The incredible power of the black box

An interview with director Marcus Azzini, jury member of the ITs Parade Parel.

“Watching a good performance gets you into life itself,” director Marcus Azzini, jury member at the ITs Festival, says. Azzini speaks of what he is looking for when he judges the work on the Parade Parel. “It is not so much about illusion and making you forget about life, but a good show will reveal something of yourself. Theatre can tell your own stories back to you.” Attempting to forget himself as a judge and a director he wishes to experience something, and let the logic come later. “What is important to ask is, did something happen to you, are you somehow changed? I am looking for theatrical experience that has that potential to change the viewer.”

As a director, Azzini is very clear of what he believes is important about art. “We have such potential to dream and explain the impossible; the mind is the most powerful part of the body. Art sharpens that. Art is part of your soul. And theatre expands your soul, you cannot live without it.” With such a declaration it is clear why Azzini feels that this event so important and why he is a part of the awards jury. With all of the performances that he is seeing, he describes to me his joy at watching the abundance of talent, and the ideas from this next generation of artists. As he offers his own insight with a trained eye, they also help him to develop his ideas as a director. “I like to see what’s coming up, how this generation works. I am able to see things from a new angle here. There is so much positive energy, it’s wonderful! It is all just starting for them. I enjoy being in that excited atmosphere.”

So as a director, what is it that Azzini is able to identify as good practice from one of the young directors? “Actually I am happy when I can watch and forget that I am a director myself. I want them to stop me watching with an analytical eye, and open me up as an audience member. The audience comes into the theatre, carrying their lives with them – they are having bad day or a good day, they were dumped, or it’s just too hot outside. There’s always something! A good artist will make you forget about all of that. Instead they will open you up and make an impact. Leave you with something to think about later. Those things really happen at this festival.” I wonder if this happens in Azzini’s own work. He tells me that he tries to give the public something they didn’t know they wanted. “That is an incredible power, but it only happens here in the performance, nowhere else.”

It sounds like Marcus’ passionate, big ideas about art can refresh our views on the importance of performance. But what is so important about this power? “Human beings are inventors. We can create wars, we cannot stop them, yet we can sit together in a black box and agree that we are going to believe in the same thing. That is an incredible power. And it is a power that is realized in the theatre, and here at the ITs Festival.”

Jodean Sumner

Review of Xavier Fontaine’s ‘A Celibration’

A Celibration is not a stage version of a vampire movie, but in this performance Xavier Fontaine drinks blood from a glass – instead of a bloody throat. He does it elegantly, after drawing the blood from his own veins.

Xavier Fontaine, a graduating mime student at the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, is the protagonist of A Celibration. He is supported by another (un-named) performer, who is sitting with him at a table and who watches the audience. This performer observes how the spectators are reacting on Fontaine’s actions. While keeping eye-contact with the spectators, he also holds the line between the performance and the visitors.

The intensity of this performance is not only caused by the bizarre content, but also the constant closeness between actors and spectators. We all get offered a glass of red wine. The free wine creates a lively and cheerful atmosphere. On the other hand it connects the audience with the performers: the spectators become a part of the show by doing the same as the performers: holding a glass filled with red liquid.

After shaking hands with every single spectator Fontaine starts this presentation of body manipulation. Fontaine transforms his face with his hands into grimaces, slowly and seriously, not fishing for funny moments. After transforming the ‘sur-face’, he puts his attentions on his own inner material: his blood.

The most impressive and disturbing scene in A Celibration is – without a doubt – the moment where Fontaine takes a blood sample of himself. And then drinks it. The lively atmosphere of the audience is gone. They are shocked, disgusted, irritated. Fontaine acts in full concentration, without any visible expression of pain or disgust. He is not acting – he does not create a theatrical illusion. This is not theatre, this is reality.

