Towards an Aesthetic Philosophy for Untitled Theater Co. #61
As Untitled Theater Company #61 has always attempted to produce theater with a philosophical bent, and has attempted to highlight that philosophy within its productions of these works, the following is an attempt to articulate UTC61's own philosophy, while acknowledging the influences that brought us to our positions. As Artistic Director, I will be speaking for myself, but as my philosophy shapes that of the theater company, I will be speaking for the company as well.
Exploring the Nature of Theater:
I am interested in works that examine, and in some way attempt to define, what exactly is the nature of theater, and how is it most effectively conveyed to an audience. Thus, I am attracted to writers who have formulated their own philosophy on that subject, such as Bertolt Brecht and Richard Foreman. When producing the works of these writers, I use their philosophical writings as a key through which to interpret their works, trying to express their philosophies though our own, new theatrical techniques. For example, when directing Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan, I attempted to create techniques that highlighted Brecht's concept of the Verfremdungseffekt, or alienation effect, by such strategies as splitting the main role into two actors, to decrease emotional identification, and having the actors break out of the play and speak as themselves on the philosophical questions Brecht had raised. Similarly, when I directed Richard Foreman's My Head was a Sledgehammer, we interrupted the audience's sightlines, by providing them with "fourth-dimensional glasses" which were designed with a bar straight through the middle, so that the difficulty of watching the play made the audience more aware of the process of watching it. I feel that any theatrical piece, by its very nature, is examining the theatrical process to an extent. I have just decided to make the subtext the text, so to speak, and acknowledge and encourage that examination.
The Unpretentious Avant-Garde:
I feel that the biggest mistake made among the so-called "avant-garde", which most of our productions might be considered a part of, is a tone of self-seriousness that, in practice, makes the pieces dull and stultifying. All our productions have a sense of humor about themselves, and although we try to have professional quality productions, we try not to lose the sense of fun that can come from a bunch of people who have come together to play on a stage. The theater, as far as I am concerned, is, in the end, just an extension of a childhood make-believe game, put on for others benefit. The joy of the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney movies, in which they would just up and declare "Hey, kids, let's put on a show," is something almost anyone can tap into, and yet it is something that can be easily forgotten by theatrical professionals who become overwhelmed by seemingly more important concerns. The best production I ever saw of Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano was not done by a professional company, but by a small amateur group in a Baltimore suburb who put on the play in a junior high school cafeteria on an improvised stage. One of the actresses was a teenage girl whose little sister was sitting in the audience, and every time she caught her sister's eye, she was barely able to suppress a giggle. Yet somehow the concerns of the show came through all the more clearly, as I was seduced into helpless laughter at the actors' joyful clowning. The laughter brought home a point, which I am about to discuss in the next section.
The Humor of Opposition:
Ionesco said, about The Bald Soprano, that he thought he was writing a tragedy, and he was shocked when he first put it on and everyone laughed. Whether one takes him 100% at his word or not (I tend not to), the technique he used has become an important one for UTC61. He believed that his audience would laugh until the moment when they came to the shocked realization that they were laughing at themselves. Like him, I believe that one of the most effective ways to make a serious or even tragic point is to emphasize the humor within it, and that very opposition will be what drives the audience to recognize the seriousness of the subject matter, as the tone switches from comic to tragic and back again. I also believe that the comic exaggeration of a monstrous way of thinking, such as racism or anti-semitism, highlights the absurdity of those thoughts, and combats them more effectively that any diatribe would. Thus, in plays have we produced, such as Dennis Potter's Brimstone & Treacle or my own A Shylock, we introduced characters who had extreme hateful beliefs, hoping for an almost Artaud-like purgation of those beliefs from the audience members. Indeed, I believe that anytime anyone says anything on stage, it also means the opposite of what they are saying, and one should be aware of and utilize that contradiction. Tom Stoppard said that his favorite joke of Beckett's was whenever Beckett would say something and then immediately contradict it. Oddly, Beckett never did that.
Professionalism, and an Artistic Whole:
The flip side of our joyful style is an insistence on professionalism, throughout. By this, I mean that we do not rely on pure enthusiasm for our clout, we also insist on focussed, planned out theater. Often, modern experimental companies have a haphazard feel to their productions, as if they had been thrown together in a few days, sustained by the pure energy of their creators. Although there is much to be said for that energy, it alone is insufficient. In our productions, there must also be a purpose for everything on stage, and the audience must feel that everything they see has a reason. The audience members may not always know what that reason is immediately, or ever, but they are sure to recognize the tone set by fully thought out theater. Richard Foreman’s works are often inscrutable, when one tries to define the exact meaning of every individual moment, but there is always the impression that he understood why each moment existed. By doing so, he creates an artistic whole that can then be appreciated by others. That sense of wholeness, combined with the high skill level of our performers, writers and directors, creates that sense of professionalism that is too often lacking in experimental work.
