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Post by Lauren on Jun 28, 2012 3:36:23 GMT -10
My first post! Glurgh! Still fiddling around with how this works, so bear with me ya'll...
Andrew (or is it Lani?), the quote you posted by Artaud above in reference to text analysis got me thinking. I know you're still tinkering around with script development and I wonder just how Artaudian we really want to get with this.
I think Artaud's theories are REALLY hard to apply to theater and in the end, even Artaud himself could never really do it. Even without words, theatre is presentational. Even when "attacking" the audience with an onslaught of gesture, sensorial overload, etc.
Like Allan Kaprow's "Spring Happening," right? Which is supposed to be Artaud at its most essential. And happenings weren't even theatrical pieces, technically. In this particular happening, Kaprow threatened the audience with a live, churning lawn mower.
In a piece by the theatre company SQUAT, the actors literally smoked out the audience so they had to escape the theatre.
STILL, we the audience always know that our feet aren't going to be chopped off by a lawn mower (a la Mad Men.) And we have fire code violations to think about. The audience KNOWS we cannot actually...HARM them (not that we want to!) The audience still sees a presentation.
I just would love to talk more as a group about how we're incorporating Artaud, which it seems we definitely are. How will the Kurogo function not as a way to keep them from being passive, submerged in darkness, safe? But not making them think, "Oh God, audience participation?!"
And just how far away CAN we get from this text? (If that is our intention, by using Artaud?)
Words, words, words...
PS This is Lauren!!
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Post by Andrew on Jun 28, 2012 7:55:23 GMT -10
Great first post Lauren!!! Lots of great valuable details. I posted the quote more as an inspiration to those who over value the sanctity of old English. Once we start our experiments in rehearsal, we will be exploring a lineage of specific theatrical alchemists that lead back to Artaud. It's not so much Artaud as it is the lineage that inspires. So I will be throwing random connecting philosophies, in isolation, as we move along. Let's go to the EAST and take Hijikata Tatsumi first. He is the founder of butoh, the dance of darkness, and was inspired by the work of Artaud and Metaphysics. Many believe that butoh most successfully represents Artaud's vision with its insane qualities of ritualism and primitivism. Hijikata Tatsumi inspired and collaborated with Kazuo Ohno in the fiftees, who inspired my intro to butoh through Maureen Freehill and my teacher Lori Ohtani. Artaud also inspired Terayama Shuji. To the WEST Artaud inspired Jerzy Grotowski who inspired Richard Schechner, and Antero Alli. I believe that all of the work on this lineage is strongly connected and aligned so tightly and if incubated in the perfect way, is a divine formula for Marlowe's play. Besides, I'm about to attempt bringing us closer to the text than one could imagine USING the very idea that seems to take us further away. Which ideas we draw from these artists is part TWO of our time together ... after our text discovery. But we can start discussing the experiment now if you'd like, let's keep it going. I love it! You are a fellow theory crafter I see  Oh btw, the manifesto should be in our Morgue File, not in our experiment section, sorry if that caused any confusion. |
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Post by Caitlin on Jun 28, 2012 9:11:59 GMT -10
so i was just re-reading artaud's manifesto and it got me thinking about theater as ritual, which led to thinking about the nature of ritual, specifically in a religious context and the significance of the performative aspect to the ritual meaning. i remembered this experience when i was younger. i was taken to an easter sunday service at this giant warehouse church in mexico. i am not a religious person, and the service was completely in spanish so i was basically just zoning out at the back of the room, when something in the space shifted. the congregants began weeping, convulsing, speaking in tongues, fainting. and i sat there and watched as it trickled back from the altar, mystified. i imagined that this happened every week. i watched as they completely surrendered themselves, forsook logic and reason and inhibition, and gave themselves over to the expression of whatever it was that moved them. and while i was not similarly moved i was amazed. i imagine the ultimate expression of artaud's theater would be something akin to this feeling--primal and raw, not bound by human psychology and behavior, but tapping into something deeper and larger, i think he says cosmic.
well, that's what i'm thinking about. i'll let you know if i have any thoughts on how it relates to faus
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Post by Andrew on Jun 28, 2012 9:49:30 GMT -10
Caitlin that is awesome! I actually grew up in that ... my parents were members of United Pentecostal and Assembly of God and I was a piano player for worship ceremonies. It was my first experience with ritual and church theater. What do you think it takes to surrender oneself psychologically ... and maybe even spiritually? Is it to not think?
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jun 28, 2012 11:07:29 GMT -10
While I am not quite in tune to Artaud and our other theater alchemist I can discuss the feeling of release in how it pertains to rituals. Much like training or doing something over and over it becomes muscle memory, but is it just more than just a muscle memory rather than tapping into the "Id" of our minds? Does the ritual such as Tibetan Buddhist throat singing or the Hindu yoga meditations tap into that raw and primal "Id"? I believe it does.
In my case how do images and the skewing of light cause reactions in the mind? How can a single image or beam of light cause the mind to go places that are deeper and cosmic?
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Post by Heloise on Jun 29, 2012 5:37:36 GMT -10
Could you give me the names of the seven people whose theories we are to be working with ?
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Post by Christie on Jun 30, 2012 10:48:12 GMT -10
Theatre of cruelty. “To offer a violent determination to shatter the false reality. ... reject form, and incite chaos.” I think this is fitting because it’s a very get in your face type of theatre. Slap the audience metaphorically, or literally. showing the audience what they don’t want to see has great shock value and has the audience leaving feeling confronted and bothered... Which is great. Artaud’s theatre of cruelty is all about guttural emotions and reactions that are completely instinctual. Like the things in the world that creep us out and we have no idea why.
I would love to know the things that people have gut instincts to.
What makes you happy?
What scares the shit out of you?
What makes you run?
What makes you smile?
What get’s you hot?
Specifics and details are personal and captivating. Maybe this is something random things to ask the cast? Or have the cast ask others?
Artaud proposed removing the barrier of the stage between performers and audience and producing spectacles that would include verbal incantations, groans and screams, pulsating lighting effects, and oversized stage puppets and props. I think playing with sounds might give us some guttural reactions. Some of my favorite parts of a show are when the lights are down and you can hear actors arriving on stage and hearing them before we see them. We should experiment with sound and light.
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Post by Lani on Jul 2, 2012 13:37:26 GMT -10
Could you give me the names of the seven people whose theories we are to be working with ? Hey Heloise, the seven people are as follows: 1. Antonin Artaud 2. Jerzy Grotowski 3. Antero Alli 4. Richard Schechner 5. Terayama Shuji 6. Hijikata Tatsummi 7. Lori Ohtani |
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