In this attitude lies a very important difference to the performances of the Wiener Aktionismus of the sixties, where the performers used real blood as well. The works of Hermann Nitsch for example, were big, expressive and pathetic – they wanted to shock. This ‘shocking effect’ was created from a kind of dubious disrespect of the living, or even dead, body. By using the tool of disgust Nitsch wanted to create a catharsis in the audience, and a reflection on death.

Just like Nitsch, Fontaine is dealing with mortality and death. But he, however, is not acting against his body in hate or anger. Even while manipulating his body he seems to keep a respectful distance. But this contradiction between his respectful and concentrated actions and this act of self-destruction is also irritating.

A reason for this annoyance lies in the culture-history of blood itself. There is a taboo about blood, which is rooted in the Jewish religion, where it is strictly forbidden to consume blood, because the blood belongs to God, who created the sacred human body.

Historically blood was used to seal a promise, or used in sacrificial pagan rites. Remember Faust signing the devil’s contract with his own blood? And the Catholic rite of the Eucharist, as the act of drinking red wine at the Lord ’s Supper in place of Christ’s blood is ritualized to renew the forgiveness of the sins and to feel the unity of men and God.

Fontaine’s performance seems to be a derivative of the Catholic illusion of the wine as Christ’s blood. The title itself, A Celebration, can be seen as a recitation of the Lord ’s Supper. Fontaine drinks his own blood instead of Christ’s blood. Does he want to ridicule this Christian ritual? Or is he using this strong image to create a moment of intensity and irritation? Even if the message is not clear, Fontaine’s performance offers a space for the viewers, which they can fill with their own stories and proper associations.

A Celibration can be seen as a performance against death. Drawing blood can be seen as a small suicide. As way to show that you decide about your life and your body. In that way, both taking a blood sample and committing suicide can both be seen as a statements against passivity. To live a life where you yourself are the one who’s finally in charge.

The death – or at least the absence – of Fontaine’s father is ignored, when Fontaine asks a spectator if he would like to be his father this evening. By this simple spoken act he creates a replacement of his father. By keeping the expression ‘his own flesh and blood’ in mind, it is possible to see that Fontaine is not only drinking his own blood but as well his father’s blood.

However, Fontaine is unable to articulate himself in front of the representation of his father. This way, he shows his feeling of inferiority. He takes possession of the power of his father by drinking his blood, which resembles the pagan rite of eating the heart of the loser of a fight to incorporate his strength.

A Celibration shows Xavier Fontaine’s dauntlessness in overcoming his disgust to please his father, and to receive his admiration. He does not intent to get his father’s approval. But this evening, he definitely got it from the audience.

http://www.annapeschke.de

Are you there?

Are you there?

Amsterdam Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, directed by Oystein Johansen

By Jodean Sumner

Cutting the air with a knife. This is the kind of  tense environment that is attempted within Are you there? – directed by Oystein Johansen from the Amsterdam Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. If such a thing were actually possible, to cut the air and take a piece home with you-you would be leaving empty handed. Although the performance might fall short of some it’s intentions it exceeds them in others. It is a presentation that is simple in its practicality and aesthetic. However when we consider and interpret the work, we find it to be a deceptively thorough exploration. The ideas are much more complex than the compositional structure of the performance. The display of standing, waiting and hoping has much more to say than the patches of silence might suggest.

The two actors, Elsa May Avril and Guido Pollemans, explore the concept of fear. Fear of contact with someone outside of your own world. Or fear of no one being there at all. This contradiction is an interesting factor to consider in partnership with the dynamic of an emotional relationship. In silence they wander the space, shifting flecks of dust, or meandering along the row of audience. The clipped sound of their shoes interrupts the pervasive silence. In focusing our attention to the smallest of details by removing all other things, the director makes an attempts to clearly define this tense atmosphere. Like the characters in this show, we are also waiting, expecting something to happen.

