Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 11 Number 3, December 2010
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THE WORK
Found Poems
found in Directors/Directing: Conversations on Theatre by Maria Shevtsova and Christopher Innes (Cambridge UP, 2009)
EUGENIO BARBA
I have to startle myself
diversity becomes fertile
only if it is disquieting
escaping from one's own culture
is a personal need - to obliterate horizons
to absorb the features of diversity
our "human animality" reacts
we become vulnerable, astonished children
seeing a mother reject her baby
creative power depends on individuals
LEV DODIN
what we do in the theatre
is analyze our own lives and observe
in them what the great dramatists write about
(to try to see inside Shakespeare we had to try
and see ourselves in Shakespeare)
theatre disturbs your peace
an actor has to find opportunities
for being shaken
the main task is to give spectators
the possibility of experiencing
emotional upheaval
DECLAN DONNELLAN
you can develop anything through attention
there is no particular technique
just paying attention
we have to meet the world as it really is
not as we intellectually perceive it
ought to be
the walls depend on the foundation
the text depends on the story underneath
(there is a deeper layer)
the story is actually made up of fragments of experience
what you need to do is really see
really experience, this person, try to see her
without delusions, without illusions
(unpredictable and changing)
the artists job is the clear opposite of the judge
it's tough
not passing judgement
when we see reality more clearly
we can "perform" less
ELIZABETH LeCOMPTE
the piece is about the making of the piece
always
the work is made of problem-solving
I'm always wondering why
live performance
I think the text says everything
the character has to say.
If you inhabit
the text fully and do it as a task fully
the character is the text and the persona
of the person, and if the person isn't truly
connected to the text at some level
beyond the analytical
then it's probably not going to read
everything's a translation. Emotional ideas
about what motivates character
is a translation
the subtext is in the performance
I don't need a subtext if the text is good
you need a subtext
if there's no text