History as Dramatic Present

On 13 October 1969, two days before the first national moratorium to end the war in Vietnam, Arthur L. Kopit's play, Indians, opened in New York.' Walter Kerr, in his review of Indians, wrote, We do not deserve play in which the argument is unorganized, in which the conflict is undramatized.2 Indeed, to nation plagued by upheavals at home and surreal war abroad, Indians may have seemed as confusing as the milieu which helped to shape its theme and form. Between the London premiere of the play and its American debut in Washington, D.C., however, Indians had undergone numerous changes until Kopit had perfected form which Lewis Funke described shortly after the Broadway opening as a sort of collage.3 Largely because of this non-traditional, collage-like form, Indians has emerged as one of the most accomplished plays of the Vietnam era

Art · Genealogy · History · Theater, Performance, and Music History · Theatre and Performance Studies