Superfluities Redux
A Theatre Surrounds a City:
Vienna's Burgtheater
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A Theatre Surrounds a City: |
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Wednesday, 01 July 2009
Being 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 at 8.56 am in /Organum
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Monday, 08 June 2009
The exhibition of the body; Bodies: The Exhibition. In the ideological culture
of whatever nation, the body in the 21st century is a possession of the
state; in China, the government retains ownership; in the United States,
one of the
representatives of the culture industry. An exhibition ("One of the
most extraordinary experiences of my life. Both simple and intricate and,
most of all, beautiful"; "Definite proof that the body is a walking,
living work of ART!") of human bodies stripped of flesh and twisted to
imitate the actions of sports players (tennis, football, basketball) is a
successful tourist attraction at the South Street Seaport, despite evidence that these bodies may have been the victims
of torture and imprisonment. They are viewable for the price of $26.50;
children under three are admitted free. Though a court-
The puritanical politician censors the Bodies exhibition, but this is not
a response: instead of confronting or examining the culture that creates
such a product, censorship merely throws a blanket over that product; the
ideology itself remains untouched. In the meantime: in New York,
advertising and marketing continues. The flesh-
Posted at 8.43 am in /Organum
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Thursday, 04 June 2009
Of the spirit. The Christian conception of fleshed word as a
means of access to spirit (through the bodied god, his sacrifice, rituals
such as the eucharist in which flesh is taken into flesh; though
Christianity is not alone in this conception, it is among the most recent
Western exemplars) finds unique aesthetic equivalence in theatre. Here it
is the actor and dramatist who explore these roads to access, as does a
musical performer, who allows a musical composition to pass through her
body
(without the body, even that of the synthesizer operator or the composer
in a recording studio, unheard), sacrificing
its cultural and social position to the aesthetic position: an offering to
the individual audience member, which differentiates aesthetic performance
from the organized church. The physical and perhaps emotional discomfort
and suffering of the performer in a Samuel Beckett or Sarah Kane play, for
example, is an act of sacrifice offered up to the individual auditor, who
may be expected to either share in it, contemplate it, or find offense in
it: the discomfort and suffering transcended in the grace of its
performance towards a spiritual end. Instead, however, of these ecstasies
offered to god and to the witnessing of fellow celebrants (for the church
audience is well-
And beyond words, the noumenal always beyond the panel discussion ...
Posted at 8.30 am in /Organum
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