Trying To Blow Them Away

In a word: WARP! The Sci-Fi Triolgy that blew audiences away

In 1970, Paul Sills invited Stuart Gordon to move his Organic theatre from Madison, Wisconsin, to produce at the Body Politic. Thus was born the theatre that produced the sci-fi classic trilogy WARP!, the wild medical farce E.R., and the only play to have homage to Chicago Cub fans, Bleacher Bums. Written by the Organic ensemble, Bleacher Bums was based on an idea by actor Joe Mantenga and featured a young Dennis Franz.

When Gordon arrived in Chicago, he felt the scene needed some shaking up - that it had already become too safe, even stagnant. His feeling was that most theatre during this period was a waste of time, that there was too much emphasis on trying to recreate the real world on stage. He felt that the theatre should be an escape, a land of make-believe, and that it should grab people by their shirt collars and shake them up.

Sexual Perversity In Chicago was later adapted for film by Tim Kazerinsky and retitled About Last Night

Actors Organic shows often played many parts and so were forced to changed quickly, for example alternating between wild aliens and more ordinary human characters. The result was that actors did not so much create a character as assume it for a short while then transform themselves into another one. Gordon's idea was to prevent actors from becoming locked into a set mannerism or vocal character, and to prevent the actors from relying on a bag of tricks.

WARP! had such a cult following that in the 1980ies it  was adapted for comics

The plays Stuart Gordon produced changed the theatre and challenged audiences' notions about what theatre was, The Organic Theatre became legendary in Chicago's off-Loop theatre scene.