The Performance Group’s public introspection centered on real fears of leader abandonment

Evidence

Without reviewing the piece, she detailed its modus operandi, explaining that oscillating “between themselves and character as they choose,” the actors engage in a form of public introspection. While noting that this “forced self-examination” had precedents in Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theater, she was impressed by the heartfelt back-and-forth—not least when members of the cast expressed panic at having just learned that only weeks after the play was scheduled to open, Schechner would be leaving for South America on a Ford Foundation grant: fear of abandonment was palpable. What, some members of the Group wondered, would become of them? Did their leader even care? — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1240