Superfluities Redux
A Theatre Surrounds a City:
Vienna's Burgtheater
Superfluities Redux |
A Theatre Surrounds a City: |
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Wednesday, 01 July 2009 OrganumBeing modern. However postmodernism may be defined, it is
clearly considered by its theorists to be subsequent to the Modernist
period at least in time. But more than that, it is a reaction (a
progressive reaction, according to its enthusiasts) against the tenets of
the Modernist movement, tenets that arose from the need for a radical
individualism, mythic, tragic and urban, recognized from within the
conditions existing in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Sociologist Georg Simmel noted, "The deepest problems of modern life
derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and
individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces,
of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of
life." It also self- Though Modernism as a literary movement may be considered anachronistic, it is not for that reason invalid, and it may continue to give courage. In the theatre, some are seizing the Modernist perspective again in response to the postmodern mashup, the latter relevant to culture perhaps but irrelevant to the autonomous self, a warm and comforting blanket in which to wrap fear and trembling. At next week's Howard Barker conference in Wales, Elisabeth Angel-Perez's keynote speech is titled "Reinventing Grand Narratives: Barker's Challenge to Postmodernism," intimating that the broad historical and philosophical canvases of the Modernist project continue to be an antagonistic response to postmodernism. This is not to suggest that Barker considers himself a Modernist; this I don't know; but his favorite philosopher, Theodor Adorno, has the reputation of defending Modernism against the encroachment of the postmodernist Culture Industry. A Modernist theatre may partake of the formal explosions of musical modernists Schoenberg and Webern early in the twentieth century. In 1938, Adorno wrote, "The terror which Schoenberg and Webern spread, today as in the past, comes not from their incomprehensibility but from the fact that they are all too correctly understood. Their music gives form to that anxiety, that terror, that insight into the catastrophic situation which others merely evade by regressing. They are called individualists, and yet their work is nothing but a single dialogue with the powers which destroy individuality – powers whose 'formless shadows' fall gigantically on their music. In music, too, [and just as much in contemporary theatre – GH] collective powers are liquidating an individuality past saving, but against them only individuals are capable of consciously representing the aims of collectivity." This was prior to Hiroshima and Auschwitz, which still loomed as formless shadows over Asia, Europe and the modern world. The world remains just as modern. Posted in /Organum |