Posts Tagged ‘deadly theatre’

From the Archives: Vital Silence

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Note: This post originally appeared here in June of 2006.

The other day I spoke about the quality of the word ‘Deadly’ in Peter Brook’s The Empty Space. The Deadly Theatre is seen not as a place but as a way of being. A kind of incomplete work. Or a superficial treatment of the subject matter. The subject of course being nothing less than the spirit of Life itself. While the ‘deadly’ comes up quite a bit in the book, there are two other words that appear with quite some frequency; silent and vital. I would argue that it is only through a vital life affirming silence that the deadly can be resisted. By listening to that necessary silence we can hear the authentic impulse that denies the deadly for one moment longer.

The artistic impulse comes in many forms and from many directions. For me it is a way of delving deeper into my own understanding of the world. The World. Such a multifaceted place. But as one explores “The World” one finds that it is not a singular place, but rather a complex of relationships and dependencies. Child is dependent upon mother like the tide is dependent on the Moon. The Lover needs the Beloved in order to live completely. Each of these relationships is its own world. Contained within it are differing rules of physics and indeed life. The world of ‘blogs’ has its own constellations, galaxies and black holes. Every actor within that system effects the gravitational pull of every other being. Sure some are more massive than others, but it is all part of an interconnected gravitational dance.

In “The World” we often find these many and various worlds colliding with one another. They crash into each other vying for dominance. Which world or Worldview will win out? What perspective shall carry the day? These constantly shifting paradigms of reality create a great chaotic mass of noise. The cacophony becomes such that it is nearly impossible to let our ears rest. Yet there are moments of silence. Brief moments between the crash and thunder where we might for a minute, a second, an instant know the tranquility is noiseless bliss.

The Vital Silence is not so much a literal silence, just as the Deadly Theatre is not a physical institution. The Vital Silence is that moment when all the noise and chaos of daily life becomes, for an instant, background. The perspective shifts and there standing before you, clear as day, is that essential thing you had lost in the mass of movement. The Vital Silence is a return to that core of self that is so dangerous to inhabit. It is the place we build walls and defenses against every day. For to walk around in that place would be to get caught in a hurricane without any skin, every inch of your body crying out in pain.

The Vital Silence is the space after the final bell rings in Arvo Part’s Cantus in Memorium Benjamin Britten. It is that place where we hold still and watch as the colors of the world become a little richer. Finding this place inside of us, learning to see from that perspective, is a difficult enough task on its own. Bringing it forth into the light of day is something entirely other. When he talks of The Immediate Theatre, Brook is getting at that place. The artist must live in that liminal space between objectivity and authenticity. She must be both authentic in her action and objective in her work at the same time. It is a double calling and one where the more intensely one aspect is carried forth, so much more difficult becomes the other.

And in this way it transforms into a dance of the self. Mind and Heart partnering across the dance floor of life creating the authentic [Heart/Mind] of creative action. The music that fills the dance floor is that silence that is so essential to life, so vital, that we almost become blind to it. The beating of our own hearts we do not notice until it gets out of phase with our activity, not strong enough at the beginning of a run or pounding too hard as we take a rest.

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Bear with me, I just woke up and now I have to go to rehearsal

Friday, October 27th, 2006

So I figured I would try that whole conversational blogger thing out, as it seems to be popular with the kids these days. Also I just woke up from a nap, so please bear with me.

I have been thinking about conceptual art recently and for the most part I don’t like it. “But Lucas, you are such a conceptual, intellectual type, why on earth would you not like conceptual art?” Well, because I love art. And I love conceptual thinking. But I find a lot of conceptual art misses the art and lies about the concept.

What the hell does that mean?

Actually I am not so sure but it feels right. And again, I just woke up from a nap.

Let us take one of my favorite conceptual works of art. Erasing De Kooning. I have never seen this work of art. I don’t need to. It actually is conceptual art. The idea, and execution thereof, is the art. The object, ultimately, bears no relation to the work of art. It is after all, a blank piece of paper. My next favorite is 4’33”. But again, the ‘work’ exists only in the past, in that first moment it was performed. After that the art died and only the concept remained.

