tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post104406329200490833..comments2023-10-31T03:22:34.038-07:00Comments on ...Persons Unknown...: ...here and now, friends, here and now (part one)...alexfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08663311179979081963noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-18060556772709048512007-11-26T07:32:00.000-08:002007-11-26T07:32:00.000-08:00I hope that the theatre isn't the object of its ow...I hope that the theatre isn't the object of its own religious tendencies, though I'd be struggling to defend our industry against any accusations of institutional narcissism. However, I think it's interesting how theatre has often blossomed at periods when the human animal is being called to replace God, to some extent. For example, Greek drama's questioning of the gods' moral authority or the Renaissance placing 'man' at the metaphysical centre of things. Or Beckett's post-war, semi-existentialist take on the sheer bleakness of a Godless world. A lot of great canonical drama dramatises a sense of humanity's transcendent possibility being wrecked against our actual powerlessness and weakness. And plays like The Tempest dramatize the equally important wish-fulfilment of an impossible escape from the tragic, where we can either manage to be god-like, or a real god turns up to set things straight. Obviously I'm being ridiculously generalised here. But I'm trying to make sense of my instinct that theatre's religious tendencies are to do with what the actor represents as a kind of Everyman: that it's not quasi-religious per se but that it's good at responding to a basic psychological/metaphysical need: putting mankind under a spotlight and stripping it to the basics, a need that's perhaps generated by the loss of total religious conviction. (Incidentally, even Everyman, a religiously conservative play, allows for the possibility of man tragically replacing God before restoring order. Even more incidentally, I directed Everyman in a chapel a long time ago, and we stole the first lines of the York Mystery Cycle as a way of God introducing himself (saying hello) to a probably quite non-Christian audience.)Paul Burgesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16153826019347964659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-13773132466680748052007-11-25T07:11:00.000-08:002007-11-25T07:11:00.000-08:00ah, but isn't Brook's God and the focus-of-his-mys...ah, but isn't Brook's God and the focus-of-his-mysticism theatre? I think Alex is right that theatre becomes religion for its practitioners. I have a theory (not very fleshed out just yet) that church/temple/mosque attendance is good prep for becoming a theatre practitioner. all that ritual and crowd response and (in the case of my childhood) very camp costumes. excellent indoctrination.<BR/><BR/>Alex - I don't remember whether or not I wrote 'Hello' but I have definitely seen it on children's stories - seem to remember that some of the 7yearolds I taught in my gap year did it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-70821318837618840412007-11-25T04:29:00.000-08:002007-11-25T04:29:00.000-08:00Just out of interest, what do you mean by describi...Just out of interest, what do you mean by describing Brook's work as secular? I don't really doubt it is, but when I met him (KKKKKKKKKKKKKLANG!!!!!!!!!!!) he struck being just a bit of a crazy old mystic.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-56188770098925200162007-11-23T10:11:00.000-08:002007-11-23T10:11:00.000-08:00with the proviso that the imagined God/Other doesn...with the proviso that the imagined God/Other doesn't act to stabilise the transmission of meaning. Perhaps the most it can do is sanctify the shared presence or hereness of audience and performer.alexfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08663311179979081963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-73697172786644859082007-11-23T09:26:00.000-08:002007-11-23T09:26:00.000-08:00and thanks everyone.lily e - Chocolate? During the...and thanks everyone.<BR/><BR/>lily e - Chocolate? <I>During</I> the performance?<BR/><BR/>sarah - did you used to do the "Hello" thing when you were a kid too? Lil says she didn't and that she's never seen it, so i was wondering if it was just me...<BR/><BR/>Paul - re God - yeah, that's interesting. It's notable the number of practitioners who talk about theatre in religious terms even as they and their work are secular (Brook) or even actively anti-religious (Artaud, Grotowski). For them (and i think for some of us who work in theatre) the theatre itself gets raised up as a kind of quasi-deity. It's interesting how Shakespeare's late plays resound with religious experiences (resurrections, conversions - by which i mean complete revelations of belief systems brought about by a specific event/encounter -, redemption and so on) and even agents (imogen, portia, some others i can't remember) are consistently described in religious/divine terms, even as the plays are set in ancient, polytheistic worlds and the deus ex machina[pl?] do a lot of huffing and puffing without any effect. What else is Prospero but the god of the island? What else? He's a stage-manager engineering a miracle (or a series of miracles). In other words the miracles are achieved not through faith or religion or divinty but through theatre.<BR/><BR/>But i'm drifting away from the here and now of the stage space and the nature of the representations thereon, and no doubt i could drift interminably on, ever further from the point were it not friday evening. Nonetheless - i'd maintain that the stage is a space which enables transcendence of various kinds, not least the dialectical true/false one outlined above. The (quasi-?)religious nature of this is nicely captured by your idea of an "imagined God/Other"alexfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08663311179979081963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-33179500602104088442007-11-23T08:51:00.000-08:002007-11-23T08:51:00.000-08:00here's a comment that Paul Burgess made elsewhere:...here's a comment that Paul Burgess made elsewhere:<BR/><BR/>Yeah, like it a lot. I've been looking at a similar issue over on the Daedalus website (the Daedalus Notebook page) on why I feel what we're doing is theatre not live art. It's something to do with the nature of the 'contract'. (That and all the accumulated baggage of the centuries which just means we kinda know when something's theatre, just cos...)<BR/><BR/>Also like your point about God. Am just struggling to get my head round some Lacan... I maybe interpreting according to my own agenda (and so what if I am?) but maybe there's an interesting idea that your actor/God/audience thing still holds because a belief system or even an imagined God/Other here fulfils the same role as a genuinely believed in God.<BR/><BR/>What about actor = social crusader, God = idea of social justice, audience = Michael Billington? That's definitely a religious relationship!alexfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08663311179979081963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-36833934385113781632007-11-23T08:21:00.000-08:002007-11-23T08:21:00.000-08:00I really really really like this post. I like the...I really really really like this post. I like the fact that I had never really thought about the fact that children start their stories 'hello' before, and what that means, and how it works. I like it when you make me think about something very obvious all over again.<BR/><BR/>hurrah for Alex.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-59775217084752758202007-11-23T07:49:00.001-08:002007-11-23T07:49:00.001-08:00Also, I am aware that you have said all these thin...Also, I am aware that you have said all these things. I'm just agreeing with you.<BR/><BR/>That's really it now. Sorry.Lily Ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06134249615934625431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-66802772336558796442007-11-23T07:49:00.000-08:002007-11-23T07:49:00.000-08:00... and the other thing about an actor saying, 'He...... and the other thing about an actor saying, 'Hello, here I am' is that really, an audience is free to say, 'Hello, so you are, how are you up there, looks a bit hot under those lights, would you like a Malteser?' It is a communal, collective event that allows dialogue, even if it does not always encourage it.<BR/><BR/>Ok, I'm going now.Lily Ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06134249615934625431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4999836447219316263.post-74814626518966015432007-11-23T07:45:00.000-08:002007-11-23T07:45:00.000-08:00I like this post.There is also the double consciou...I like this post.<BR/><BR/>There is also the double consciousness of theatre that is, it operates in a liminal space between the here and now, and not in the here and now. It is always between two states. Which also relates to the idea of theatre being a lie - as the performer is 'not me, not not me' - it's a false dichotomy.<BR/><BR/>Which allows all sorts of exciting things to happen that could not occur outside of this space...<BR/><BR/>Um, that is all.Lily Ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06134249615934625431noreply@blogger.com