Anthropology and Theatre-Interviews

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Anthropology and Theatre: Interviews

Author(s): Eugenio Barba, Gautam Dasgupta, Alessandro Fersen and Bonnie MarrancaSource: Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1984), pp. 7-27Published by: Performing Arts Journal, Inc.

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NTH

a n d

T H E TRE

EUGENIOB RB

interviewed y

G a u t a m asgupta

LESS N R O

FERSEN

interviewed y

B o n n i e Marranca

7

.r-

-- 00







Eugenio

a r b a

Eugenio Barba founded the Odin Teatret in 1964. Prior to that he worked

with Grotowski in the early days of the Polish Lab,and studied KathakaliinIndia.The Odin Teatret,based in Denmark,tours widely around the world.It

is also the home of Barba's International School of Theatre Anthropology.Barba's writings on theatre are collected in The Floating Islands. Thisinter-

view was conducted by Gautam Dasgupta in New Yorkon the occasion of

the Odin's first American appearance at La Mama, May 1984.

What made you and the Odin Teatret come to New York after all these

years?

We came to New York because Ellen Stewart at La Mama asked us to. She

came to Holstebro in 1966 when we were completely ignored and still not

recognized, and since that time she has wanted us to come here and pre-sent our work. Also, in the past few years the Odin Teatret has been

developing a sort of practice or policy of establishing a collaboration and

touring especially where there are theatre groups working anonymously in

contexts outside a big city or away from the glamor of recognition and

critical attention. These are groups which have been called the Third

Theatre, groups not traditional or avant-garde but created by the necessityof the personal needs of certain young people to socialize and create theirown pedagogy-a learning process vis-a-vis the group-and using the

results of this socialization in places often far from the recognized theatre

8







culture of our society. The fact that we've been working with these groupshas accustomed us to go to places where we know the people physically;the audience is not only an anonymous crowd-even if motivated or in-terested in our work-but people to whom we feel we have a tie, a common

situation, a sort of vision. It's more existential than aesthetic. We feel thatfor such audiences it was a necessity for us to go there.

New Yorkhas always seemed to us a big quicksand landscape, with veryvoracious spectators who look at a famous caravan arriving,then it disap-pears, and then they wait for the next caravan. There is missing in this at-titude the possibility of ecological balance and development of the floraand fauna of theatrical cultures, which goes fromthe amateur groups to the

political groups to street theatre to the commercial to the avant-garde-Ithink of them all as very, very rich, even if not rich in important artistic

results. This rich life is something we find in most of Europe.

Whatdictated the choice of the two plays [The Millionand Brecht's Ashes

II]that you brought to New York?

They are the two plays in the repertorythat we use to present ourselves in a

very traditional situation, the tradition being the way our culture presentstheatre-there's a building, the audience comes and buys tickets, and theysee the show that's being presented.

Butof these two productions, would it be correct to say that Brecht's AshesII is more suited to the traditional theatrical environment, whereas TheMillion is less of an urbanpiece, as it were?

That's right. The Million is the production we use in a barter situation. Bybarter,we mean literallythat we go to a place where we exchange our groupculture, which is manifested in TheMillion,with the culture of the people inthe place where we are. The exchange would take place after our presenta-tion of The Million.The people there will then sing their traditional songs,dance, recite poetry,etc. There can even be a barterin urbanneighborhoodswhere

youhave a

precise radiographyof the

degradation-a syncreticmanifestation of an Italianculture, for instance, where you may hear an oldman sing traditional songs of the village he left behind, or a young man im-

itating television stars and rock musicians. InNew York,our entire programwas meant to be presented from a performingpoint of view, because most

people here are interested in that.

It seems from most of your past interests that you would prefer to creatework which is embraced by the concept of barter. Whythen was Brecht'sAshes IIcreated?

To create a sort of unity, the two complimentary sides which create a unityof the Odin Teatret. Fromthe very beginning we have created productionsfor very few spectators and we intended these for people who were

9







lu[ly u ulau

ANABASISin Peru

motivated to a type of reflection on their own existential situation or their

place and role in history. These productions were for the few people who

had this deep necessity. Afterall, the theatre should be for people who havea special necessity. We then discovered that theatre can, in a way, destroyits artistic quality and become a sort of cultural instrument. By cultural Imean an instrument for creating relations, especially among persons whocould never be able to create a dialogue between themselves. Ouractors goto a small village in Colombia or Spain and give something which has a

meaning for the population of that place, and something that was also re-

quired, which the hosts then repay with something of equivalent value,which is to say what manifests their lives there, what manifests itself

through a physical presence. This to me is very important. When you see

The Million,you could consider us theatre, but you could also consider usan equivalent manifestation of popularculture. This culture always deals in

dance, song, and music, never in text. Text is a typical manifestation of a

cult, of an intellectually superior culture. So from the moment we beginpresenting TheMillion,everyone feels that there are in it the equivalents ofwhat they themselves manifest. I call this presence, which underlines theindividual and connects him to others in the group. This is the role of tradi-tional dances and songs.