Concepts are dead. There is nothing wrong with death. It can be quite beautiful. But unlike art, it is not alive. Most conceptual art hits high marks for concept but falls dead on the art. At that point I am bored.

In an essay in Theatre of Essence titled ‘After Grotowski: The end of the impossible Theatre’ Jan Kott describes a happening in which a truly transformative social-sexual event takes place and then a later run of that same piece, where the audience, knowing all the cues, is prepared for a huge orgy and is in no way challenged. There is a fundamental difference between those two events, even though they might follow the exact same script.

I love reading philosophy. Yet it is interesting that that works like Being and Time are lumped together with general criticism as both being Philosophy. One would never, I hope, confuse art with art criticism. Yet when one delves into conceptual art the lines begin to blur. Done well this can be interesting, but more often than not I simply end up bored. And I do not think anything interesting has been added to the conversation.

In California I was involved with a group that threw very high concept dance events in San Francisco. While the event itself was highly conceptual in nature, the music fucking rocked out. There was no esoteric cerebral concept. It was just some bangin’ Breaks.

wheel1

Afterwards there would often be discussion and criticism of both the concept and the music, but they were two separate conversations. Why? Because they are two separate things. To try and conflate the two misses the entire point.

It was conceptual art, with a sense of fun. A sense of play. Ideas and concepts, rarely, have that play. I like plays. I like having fun. Working on shows I have little interest in working with people who have no sense of fun. People who take themselves so fucking seriously they can not laugh at their own absurdity from time to time. One can do serious work and still have the process be fun.

I’m about as absurd as they get. I’m also tend to be high on the conceptual list as well. In the theatre I don’t care about the concept. I care about staying true to the moment and having fun. The conceptual work is great as a foundation. It is a fun intellectual exercise and as a way of using all those fiddy cent SAT words. But when I am working it is not with the rational linguistic part of my brain that I work. It is the visual and temporal processing centers.

This was true of Brecht, one of the biggest theory geeks ever to grace the theatre. Theory has its place outside the rehearsal. Inside the rehearsal, theory is deadly. The only way to truly engage a work of art on the conceptual and theoretical level is through another work of art. To engage it on the level of theory and criticism is either a book report, or it engages the concept behind the work, and not the work itself.

As Peter Brook says in the Empty Space

To make matters worse there is always a deadly spectator, who for special reasons enjoys a lack of intensity and even a lack of entertainment, such as the scholar who emerges from routine performances of the classics smiling because nothing has distracted him from trying over and confirming his pet theories to himself, whilst reciting his favorite lines under his breath. In his heart he sincerely wants a theatre that is nobler-than-life and he confuses a sort of intellectual satisfaction with the true experience for which he craves. Unfortunately, he lends the weight of his authority to dullness and so the Deadly Theatre goes on its way.

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Deadly Theatre

Tuesday, June 6th, 2006

My discussions of Authenticity lately have been fun, but I wanted to get back to my reading of The Empty Space. I think this relates in an oblique fashion to the discussions of Authenticity, yet gives a more solid basis from which to talk. The Deadly is always creeping around the corners. While I have spoken some about the deadliness always present in the artist. This is a danger in any work of art, but dangers are everywhere present.

To make matters worse there is always a deadly spectator, who for special reasons enjoys a lack of intensity and even a lack of entertainment, such as the scholar who emerges from routine performances of the classics smiling because nothing has distracted him from trying over and confirming his pet theories to himself, whilst reciting his favorite lines under his breath. In his heart he sincerely wants a theatre that is nobler-than-life and he confuses a sort of intellectual satisfaction with the true experience for which he craves. Unfortunately, he lends the weight of his authority to dullness and so the Deadly Theatre goes on its way.
-Peter Brook, The Empty Space

One of the greatest things about doing my graduate work at NYU was that the faculty, all the faculty, were practicing designers. Chaired by Susan Hilferty, of Wicked fame among others, there was a strong ethos held by the teachers that the work be grounded with a realistic sense of how the show might be produced in the real world. Because the theatre is a living thing to them. It is a strong and vital aspect of their everyday lives. Concept was encouraged. With John Conklin and Robert Wierzel teaching it is hard to imagine conceptual work not being encouraged, yet that concept still had to be grounded in a producible reality. As far as we may go in the conceptual realm, we are still dealing with a text performed in a space.

