ROLE REVERSAL

Abstract

Mr. Chairman, Dr. and Mrs. Moreno, Ladies and Gentlemen: The genesis of role reversal is not only one of the most admirable but also the most paradoxical feature in the development of psychodrama. To paraphrase J. L. Moreno, role reversal was the third psychodrama tic revolution.

When Moreno first stood up against literary drama and the theater of his time, he did so in the name and for the purpose of liberating stage creativity from the dead weight of literary achievements, from sterile ruminating on stored-up, canned, conserved" theatrical staples, from second-hand recreations of some playwright's preformed, and vastly immutable, vision. To Moreno, the playing, not the play, was the thing. Moreno's drama was to emerge from the performance, not the other way round.