Superfluities Redux
A Theatre Surrounds a City:
Vienna's Burgtheater
Superfluities Redux |
A Theatre Surrounds a City: |
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Tuesday, 03 June 2008 "A theatre ... must above all things be irresponsible and disloyal""I would like to propose a different theatre, in which conscience is
removed from its dominant function and criticism is confined to that fatal
axis where it alone operates to the common good – that which lies
between the artist and the text, the self-criticism exercised in deletion,
excision, self-denial of the banal and the routine. I would like to
propose that the value of works of art, in social circumstances such as
the present, lies not in their entertainment value, nor in their ability
to 'change perceptions' in pursuit of some common purpose, but in their
power to devastate the received wisdom of the collective, which conspires
to diminish individual experience at all levels. A theatre which addresses
the individual and ceases to regard the audience as an entity, which
denies the existence of audience as singular at all, must above all things
be irresponsible and disloyal. It cannot hope for the status of social
critic, since the social critic is fully incorporated, and it must not
clamour for the comforts of solidarity, the much- Howard Barker Posted in /Quotes Tuesday, 03 June 2008 OrganumAn addition to the Organum is available this morning at the new theatre minima journal. Posted in /Theatreminima |