Superfluities Redux
A Theatre Surrounds a City:
Vienna's Burgtheater
Superfluities Redux |
A Theatre Surrounds a City: |
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Tuesday, 26 August 2008 OrganumCross- Two forms of spectacle. The first: that which is revelatory when
the dramatist writes his self, the performer gestures hers, creating and
unveiling body and spirit in word, speech and movement. In the study and
the rehearsal room (the sites of discipline) following exploration, the
dramatist un- The second: that which hides, which draws new curtains over the self and the world. Curtains of flashing light and loud noise, concealing torture and lusts for power even as it welcomes laughter and cheap wonder. A blanket that drowns the self and world. A light that blinds, a noise that deafens, the self. This is the condition of the contemporary drama. A spectacle that hides, rather than reveals, and rewards only our infantile or animal attraction to sound and light. In its pretense to human warmth, it commodifies emotion, our sense of wonder, manipulates it, cold and sterile: no life comes from it. It lies. Entertainment for dull children who desire deception and distraction, who fear the mature body's possibilities and inevitable tragedy ... Of the second spectacle we have the contemporary manifestations of industrialised television, film, sport, politics. All well suited to the second. Is that not enough, or must the art of theatre operate under its subsumation, instead of in conflict with it? As if the screens, from those above Times Square to those we carry in our pockets on our iPods, were not numerous enough. If the theatre is uniquely suited for the first kind of spectacle, its most significant arena, why pursue or praise the second? The suspicion that there is not enough time in these years of ours (of mine) for both. ... Posted in /Organum Tuesday, 26 August 2008 Perfect WayFrom Wales, Simon Harris writes Perfect Way, a theatre blog started in January 2008 and to which we come for the first time, with thanks for his link to Superfluities Redux. Simon is a playwright and the founder of Sgript Cymru, for which he was artistic director up until last year (it is now active under the name Sherman Cymru), and his plays include Badfinger (which premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in 1997), Wales>Alaska, and Garageland. A belated welcome; a new link for the blogroll, a new feed for the aggregator. In June, Simon wrote this thoughtful post about excellence, peer review and funding for the arts; though specific to the UK, it has larger implications (about, for example, definitions of "excellence" and the risks of attaching this word to funding decisions) as well. Posted in /Miscellaneous |