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Category: theater

Visualizing Performance: Tadeusz Rozewicz’s White Marriage

Published January 21, 2008 by cgerrish

White Marriage by Rozewicz

Ever since I studied theater direction in college, I’ve been fascinated by Polish theater, and the posters created for the performances. Many years ago I saw a production of Rozewicz’s White Marriage at the Odyssey Theater in Los Angeles. The images and poetry of the performance remain with me to this day. To find and purchase a Polish theater poster once required a quest. Today, you can buy them online. 

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Bergman’s Little World: The Toy Theater

Published January 21, 2008 by cgerrish

The complete version of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander is stunning from the opening frame. Alexander peering through his toy theater sets the stage for the drama that unfolds. The theme of the “little world” and the “big world” that surrounds it continues to recur throughout the story. The little world is the extended family of the theater; the big world is larger world beyond their control. The story takes place in the years before World War I. 

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Akropolis: Toward a Poor Video, or can YouTube be more?

Published January 7, 2008 by cgerrish

Looking at a film like “Atonement” with very rich production values brings to mind the work of avant-garde theater director Jerzy Grotowski. His work was the opposite. He developed a concept and a practice called the “Poor Theater.” It’s principles are:

  • Eliminate, not teach something (Via Negativa).
    • This can be described as a basic philosophy for actor training that essentially says the actor’s main task involves not accruing skills so much as eradicating obstacles that get in the way of being true.
  • Enhance that which already exists.
  • Create all that is needed for the play in the actor’s body, with little use of props.
  • Promote rigorous physical and vocal training of actors
  • Avoid the beautiful if it does not foster truth

While it’s true that the cost of video production has plummeted, the cost of putting something truly interesting in front of a camera remains the same. For Grotowski there was a physical cost, a spiritual cost and the high price of artistic discipline. Although perhaps it’s as David Lynch has recently described it, “you think you’ve had an experience watching a movie on a telephone, but you haven’t. It’s such a sadness”Could YouTube live and thrive in the ceremony of the theater? Is there a context where YouTube could be more than a viral joke? The content is already there, but when we view it, do we really see it?

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Pina Bausch: a glimpse into passionate movement

Published November 20, 2007 by cgerrish

Just a note about Pina Bausch’s “Ten Chi.” I attended the performance in Berkeley last night. Sitting in the second row I was drawn into the performance when the great Dominique Mercy asked me (and other audience members) if I knew how to snore. And then asked me to do so. The video above is of Dominique.

The audience was filled with Bay area choreographers coming to find inspiration, and the evening delivered. Bausch’s company is filled with every ethnic group, all ages, every body type and real individual dancers. The performance contains hundreds of small dances, poetry recitals, jokes, skits, visual puns. Often several going on at once, a lyrical dance upstaged by a comic turn or a sexually charged moment. The dancers don’t have that abstract blank stare you see so often in modern dance. These are real people filled with emotion and passion. The dancers talk, tell jokes and scream. It’s rare experience.

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