Togo back to Brecht's Ashes IIone last time, are you suggesting that there

is something secretive about its genesis, an attempt at group therapyforachosen few?

No, no. But let's say that the themes of our productions which we call

10







secret-secret in the sense of separated ones-are for persons who havebeen motivated by problems and obsessions which are ours, but which weshare with others. Brecht's Ashes II is the story of immigration. It's an at-

tempt to analyze this Germanauthor not in terms of theory but as a precur-sor of our own situation as immigrants. The Odin Teatret is literally com-posed of immigrants who, like Brecht, have been losing their idiom, their

language, and this is the greatest handicap for people doing theatre. Butwe've managed to create a sort of compensation in demanding to be pre-sent in a particularway, of having theatrical presence. And immigration is

finally not just a phenomenon of the Odin Teatret; it is the problem of the

person leaving a village and going to the big town. It's an uprooting from a

psychological point of view. You are leaving the values of the family and

searching for other values, from being a bourgeois to assuming a left-wingstandpoint, and vice versa. And then there is the biggest immigration of all,

that of the employee in search of new jobs.

Youseem to dismiss the role of the intellectual as spectator in the theatre

by dealing more withpopular interests or a general audience. Is there some

way that one could use your vision and still deal with a text, radicalize it interms of performance? Andalso, whycan't spectators remain spectators; isthere any reason for always turning them into participants of sorts?

To answer your second question first, there are two aspects to that. InBrecht's Ashes IIyou are just a spectator; you shouldn't participate. You

must react to it as you would if you were reading Dostoevsky or looking at aCezanne. This is a very particular participation based on your biography,your prior experience, and your degree of commitment to what you are. Inever say that theatre should make the audience participate. There arecases when spectators are just spectators, we are aware of it, and NewYork is like that. Then there are other situations where we, from the verybeginning, agree that if we are doing something, then you are doingsomething. Both parts agree.

For the intellectual, it's the same thing. I do not dismiss intellectuals; I

myselfam one. I think that

theyin

realityare

makingthe

greatest changes,are making the revolution. I have great admiration and fear of them. Thereare those who build the concentration camps and those who create the

great ideologies that transform people. At my theatre anthropology school,ISTA[InternationalSchool of Theatre Anthropology], all my collaboratorsare super-intellectuals. It's just very difficult to go and barter with an in-

tellectual, because the intellectual will at best give me a good article. And

why not? Igo to them with my production, they write me an essay about it,and we even publish it.

Let's move into the anthropological issue. There's a gray area between the

idea of anthropological practice and the notion of cultural imperialism, anissue that was raised in quite a controversial manner a few years back withEdwardSaid's book Orientalism, in which he talked about the Orient itself

11







as a construct of the western imagination.

In a way he's right. Most of the views and interpretations of the Orientaltheatre from the time of

Stanislavskyuntil Brecht are built on misunder-

standings. Brecht, for example, when he saw Mei Lan-Fang in Moscow

thought that the Chinese actor was absolutely cold and stopped the actionto show exactly what his character was representing. On the other hand,when Mei Lan-Fangwrote his biography, he said he was thrilled when hecould 100 percent identify with his role, because then he could totally cap-tivate his audience. The same is true of Artaud and the Balinese theatre,where he spoke of a theatre of mise-en-scene, and we know that there is nomise-en-scene at all in Bali. Such views of the Oriental theatre were onlyalibis, justifications for the theatrical needs and visions of Brecht and Ar-

taud. These were, of course, very fruitful misunderstandings at that time

for European theatrical practice.

