The Wooster Group (Elisabeth LeCompte)

When the group gathered again all of the women voiced a shared resentment over the implication that they were being used as objects of sexual interest in the production. A sympathetic and proactive response was, disgracefully, not shared by all the men. The group began to form factions and the explorations that had bound them together began to break down into fights.

‘These eruptions of resentment, I believe, were indicative of a fundamental weakness in the Group structure—namely, the secondary status of women in the male dominated group.’ You can see it in the fact that an ‘ass grab’ was categorized with the ‘friendly’ touching; whereas it might should be in a new group labeled ‘stupid’ or even ‘dangerous.’ The group sought therapy together and tried to codify a set of rules by which they could continue to make work. Schechner posted an embarrassing set of laws which could be paraphrased as, ‘I should have all the power and actors should have none.’