Word: hysteria
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Most of the Living Theater's pieces are exercises in the manipulation of crowd emotions. Whatever does not actively irritate is designed to produce a kind of mesmeric communal hysteria. One piece finds Julian Beck sitting cross-legged in the middle of the stage. In a voice of clerical monotony, he says "Stop the wars, now." Cast members in the aisles shout back in unison, "Stop the wars, now!" He repeats the phrase half a dozen times as the audience response grows in force. Then he switches to "Freedom-now," and on through a litany of total dissent...
...Mariclare Costello) at 4 a.m. to tell her that the wedding bells are not going to chime. Fluttering around like a chicken with its head cut off, he sputters out a dozen reasons why the match would be catastrophic: like, for instance, her arms are too thin. When his hysteria runs out of steam, Susan blandly and sweetly asks him if he and his father got fitted for their tuxedos today...
Brutality and Hysteria...
...chances for a peaceful end to the Viet Nam war, and even blackened themselves in the eyes of other Communists, all to smash a growth of freedom that was in no way a threat to Russia's security. The invasion was conceived in panic and carried out in hysteria. The hope for peaceful coexistence rested in the good sense and rationality of the Soviet leaders, but men controlled by fear have neither...
...Mansfield, who had been pressing for additional reductions in the U.S. Seventh Army in Europe. Further cutbacks "at this time" are not feasible, he said last week. His Republican counterpart, Everett Dirksen, suggested an embargo on trade with the Soviets. In the nation, there was a notable lack of hysteria. The mood was one of disappointment and resignation rather than rage...