Avant-garde theater turned IRS tax hearings into staged performances

Evidence

A few weeks later, the Living Theatre staged what the Voice termed a “legal happening.” Discharging their lawyer, the Becks opted to represent themselves at the IRS hearing, playing to an audience of supporters. Dressed like Portia from The Merchant of Venice, Judith defended Julian, shouting “innocent!” each time the judge pronounced the world “guilty.” The judge fined the Living Theatre corporation $2,500, sentenced Julian to sixty days in the workhouse and Judith to thirty days, but, not altogether unsympathetic, suspended their sentences and reduced bail to allow for a summer European tour. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 520

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘legal happening’ — treating a state enforcement mechanism as a stage — parallels the CORE stall-in bluff: both convert state apparatus into performance space. Recurring motif in this chapter of the legal/institutional being theatricalized. — connects to: Churches route political campaigning through lay teams to evade IRS limits — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 67
• SEED: Potential angle: the IRS proceeding staged as courtroom drama as an origin point of performance-derives-from-state-persecution in avant-garde history.