Ridiculous Theater earned high-culture validation from its former critics.

Evidence

In April, Charles Ludlam’s Bluebeard, a Ridiculous gloss on the 1932 horror film Island of Lost Souls and at the same time a “well-made” play, previewed at La MaMa before opening to the best notices of Ludlam’s career in a converted gay bar on Christopher Street. … Martin Washburn gave the performance a glowing review in the Voice; the next issue had Richard Schechner expounding at length on its importance, explicating the plot, comparing the production to Paradise Now and his own Dionysus in ‘69, and paying Ludlam the ultimate compliment by bracketing him with Jerzy Grotowski (not Artaud). — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1566

Categorization

• XREF: Schechner bracketing Ludlam with Grotowski rather than Artaud is a measurable step in an avant-garde form’s assimilation into the canon — exactly the respectability trajectory the reader tracks.