One thing that I see as a danger in theory discussions, and this certainly holds true of the blog world, is that much high flown rhetoric will be bandied about as we discuss this matter of aesthetics or that issue of ontology and yet will not be connected to the actual work of producing theatre. One reason why I enjoy Ian Hill and John Clancey‘s blogs is that they are discussing the practicalities of process, in two very different ways. John, as producer, working towards a more reasonable and updated showcase code. Ian of course is all process all the time. For more process, there is also Josh Costello taking a truly direct approach to process blogging, while George Hunka goes about the writers process in a much more oblique fashion, with the notable exception of today.

If you are reading this you know full well that I am a fan of theory. I mean, I probably employ the words ontology and epistemology with the same frequency as Heidegger. But in its own way that is process writing. The search for an ontological shift in the aesthetics of light are what engages me intellectually. But as abstract as that can sometimes get, the theory is always grounded in a firm and constant practice. I may be writing about the epistemological impact of geometric time, but this is a result of a day at the tech table speaking into my headset. It is important to ground the theory after working the light all day.

I am interested in exploring the psycho-emotional currents of dramatic action. It is the ever shifting basis of being that I find intriguing. The perpetual death of the self. That we are this moment a wholly different being than we were a moment ago. The soul is not fixed. Rather it moves through myriad ontological states with only a few clear guides. Do we see that shifting reality? Can we see it? Is there any import we can glean from it even if we were capable of seeing it? From these questions I look to extract a more direct understanding of the nature of human existence. For me there is no other reason for art than to deepen ones understanding of the world and of the ever shifting Self.

The quote a few days ago is brilliant if you take the words on their own. Mao was a fantastic theorist. But he was still a butcher. In the same way that TuPac Shakur, taken solely on his lyrics, is an amazing feminist theorist who advocates for the total liberation of oppressed urban black women. But it is hard to take his words out of context with his actions that show him to be as severe a womanizer and rapist as has ever come around. The authentic connection was never made between theory and practice and the result was a theory violated by the corruption of praxis.

This is the inherent danger of theory separated from practice. The deadly danger that sees theory and debate as nothing more than a game, despite the ernest protests towards authenticity. Being and Time may have been almost entirely pure abstract theory, yet Heidegger’s later writings lean into a direct application to life. It is no wonder that The Question Concerning Technology became the theoretical underpinning of much 20th century radical ecology. It provides a stepping stone between the wholly abstract and the profoundly immediate. Yet Heidegger’s tendency towards abstraction may have contributed to his blindness at the true nature of the Nazi movement and as a result his fervent support of it. So desperate was he to have his theory proven that he did not take the time to meditate on whether or not this instance was in fact the correct application of his theoretical workings.

Theatre is always shifting and this is part of its unique charm. It can not be located in a specific psycho-temporal location because the theatre is always dying. It is not dying in a mournful way but rather in an organic cyclical and vital way. As Peter Brook says, “theatre is a self-destructive art, and it is always written on the wind.” The very attempt to fix it in place with theoretical pins causes what is to become what was. Reified in language the vital force becomes a corpse. Verb become noun.

I will finish now where I began with a passage from The Deadly Theatre.

The problem of the Deadly Theatre is like the problem of the deadly bore. Every deadly bore has head, heart, arms, legs: usually, he has family and friends: he even has his admirers. Yet we sigh when we come across him – and in this sigh we are regretting that somehow he is at the bottom instead of the top of his possibilities. When we say deadly, we never mean dead: we mean something depressingly active, but for this very reason incapable of change. . . . In Mexico, before the wheel was invented, gangs of slaves had to carry giant stones through the jungle and up the mountains, while their children pulled their toys on tiny rollers. The slaves made the toys, but for centuries failed to make the connection. When good actors play in bad comedies or second-rate musicals, when audiences applaud indifferent classics because they enjoy just the costumes or just the way the sets change, or just the prettiness of the leading actress there is nothing wrong. But none the less, have they noticed what is underneath the toy they are dragging on a string? It’s a wheel.

