Superfluities Redux
On culture and theatre, by George Hunka
A new journal for theatre minima and organum posts exclusively can now be found here.
Thursday, 06 November 2008
Archives: On Reading Howard Barker's Gertrude
Originally published on 27 November 2006. It has been lightly revised.
Statements of intent. There are practical outcomes and effects
in approaching theatre as sensual lyricism, one such effect a growing
realization of contemporary theatre's death (and not a tragic death that
contemplates the ends of ecstasy and the decay of the body, but a psychic
death of numbed, anaesthetized nerve endings and cold shallow eyes of
glass). Death inhering in unquestioning acceptance of the falsehoods of
meaning-
I no longer ever ask questions about meaning aloud, questions about meaning invite that hideously vapid death. René Char: "No bird has the heart to sing in a thicket of questions." Especially the question, "What does it mean?" Which is attempted homicide and should be prosecuted and punished as such.
I would prefer (dramatist as composer) not untrained performers but
performers trained as musicians (actress and actor as joined with
instrument, that instrument the body, speaking, as musical instruments are
beautiful and profoundly integral and sovereign in their histories and
construction when silent but most beautiful when sounded); as with
soloists or chamber ensembles, the director or conductor utterly
unnecessary; the text itself director enough, the score itself conductor
enough. (Directors are meaning-
Continual, renewed recognition of the need for secret conspiracies, among spiritual co-conspirators, in darkened rooms. This is also as political as it sounds.
Posted at 9.19 am in /Archives
Permanent link to this story
