The play degraded after previews into literal finger-pointing at an already radical audience

Evidence

The show now felt literal-minded and accusatory: “Everybody got into the act, telling the audience just where they had gone wrong. They just didn’t accept Dionysus-God when he came back to spread love; they went ahead and had Newark and Watts and Detroit and Vietnam.” Such finger-pointing struck her as “slightly ridiculous.” In fact, she declared, “I’m not so sure I didn’t see a different play in the closed rehearsal.” Whether because of the Kennedy assassination or opening night jitters, Dionysus had changed, “much for the worse.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1241

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader shelf argument about how radical art loses force when it preaches to a converted audience — resonance with the counterculture-to-market thesis this chapter is testing. — connects to: Theatrical parody is routinely misread as sincere endorsement of a subculture — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs: A Guide to Making It in Show…, 30