The Supremacy of Text:
Unlike many experimental theater companies, UTC61 never treats the "text as pretext", believing instead that the production must spring from the playwright's words, above all. This does not mean, however, that the productions follow a conventional model. For The Good Woman of Setzuan, as I mentioned, I split the main character into two actors, reduced the cast to five, and interrupted the action with philosophic discussions. For Brimstone & Treacle, I inserted lip-synch numbers. For My Head was a Sledgehammer, I cut the stage directions and character names, and created my own plot and cast of characters. However, all these actions were done only after fully reading all available material that the playwright had written about the play, and in service of his stated intentions. In the case of My Head was a Sledgehammer, I spoke directly to Foreman on the question. Always, the point was not to create my own statement, whether or not it was fully in synch with the playwright's, but to convey the playwright's message through new and inventive methods.
Creating a New Language:
According to Ionesco, once more, the basic tragedy of life lies in man's inability to communicate. The irony that he faced, of course, was that he himself was dependent on that language to communicate that tragedy. He never satisfactorily solved that question for himself, but I feel that one of the things drama allows one to create is one’s own world, with its own language, that can communicate in a way normal speech cannot accomplish. The playwrights I have always been most drawn to are those whose character did not speak in a way that mimicked that of everyday speech, but had their own, identifiable way of speaking. The examples of that range from Pinter to Stoppard to Mamet (who mistakenly believes that he is, indeed, mimicking everyday speech) to Shakespeare, whose characters certainly never spoke in a naturalistic fashion, but instead used a poetic language that would convey as much in as little space as possible. The theater also offers many other types of language aids not usually available, from movement to lighting to (my personal favorite) music. I am very interested in people who have tried to categorize and define the various ways of theatrical speech, such as Anne Bogart's Viewpoints and Compositional ideas. An attempt to fully list the theater’s available tools is, perhaps, always doomed to failure, because of the inventiveness of the theater artist, but I think it is important to choose a deliberately artificial way of communicating, that belongs only to the world in which that play is set, and best fulfills the purpose of conveying the ideas of the production.
Acknowledging the Audience:
I feel it important to acknowledge the existence of the audience, rather than to attempt the leap of faith that most productions demand, the so-called "suspension of belief" that's necessary in order to fool the audience thinking that all that really exists is on the stage in front of them. I don't believe that that goal is even totally possible, and, if it were, I'm not sure that sort of non-existence is desirable. Instead, I prefer to give the audience a role in the proceedings, even if that role is as simple as somehow, simply saying that they, are, indeed, the audience. Grotowski and the Living Theater, of course, have used radical ways of involving the audience, and I am in favor of those as well, although I do not demand them in UTC61 productions. Our methods have ranged from dividing the audience into "Jewish" and "Christian" sections, during A Shylock, and having the actors address each side as if they were their respective assigned religions, to inviting the audience members to shout out and interrupt the performances of The Good Woman of Setzuan, of they saw anything they disagreed with, philosophically.
Rhythm:
Treatises on theater often talk of plot-driven or character-driven plays (neither of which UTC61 is particularly interested in), or even occasionally of theme-driven works (much closer to our interest), but I feel that there is a forth, less talked about element, and that is rhythm. Rhythm-driven works, or at least rhythm-dominant works, make up what I consider to be the bulk of the avant-garde. I say that partly because, despite my philosophic bent, I don't think one can have a completely successful production that is only concerned with promoting a point of view. That is what essays such as this are for. Most good theater incorporates the other three elements of theater in service of a philosophical theme, and if those elements are lacking, it doesn't matter how cogent the philosophical argument is. Yet obviously a work such as Foreman's is not overly concerned with plot or character. So how is it so theatrical? The answer is that it employs rhythm, much like a piece of music, that conveys meaning in a more intuitive but perhaps more forceful manner. Once again, going back as far as Shakespeare's iambic pentameter, or the Greeks' choruses, rhythm was always a very important element in theater that seems to be undervalued outside of experimental theater, nowadays. What experimental theater often does, however, is to let the rhythm come first, not only in the speeches (or silences, if you're Pinter), but also in movement, light, and sound. In its most extreme, it can create a sort of abstract canvas, like abstract art, from which the audience can glean its own messages. Robert Wilson is a good example of that extreme. In America, awareness of rhythm has been rising, from the already mentioned Anne Bogart philosophy (derived, as it is, from modern dance) to the growing awareness of Meyerholdian techniques. In UTC61 productions, we try to be aware of the rhythmical side of the work, even when they are less dominant, and fully utilize that theatrical tool.
Philosophical Discussions:
Due to my interest in the intellectual side of theater, I like to find plays that not only bring up philosophic issues through their thematic content, but often have the characters themselves discussing philosophic issues. Tom Stoppard uses the tack of including philosophers in his plays, or possibly artists with a philosophic bent, such as in Artist Descending a Staircase. Slawomir Mrozek, as well, puts two men on stage in Striptease who are, if not philosophers, at least willing to be spending a half hour discussing the nature of free will. Richard Foreman incorporates his philosophic ideas straight into his text. Brecht nearly has his character shout out in support of communism. But whether it is as overt as these examples, or more of the nature of Dennis Potter, who has a demon rape a semi-comatose girl back into consciousness, and lets the audience draw its own conclusions, all of our plays have a firm philosophic foundation. Although all the above elements I have mentioned are important considerations for our productions, the thing that draws all of our shows together is the strong interest in examining the questions of human existence.