture of the 1960s and '70s, p.93 note #9
4. ^ Doyle, Michael William (2002). Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and '70s. Routledge. ISBN 0415930405. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
5. Davis (1966) Guerrilla theater in Tulane Drama Review, summer 1966. Republished in The SFMT, 149-53. p.70
6. Davis (1971) Rethinking guerrilla theater, 1971, 1985 in Donald Lazere American media and mass culture: left perspectives p.599
7. Ernesto Guevara Guerrilla Warfare, Thomas M. Davies, Rowman & Littlefield, 1997, ISBN 0842026789

Further reading

• Random House Webster's College Dictionary. New York: Random House, 1992, pp. 593.
• Brockett, Oscar. History of the Theatre. 7th ed. Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Simon & Schuster, 1995, pp. 575.
• Random House Webster's College Dictionary. New York: Random House, 1992, pp. 27.
• Cohen-Cruz, Jan, ed. Radical Street Performance. New York: Routledge, 1998.
• Brockett, Oscar. History of the Theatre. 7th ed. Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Simon & Schuster, 1995, pp. 575.
• Durland, Steven. "Witness: The Guerrilla Theatre of Greenpeace." Radical Street Performance. Jan Cohen-Cruz, ed. New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 67–73.
• Hoffman, Abbie. "America Has More Television Sets Than Toilets." Radical Street Performance. Jan Cohen-Cruz, ed. New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 190–195.

• Activism by method
• Culture jamming techniques
• Political communication
• Theatrical genres
• Street theatre
• Modernist drama, theatre and performance