But I am interested in a very, very elementary question. Why,when Isee twoactors doing the same thing, I get fascinated by one and not by the other.So when the exterior is washed off, when you can go behind the epidermisand see the organs of these actions-not the final expression, but what canbe called pre-expressivity-that is the decisive factor for me to believe in.This is my interest in theatre anthropology. Is it possible in spite of style, in

spite of all the cultural context, which is extremely important, to find ifthere are common principles which make up the ballast and the life of the

actor, the performing self. What makes anthropology important for me inthe theatre is the man in the performingsituation. There has to be a sort oflife in it which fascinates me, and if it doesn't exist, it doesn't fascinate me.I can say, this life consists of talent, and I don't go much farther. But toask what this life consists of, just as biologists ask about the nature of life,and proceed to answer it by moving from the old organism to the system,from the system to the organs, then to the molecules and the cells and

ultimately to the DNA.Something like the DNA I thinkexists in the perform-ing arts. I have seen this, and ISTA has been trying to determine how

precise they can be. One could call them laws almost, which can be evident

and can determine the life and bias of the actor.

And is this something that can be determined from a study of othercultures? If it is that precise, that fundamental, why then can't it be studiedwithin the confines of one's own culture?

It's possible to study and analyze only the phenomena which are constant,which repeat themselves. Inthe West we have no such phenomena; the ac-tor doesn't repeat, he is always inventing, and when he performs every even-

ing, there are slight changes. You can only study a sort of codified actingwhich repeats itself. Of course this is evident not only in Oriental forms butalso in the western tradition of classical ballet and the mime of Decroux. Soit's not that I'mgoing to other cultures, I'mgoing to the acting and perfor-mance traditions of those cultures where there is the possibility of repeti-

12







tion. Onlythen can Isay that there is a law which is built into such and such

a phenomena. Let's put this another way: why did the Oriental masters

codify? Whycouldn't the lead actors be natural?That's the first question I

ask myself. Of course, when I see a great Kabukiactor or an Odissi dancer

perform, I can say, Oh, yes, stylization; stylization makes it more

powerful. Because I see the master. But when Isee a beginning student, I

don't see this power. I see a bird who has fallen into the water and then

comes out tryingto walk on the ground. Then one could start asking if there

is a connection between codification and biological laws which manifest

our life, without which there is no life. And technique is a combination of

codification and biological laws.

0

Cj

H

A Barter Scene in COMEAND THE DAYWILLBE OURS

For instance, do you know how important is the codification of arms,hands, fingers for the Oriental theatre? There are also important but veryvague rules in ballet and mime for the positioning of the fingers. One shouldthen ask why the hands should have such importance for the Orientalmasters. Well, if you walk in the street and see people speaking, every thirdsecond you can see in the hands of each of them a very particulartension.The moment you start speaking, fingers and hands are traversed by a con-tinual fluxus of tensions. It's very important, because it is a manifestation

of life. Now no one in life speaks as an actor does, with one hand down withinert fingers or whatever. The masters must have understood this, that tocreate not an illustration of life, but an equivalent of life, you must go

13









Kabukiactor, you will feel completely lost and enclosed, because all the

positions are so different, difficult. It's a completely different set ofmuscular tones, a new architecture of tensions which make your body goout from a conditioned reflex which have become inert and do not hit theobserver on any serious level.

How do these observations and experiments of yours apply in the actualworkof making theatre?

The reason I started this study was because Iwas faced with a problem. Ihave certain experiences through many years of work,and people come tome and wish to participate in it. How to transmit these experiences without

making them into a sort of formula, which in reality kills the autonomy in-stead of stimulating it. It's always been a problem of how to teach without

teaching, without imposing rules. So one must invent a sort of pedagogicalprocess where you work by negation. At the start it looks like this. I knowthat in all the codified forms, the first thing to do is to change the way of

walking. Can I change my way of walking, but without specializing myselfas, say, a classical ballet dancer or a Kabuki actor? So Ihave to build myex-ercise to create a new way of walking even within an apparently naturalisticframework. It's enough that the actor is still walking from one place toanother on the stage, but can he be so precise that each step he takes isone centimeter shorter than the previous one. If he can do this, then hemust be present in his action. What makes a codified technique so impor-

tant is that each action obliges the actor to be present at all times, not to

THEBOOKOF DANCESin a southern Italian village

- ~







anticipate these actions. The mind must be in the action. It doesn't evenhave to be a great stylization; perhaps you wouldn't even notice it. But it is

enough that each actor did these actions on stage. So the consequencefrom the pedagogical point of view is that without

going throughthe

psychological tradition of our acting, we can go through this phase which Icall expressiveness -being able to master this new technique of the

body, this new culture, even an alternative one, but one that is not specializ-ed.

But it is specialized ...