They assert the same statements over and over again: “There is nobody here. There is only the house and the sea,” the male performer reports. The female performer replies: “Somebody is here. I sense that somebody will come.” These lines are open to interpretation. Using inflection differently each time they speak, they convey different subtexts- hope, fear, desperation – and at times hysteria. The realization that perhaps no one is coming starts to create its own fear. The female performer adamantly replies again and again: “Someone IS coming. I sense that somebody IS coming!” But this doubt soon shifts as time progresses. Rather than the fear that no one is coming, and the hope that they are, the performers are afraid of someone coming. The fear is that someone actually is there, outside. These two concerns merge, and consequently become indistinguishable.

Things become more frantic. Resorting to a childish defense system, the female acts irrationally: slowly, she drops to her knees, and bends backwards. Laying folded on the floor. Or, she climbs on the table. She attempts to take off her clothes. Allowing the worry to consume her – wailing and running – she acts as though some invisible presence has threatened her. All the while the male performer storms across the space, shouting that no one is there. In an ineffective attempt to control his fear, he strides about the space, he begins to awkwardly contort his arms and shoulders, leaning backwards. At the climactic point he takes a solid wooden hammer and smashes it repeatedly on the table. We realize that this performance is not a recreation of a horror movie, but actually an insight and investigation into isolation and comfort of the hypothetical couple.

As the action of the piece articulates fear it also begins discuss it theoretically. Though it speaks about fear of others, it also expresses desire and need for difference: to experience or be in contact with the outside. People outside of the group that you are part of. Despite these necessary social ambitions, we experience inexplicable fear when reaching the outside of that group. Are you there? speaks less of the visible and the invisible, but more about the social function of individuals, couples and larger groups. Those concerns are all the more poignant in this international festival context. The artists are highlighted as individuals who are reaching outside of the known and comfortable. The audience are reminded that through art one can extend a hand outside of their known boundaries or possibly firmly close the doors. They try to create tension, but actually there is no need to be frightened. We know – and I believe the characters know – that no one is there. Instead the performance generates an intrigue in the psyche human: the reaction of the mind in apparent isolation. Perhaps fear is in fact a defense, an excuse, a comfort.

eyes of the beholder… ;)

The Orange Dream – recensie

Het zoontje van Olivia en John is dood. Hij viel naar beneden, net zoals de sinaasappels uit de boom in hun tuin. In de toneeltekst The Orange Dream van Robin N. Duits is het publiek getuige van een dialoog tussen een vader en een moeder – die weer een man en een vrouw proberen te worden. Olivia en John praten tegen elkaar in derde persoon enkelvoud. Als ze het over elkaar én zichzelf hebben gebruiken ze constant het afstandelijke ‘hij’ en ‘zij’. Deze vorm maakt de onoverbrugbare afstand tussen de twee goed voelbaar. Een afstand die langzamerhand erg frustrerend wordt, voor zowel de toeschouwers als de personages. Het consequente gebruik van de derde persoon maakt het wel mogelijk om uitzonderingen te maken om daarmee cruciale momenten te markeren. Zoals het toneelstukje dat ze samen opvoeren, waarin John de begrafenisondernemer speelt die Olivia’s maten voor haar lijkkist op meet. Ondanks dat dit geen echte voorstelling was maar een lezing, paste de afstandelijkheid verbazingwekkend goed bij de stijl van de tekst. Ik zou het gewoon een performance noemen. (Jasmina Ibrahimovic)

Grofgebekt maar niet te letterlijk – a review

The stage is white and spotless. Anne Fé de Boer (HKU), clad in black, is sitting on a stool and gives us a penetrating stare. She is about to do something important which we are allowed – or forced? – to witness. She is about to end her life. For the rest of the performance we will wander her beguiling distorted mind. A privilege as it turns out. After an ironically comical attempt to set herself alight with a match, she squirts empty two containers of red paint, across the white floor. She places her head – winking ostentatiously – in the pool of fake blood. From this position she contemplates her life. Every now and then in her performance, a few tragic characters pass by. Why? There’s no explanation. This talented theatre maker’s slightly eccentric personality turns this play into an up front and sincere performance. At the end she sings “Everybody’s gotta learn some time,” and takes a final deep breath. Then the lights go out and the audience awaken from Anne Fé de Boer’s morbid, yet very inspirational world. (Jasmina Ibrahimovic)

A well deserved break at the Vondelpark after the 4th edition of the ITS Daily…

Writing for Performance – interview with Don Duyns

Interview with playwright Don Duyns and artistic director of the course ‘Writing for performance at Utrecht.

