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

 

 

- P.K. Brask