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Vital Silence

Thursday, June 1st, 2006

The other day I spoke about the quality of the word ‘Deadly’ in Peter Brook’s The Empty Space. The Deadly Theatre is seen not as a place but as a way of being. A kind of incomplete work. Or a superficial treatment of the subject matter The subject of course being nothing less than the spirit of Life itself. While the ‘deadly’ comes up quite a bit in the book, there are two other words that appear with quite some frequency; silent and vital. I would argue that it is only through a vital life affirming silence that the deadly can be resisted. By listening to that necessary silence we can hear the authentic impulse that denies the deadly for one moment longer.

The artistic impulse comes in many forms and from many directions. For me it is a way of delving deeper into my own understanding of the world. The World. Such a multifaceted place. But as one explores “The World” one finds that it is not a singular place, but rather a complex of relationships and dependencies. Child is dependent upon mother like the tide is dependent on the Moon. The Lover needs the Beloved in order to live completely. Each of these relationships is its own world. Contained within it are differing rules of physics and indeed life. The world of ‘blogs’ has its own constellations, galaxies and black holes. Every actor within that system effects the gravitational pull of every other being. Sure some are more massive than others, but it is all part of an interconnected gravitational dance.

In “The World” we often find these many and various worlds colliding with one another. They crash into each other vying for dominance. Which world or Worldview will win out? What perspective shall carry the day? These constantly shifting paradigms of reality create a great chaotic mass of noise. The cacophony becomes such that it is nearly impossible to let our ears rest. Yet there are moments of silence. Brief moments between the crash and thunder where we might for a minute, a second, an instant know the tranquility is noiseless bliss.

The Vital Silence is not so much a literal silence, just as the Deadly Theatre is not a physical institution. The Vital Silence is that moment when all the noise and chaos of daily life becomes, for an instant, background. The perspective shifts and there standing before you, clear as day, is that essential thing you had lost in the mass of movement. The Vital Silence is a return to that core of self that is so dangerous to inhabit. It is the place we build walls and defenses against every day. For to walk around in that place would be to get caught in a hurricane without any skin, every inch of your body crying out in pain.

The Vital Silence is the space after the final bell rings in Arvo Part’s Cantus in Memorium Benjamin Britten. It is that place where we hold still and watch as the colors of the world become a little richer. Finding this place inside of us, learning to see from that perspective, is a difficult enough task on its own. Bringing it forth into the light of day is something entirely other. When he talks of The Immediate Theatre, Brook is getting at that place. The artist must live in that liminal space between objectivity and authenticity. She must be both authentic in her action and objective in her work at the same time. It is a double calling and one where the more intensely one aspect is carried forth, so much more difficult becomes the other.

And in this way it transforms into a dance of the self. Mind and Heart partnering across the dance floor of life creating the authentic [Heart/Mind] of creative action. The music that fills the dance floor is that silence that is so essential to life, so vital, that we almost become blind to it. The beating of our own hearts we do not notice until it gets out of phase with our activity, not strong enough at the beginning of a run or pounding too hard as we take a rest.

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The Death of Deadly Theatre

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

Reading through The Empty Space I am struck by how frequently the concept of death arises. Death and the “Deadly Theatre” are a common refrain throughout the book. It has been four or so years since last reading it amidst the chaos of graduate school, so perhaps I did not read it close enough. Sure I remember the general ideas but the book is so subtle and precise in a freely unfolding sort of way that I just did not remember.

