Julian Beck and Judith Malina were members of the Living Theater troupe, who were arrested on charges of marijuana possession while performing street theater in Ouro Preto. Their incarceration led to a backlash among intellectual and artistic elites both in the United States and Brazil. The Brazilian government was finally pressured to expel them from the country. After their release, Beck, Malina, and the rest of the Living Theater wrote Seven Meditations on Political Sado-Masochism, which explored and denounced the human rights abuses of the Brazilian military dictatorship, and performed on campuses around the country and at other venues.