This is a follow up to my previous blog, which is exploring the notion of the absurdities of being (bad faith). This has been heavily weighing on my mind since and will be for some time to come. Richard Schechner using anthropology and theatrical direction, hand in hand, which coincides with my prose of this afternoon’s blog. When are actors acting, does this in any way affect their integrity of being? An interesting question to which I have much to say from a personal and quite irrational perspective. Last week I was working on a production of ‘The Visit‘ (Friedrich Dürrenmatt) by second year undergraduate students at Coventry University. The production itself is not of primary concern but offers a comparison of action and being of character.
This production is performed through German expressionism, whereby actions have been be heightened and exaggerated. Actions that have been amplified are transferred to that of action amplified through action of the everyday. The white painted faces that were utilized in the aesthetic were ‘made up’ to produce the cloned affect of the being or acting in Bad Faith. The face of fiction produced in building of a character that an actor undertakes can be said to draw upon the act their part in the scripted to play The stock characters, however, have reference from the being of the performers themselves. No other reference is possible because being-in-the-world (i.e. existing) can only be accessible from the perspective of ones own Dasien. The suspension of the being for that of the fictional part has to through into question the integrity of the existent itself.
That is enough with the philosophical babble for a moment so I can provide an example to this point of view that I have. I view the actions of the students performing the text through which the character presented within the constraints a black box setting of a college theatre. This is a trend that is dominant within student-based work. Why in the theatre space that is not anything other the convenience? The purpose is just that, convenience rather than a thought to the semiotic of the text – a trend that solidified a popular view towards theatre and performance taking place in the architecture of the ‘theatre’ space; it must be said that this stereotype is changing. Why should be perform ‘theatre’ in the space that we call theatres? Logic dictates that this defines the form; theatre is theatre because it happens in theatre but we have already stated, Richard Schechner and director Richard Foreman have challenged this form (their forms incidentally performed in theatre) through the use of open rehearsal to create a ‘natural’ form and forging a link between theatrical practice and anthropology.
Taking the form, theatrical practice as an example of Bad Faith in the construction of the character, the fictional text of the playwright has a direct relationship to that of being and character. Actions created such as ‘a girl being approached by a man for the first time’ (one of Sartre’s examples from Being and Nothingness) one is retaining a factual existence, of existing in the body while hesitating from a decision whereby responsibility for transcendence of said action. What responsibility did the performers take for their actions of creating theatre in a theatre to become the form, theatre? The form was retained in the metaphysical certainty in the notion of the simulacrum. In other words because this is believed to be theatre they perform it in a theatre; the form is determined by the architecture rather than its ontology – to which place is only a part.
Where does this leave theatre and character (in theatre)? Where does it leave the integrity of the actor to his or her own being? These, I think, need to be explored independently in greater depth. One thing can be sure that theatre’s existence is not created by our responsibility to the form but by an acceptance of a simulacrum to the concept of the form.
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I am indeed writing a response to my own post – but by judging by the number of views that I have had in the past couple of weeks this is not a regularly view site, which is fine, it is a progress of my thinking. It is a site that will support my frustrations as to what I am discussing. I am having a conversation with my little brother about the nature of Christmas (it is worth noting it is the 23rd December). Why is the 25th December? What is so significant about this date? My general reasoning is that it has always been that date and therefore will continue to be that date. There is no logical explanation as to why this is the case but it is accepted to be as such. This is a prime example of Bad faith in practices.
Relating this to the example of the blog I am responding to ‘Theatre as Simulacrum’, one becomes almost conscious that no one can explain what theatre is without the assumptions of social acceptance. Why has work a significant doctrine to be produced in a certain way to defined as theatre. The form is utterly classified by its architectural home; a theatre. Assumptions are thus made towards what has gone in the past for a systematic description that relates back to Aristoltian philosophy – surely an outmoded philosophy that places the realms of nature (god) over human responsibility. “Action happens in a theatre, therefore it must be theatre”. Theatre can be said to be more than a connivence and be on the way to be an innate factor towards its own philosophy.
The architecture allows for the relationships that are present in performance paradigms to flourish in these lines of communication. The audience is sat facing the ‘stage’ to which action takes place. One could use the word again – connivence. The object of actor and performer taking the stage leads for a mono-directions valve of information that could be said to be directed from the playwright to the audience (via the means of the stage).
This is not taking responsibility for what is happening on stage (from a philosophical sense. I will refer to an already written works, something that I didn’t have in mind for these blogs but being in the process of reading the Roland Barthes Reader the introduction (by Susan Sontag) has taken my eye his theme. This is especially so when Sontag states: “THe formalist temperament is just one variant of a sensibility shared by many who speculate in an era of hyper-saturated awareness. What characterizes such a sensibility more generally is its reliance on the criterion of taste, and its proud refusal to purpose anything that does not bear the stamp of subjectivity.” (p.xi). This to me describes exactly the lack of human responsibility towards the language of the form. This is theatre! But what is theatre? The semeiotic of the theatrical event is not taken upon the producers but by the cultural quarter convention of the theatre.
Incidentally I am working for curve theatre, and without sounding like a plug this is a venue that is exploring the responsibilities of a non-traditional architecture to the theatrical; the stage is surrounded by a 360 degree foyer, where set and performers cross to enter as a character. (More can be found at http://www.curveonline.co.uk).
there I think my blog will end. I hope I have explored more to where my mind is heading on this, now Christmas eve. Gaining from Barthes, the language of theatre is theatre which is why theatre is theatre.
Good night all.