In comments to this discussion Alison wonders how bad the theatre scene really is in the United States. For it does seem that the line ‘Theatre is dead’ comes up with such a frequency that either it is true or everyone here is insane. While I will in no way answer definitively the latter, the former issue I do think can be addressed rather directly. The book is divided into four sections, The Deadly Theatre, The Holy Theatre, The Rough Theatre and The Immediate Theatre. A common misperception, and one I believe leads to the ‘theatre is dead’ line is the belief that these four “Theatre’s” are physical institutions. That theses names are proper nouns describing distinct places or organizations. In fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Right from the start Brook says that while they might sometimes exist in a literal way they will often also mix “within one single moment, the four of them, Holy, Rough, Immediate and Deadly.” This metaphoric usage of the terms is how they get applied through his writing. Discussing the Holy Theatre he jumps from Ancient Greece to post-War Germany showing instances of the Holy Theatre arising out of the ashes. The manner in which he describes the Deadly Theatre ‘always lurking’ in the shadows of the soul clearly indicates the more metaphoric conception is closest to the truth of the situation. The calcified and static nature of the deadly theatre is not fixed. But it does have great power of inertia. It is a constant struggle to remain free of the deadly, to free the artistic soul from the confines of rote cliched action.

Martin Heidegger wrote extensively about ontology. About how our Being, our Self, is the sum of our actions in the world. Being. That fundamental question of philosophy, “what am ‘I’?” was asked deeply and authentically. The answer was to re-conceive the self not as a ‘Thing’ but as a complex of actions. From a noun to a verb, or more precisely a gerund. This laid the foundation of Existentialism among other things. It was the first time in human thought that the self was seen as more than a mere object or an object that thinks. Action. Praxis. This was previously seen as secondary to the ‘thingness’ of being. Through his work, Heidegger transformed how we understand our Self at the very core essence of our Being.

In this same way we must learn to look at the ‘Death of Theatre’ and the Deadly Theatre, not as some objective fact, but as a way of acting. A way of Being. There is no way to stop the Deadly Theatre. It can not be eliminated once and for all with a powerful stroke of the pen. Rather it is an impulse that always already exists within the potential of any work or any artists. It is not bad in any moral sense. It is however, a mode of being that each one of us must choose for ourselves whether or not we desire to inhabit. It is a choice. And as artists we must look into our Self and see if that mode of being is truly an Authentic mode of action for us.

Perhaps reducing theatre to be the same as every other aspect of consumer culture is an authentic means of resisting the deadly. Perhaps product placement on stages and brief commercial interludes will help to bring about the final destruction of the deadly. But I doubt it. No action is isolated. The energies that we set in motion with our acts continue long after we have forgotten them. Their workings may become more and more subtle as time goes on, but they are still there moving forever down stream.

Perhaps the deadly is nothing more than the inertia of the unawakened soul. It is Humanity before language, when we lacked anything definitive to separate us from other primates. The inertia of millennia against the short span of human linguistic consciousness. For it is a very short time that we have existed able to conceive abstractly of our own Being. The matrix of understanding that language affords us is novel within the grand scheme of the history of our planet.

The lure of the deadly is that it is simple. It is quite easy to rest upon the inertia of geologic time rather than to support ones Self. This is why the simple entertainments of television are so popular. It is easy and reassuring to sit idle and have reductionist ideas spoon fed to you. It is something quite different to have your entire way of being in the world set in sharp relief from your authentic soul. To struggle against the deadly is a life’s work. And we fail all the time. Like the Bodhisatva’s vow, though it be unattainable we strive to attain it. Because this work is impossible. If you think it is possible you get worn out through frustration. But embracing the danger of impossibility, that is liberation. The very acceptance of powerlessness is the path to the greatest power of all. Authentic freedom in action.

The summer has only begun and already next fall begins to take shape. I had a wonderful meeting with a director this afternoon about a show in November. A one man piece filled with madness and delirium. It is a difficult and appropriately challenging text. While it may be possible for the deadly to creep in, it looks to be quite a vital and exciting work. While this work naturally brings out a thrilling authentic response, it is always difficult to do that with shows for money. The simple entertainments and events that serve to pay rent but do not fill the soul can easily cause one to fall into a ‘deadly’ mindset. It is finding the same fulfillment in these works that is a true challenge.

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