Journal on The counterculture in the sixities Essay

Journal on The counterculture in the half-dozenities - Essay Exampleld are not as free as they think because they are slaves to convention, unable to speak freely about sex or politics, which is an indirect reference to the horrors of war which flock tolerate without speaking up. In the second article, Schneeman describes how actors graphically demonstrate the body toll in war by dragging bodies along the stage, while the third article (1967) describes the fate of six men who were drafted into the war from Brooklyn and ultimately died.Another theme is the need to introduce more realism into theatre, without any need to dress it up with the propaganda that forms a get down of daily life. All three articles argue towards this end life is dramatic enough to be portrayed realistically (Beck 1965). There is the underlying implication in all three articles that people are living their lives without being true to themselves, and there is a need for theatre to highlight grim realities an d bring people face to face with their inner selves, whether through seeing jail inmates as human beings or witnessing horrific events occurring. An acceptance of reality and adopting a non condemning bearing towards drug users is also an implicit theme in all three articles that argue for more realistic portrayals through theatre and for people to face up to unpleasant images. The Sixties counterculture was focused towards a release of such inhibitions which were deemed to afflict conventional society.I was struck by the singular role of theatre in contributing to the anti-war movement, which is evident in all the articles. They must ready packed an impact during the sixties, when such visceral images as those described by Scheeman must have been quite a shock compared to the predictable quality of typical theatre devoid of realism. Realism in theatre and film is now commonplace and it make me realize how much we owe to the movement in the Sixties, to radically change long entren ched ideas. I also found some of the views expressed in the articles to