Passionate about playwrighting and passionate about his students Don Duyns, is an an artist  using his professional experience to teach the next generation of theatre writers. The exact role of the playwright has become something of a question mark in current theatre making practices. I want to find out from Don, what kind of skills are valuable now for the survival of writers in this new experimental context. I hope to find out how he intends to generate playwrights who will be successful in an industry ready to collaborate and experiment with all creative roles in the theatre?

First of all Don can you describe how you came to be the artistic director of the ‘Writing for Performance course at Utrecht?

‘I started teaching as guest speaker at the school and then I realised that I not only felt a desire but a responsibility to the students. This is the school I wish I could gone to. It is not just about rigid structure but about learning many diverse and variable skills.’

Broadly can you describe how the overall curriculum works at Utrecht?

‘First of all it is important teach traditional structures for writing. This gives them the basic tools for writing which they can choose to develop or throw away. This is a year to find out what your weaknesses are and use those tools to become stronger. After they have learnt the  the craft of sentence structure and rhythm, they can also begin to experiment with their own style. We have a ‘free writing’ module where they can let go of their boundaries and write with instinct. With this they create a text or a performance. They learn to craft their interesting work into something useable for the stage. And eventually in the final year they  write their own play using all of the different techniques and styles they have experienced, and with their own writing voice that they have developed over the last three years.

So in essence you are trying to enable your students to experience a full range of styles which they can choose to adapt or use as an influence in their own writing?

‘Yes it is important for them to establish their own writing style. They need have their own voice so that they can be distinctive something which will make them much more valuable to a director.’

What kind of skills do you teach the student’s to arm them in the working world?

‘At Utrecht I refer to my experiences but also look into the field to see what is needed now. Rather than learning to give the audience what they want we create diverse skills, so that each playwright can be unique. I noticed that before audiences were interested in language and now they are interested in story telling. Changes in writing seem come in waves and in the next one or two years demands will be different. That is why we develop a full range of writing abilities. But it is not only about writing skill, for me it is also important for the students to learn how to work practically.’

What does working practically mean on a writing course?

‘It means that the writers must also learn to be at ease in the theatre space as much as they are in the office. They need to have a sensitivity to how their words will relate to an audience when complemented with action. In this way the writer and the director can have a dialogue about the work. This means that the writers at my academy have to learn not only how to write but also to develop an awareness of how their writing might appear on the stage.’

Why is this practicality suddenly important in your institution?

‘A lot of directors and actors are writing their own material now. It is very hard for playwrights to work professionally because of this. I even have to direct my own shows to get my writing seen. Directors are less interested in new playwrights. But when a good director works with a good writer the work is just so beautiful. People forget that the role of the playwright is not just to write but to be a philosopher. David Mammet for example is entertaining but he also has something to tell you. It is interesting but not necessarily understood. A good writer needs to offer insight and opinions, so if they can show the theatre not only what they want but the exact ideas that they offer, then they can be more successful.’

If you had to choose, what would you say is the most essential thing for student playwrights to learn?

‘The playwrights on ‘Writing for Performance’, need to leave the institution with a knowledge of themselves as a person and as writer with an agenda. They need to know what ideas they want their writing to engage with. If they do this then they will be able to tell theatre that they want to work, with exactly what it is that they can give, instead of always asking what they can take. It’s strange because I thought I would have said a technical skill but it’s actually more of a personality that is needed. We live in a world where people are constantly knocked down. I need my students to gain the power to keep getting up, again and again. They need to realise their power as a writer and the power of their philosophies.’

