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The Serpent
 Theatre of Man staged
the Open Theater-Claude van Itallie text, improvising from the
company's own collaborative interpretations. Staging was derived
from a central spiral pattern, in which the divisions resulting
from a kind of cellular mitosis came to a climax with the murder
of Abel by Cain, eventually to come to rest in the redeeming
chants of the "Begats". A transitional piece, it allowed
the company to explore further the creation of entirely original
works.
"Returns the theater to its ancient home, the sanctified
altar of ceremony and union, the place of purgation of fear,
the temple of the spirit. The last fifteen minutes of The
Serpent shine with the washing away of sin, and in a most
extraordinary stroke, all those `begats' you skipped over in
your Bible are intoned with careful Hebraic pronunciation so
that the legendary begins between Adam-Atman and Christ-Krishna
leap to life again after many centuries of sleep. The performance
is truly magic at this point. Under the direction of Cecile Pineda,
the Theater of Man is an extraordinary company."
Jerry Weiss, Berkeley Daily Gazette, April 28, 1971
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