Time is a pendulum.
Theatrically speaking at this 1995 vantage point I propose that time is both a river, with fluxes and refluxes of specific themes and styles and a pendulum swinging rhythmically from side to side between the old and the new. Once upon a time in 1960 we had innovative off-Broadway and regional theatres that became institutionalized in the 70's and 80's. Today, in the mid-90's, the regional theatres have lost their revolutionary zeal and younger, smaller theatres where the revolutionary spirit is raging are springing up across the nation. It is at these theatres that the bulk of the new kinds of work that grow from a more personal, revolutionary sensibility can be seen. It would be artifice to superimpose on these plays some aesthetic or other unity other than that they are the highlights of a decade of plays presented in Brown University's New Plays Festival.