Fig. 1. Tadeusz Kantor - The Dead Class, 1975
The Echoing Green
The sun does arise
And make happy the skies;
The merry bells ring
And welcome the spring;
The skylark and thrush
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around
To the bell's cheerful sound,
While our sports shall be seen
On the Echoing Green.
Old John with white hair,
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk.
And soon they all say:
"Such, such were the joys
When we all, girls and boys,
In our youth time were seen
On the Echoing Green."
Till the little ones, weary,
No more can be merry;
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end.
Round the laps of their mothers,
Many sisters and brother,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest,
And sport no more seen,
On the darkening green.
William Blake
* '[Theatre] searches for an ancestry deeply rooted in the past that emerges from ancient customs, ur-rituals, the practice of magic, festivities, ceremonial celebration, games, pageantry and processions, popular and street theatre, political and agit-prop theatre - it searches wherever art is no longer a consumer product but an integral component of life.'
Tadeusz Kantor