The course run by Don, seems to be as much about pragmatism and training on how to work in the industry as much as it is about learning how to write. This must be invaluable to the students where as Don says, there is a lack of interest from directors. Perhaps what is taking place at Utrecht, is a regeneration of the playwrights role, creating writers who are dynamic, versatile and collaborative. Playwrights who can be present in the entire creative process, from putting pen to paper, to moving the actors in to the right position when speaking their words. This is a new type of artist. They must become practical, not only a literary visionary but a physical one as well. The written work by the playwright though deeply insightful and linguistically challenging, has been revealed as an intriguing-yet infrequently used material. The potential new role of the playwright as a collaborator and active creator in the rehearsal space, can begin to assert itself as a much more influential role in the theatre.

Can we blur the boundaries between what is a writer and a director? How do we define what it is that needs to be taught now, if the role of the playwright is to be more diverse? It seems that these are the questions that are being asked and explored at Utrecht. I am very interested to understand what actually constitutes a playwright as a playwright if they are also learning how to move their words, across a stage, to tell the actor how the words are to be accompanied with the stage action.  We will not have to wait long. Don’s passion and commitment to the success of his students will ensure, that with the next generation of writers, we will soon find out!

Jodean Sumner

Er wordt weer hard gewerkt aan de ITs Daily van morgen…

“Een goede voorstelling zorgt voor kortsluiting in je hersenen”

Wilhelmer van Efferink is met Gesprekken over David te zien op het ITS Festival

 

 Door Henk de Jong

 Publiek dat naar een voorstelling van Wilhelmer van Efferink komt mag niet achterover gaan leunen. Er moet gewerkt worden. Wie daar geen zin in heeft moet niet komen, aldus de jonge theatermaker. Gesprekken tussen David heet de voorstelling van Van Efferink waarmee hij, als enige van zijn jaar, als theatermaker afstudeert aan de Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht. Op zondag 27 juni is zijn voorstelling te zien op het ITS Festival.

Een voorstelling maken is steeds verder gaan met wat er al is. Het een lokt het ander uit. En dat is maar goed ook. “Het plaatje in je hoofd is altijd minder mooi dan wat het kan worden”, vindt Van Efferink. “Je creëert een loop die niet anders kan zijn dan hij kan zijn. Het kan zo gebeuren dat je als theatermaker iets maakt dat je helemaal niet had willen maken, maar dat wel heel mooi is. Zo maakt het product zich zelf.”

In Gesprekken tussen David volgt een confrontatie tussen jong en oud. Drie generaties komen in de voorstelling aan bod. Een jongen van twaalf, een dertiger en een zeventiger. Waar heb je als oudere spijt van? Wat had je anders gedaan? En wat zou je als jongere nooit willen worden? De mens is er toe gedoemd steeds opnieuw dezelfde fouten te maken. “Belangrijk is hoe je daar mee omgaat”, aldus Van Efferink.

Hoe verhoudt het een zich ten opzichte van het ander? Het is een terugkerend thema in Van Efferinks werk.  Met de kennis van nu zou je tijdens je leven misschien andere keuzes gemaakt hebben. Maar je kunt niet meer terug. De sfeer is bij een voorstelling erg belangrijk, stelt de theatermaker. “Het moet een sensitieve ervaring zijn. Met de rug naar het podium moet de sfeer nog steeds voelbaar zijn.”

“Theater gebeurt bij jou, het publiek. Een goede voorstelling brengt het publiek in totale verwarring,” aldus Van Efferink. “Bij het naar huis gaan moet je je fiets niet terug kunnen vinden omdat de voorstelling voor even kortsluiting in je hersenen heeft veroorzaakt.”

Op 27 juni 2010 is Gesprekken over David van Wilhelmer van Efferink te zien op het ITS Festival.