Well, in real life when we act, the functional movement is the outcome ofthe least effort to generate a maximum result. Inthe theatre you must worka little more, this is the idea. In codified theatre

forms, youhave to work

much, much more, with more force. The principle is that you have to breakthe functional way of being natural, and through this apparent being un-naturalyou must get a new spontaneity. You are building new conditioned

reflexes, but this new automatism shouldn't have such a particularitythat

you can at once recognize a Noh actor or a ballet dancer. You see the Odinand you recognize the Odin actor because he has been building his ownculture of the body. These are particular, individuallanguages, but they arenot bound to one particular technique. It's something invented, which is

very personal. It's the problemof inventing a personal technique, a personalstrategy against mechanical repetition which kills the possibility of beingtotally present in your actions.

This aliveness, this presentness that you are talking about, it applies onlyto artistic practice. This new culture of the body is really the culture of onlyan aesthetic body....

No, it is the culture of a social body. Only if I have this power can I have an

impact on my audience. It's not something abstract. You also have tounderstand what is art. Inthe big cities, yes, we workin an artistic situation.There is a public and there are reviews in the newspapers. But there are

never reviews of our barters. When we go to the villages, our work is nolonger art, but a cultural phenomenon. There is a great difference betweenart and culture. When culture dies, art appears. A crucifix is a cultural

phenomenon. You go to church to pray, to establish a relation. Culture is

always a relation. But when you take a crucifix and put it in a museum, then

you have art. You can go to Peruvian villages and see extraordinarilybeautiful pails that the villagers are using to go to the wells to draw waterwith. This is culture. Now, there is the possibility of using theatre as art. Ihave nothing against it. But there is also the possibility of using theatre as

culture, of building relations, and to do this you must have a very precise at-

titude towards existence. It isn't aesthetic; it's how you want to build yourown life. I mean, when I speak of needs, that is something very concrete.But unfortunatelythese needs can only be realized on a microcosmic scale.That is the Odin Teatret-a place that serves to realize certain needs of a

16







o='

A Barter Scene in a Venezuelan village

handful of persons. All this has been influencing what you call technique.

Some people have been attracted by this, by the aesthetic phenomenon ofthe Odin Teatret. But many others have come to us and seen something dif-

ferent, a group of emigrants, students rejected by establishment theatre

schools, a gathering together in spite of societal and cultural pressures.We've been building something autonomous, but it's changing all the time,and changing the view of theatre. InEuropeand in many other countries, weare a factor which has changed many things. Theatre can change onlytheatre; it cannot change society. But if you change the theatre, you changea small but very important partof society. Inthe end, what did Stanislavskyinfluence? The spectators or the age or the history of theatre which came

after him? When you change theatre, you change for its audience a certainway of seeing, a change in perception, a special kind of perceptivity. In the

end, you must do only what is right for you to do. You mustn't think aboutits use, its meaning, its length. Just if it's right. Like it was right for you tostart PerformingArts Journal.

It is amazing, at least in the West, for a theatrical group to have lasted for

nearly twenty years. Is it because of your extra-theatrical vision that you'vebeen able to sustain the group?

No. All the people around me have avery

concrete,professional daily

life.

Theyalso have a very privateone. We are a workingcommunity, yes, but nota privateone. The reason the Odin Teatret has survived is because of a fewfactors. First, in the beginning, we were not recognized as a theatre, so all

17







the members accepted the fact that you can work a long, long time without

recognition. It's given us a very particular way of seeing the outside. Wemust build our own autonomy out of it. It's also an economic autonomy.This is what characterizes the OdinTeatret: it's a laboratorywhich not onlyproduces productions. Economically, we aren't dependent on them. Wehave other activities, such as publishing, making pedagogical films about

theatre, works for television, etc., and this is how we finance the longperiods of rehearsals. Another factor is that every three or fouryears we tryto create an internal change, which takes into account the new aspirationsof the individual members.

Do you function as a democratic institution in matters of artistic input?

Let's say it shows how hard are the laws of group dynamics. It is important

to satisfy the artistic aspirations of individuals, which can veryoften go out-ward from the group. At the same time, the group must have a stimulatingpower.The group breathes together, but each of us can also have differentfunctions. ISTA s my interest, and the actors have their own. We find waysof compromising. Some individuals leave at times to fulfill their own

possibilities outside the group, and then they come back enriched and toshake up the group with what they found outside.

You do know that in various places around the world, and especially in

Europe,you are now seen as a master. Have you been pleased with this in-

fluence of yours?

If this influence is to help these people to find their autonomy, to keep alivethe spirit of revolt, yes. But when Isee a group that in any way betrays that

aliveness, begins imitating me, or flatly goes over to a more inertway of do-

ing theatre, of forgetting the origin, which was the origin of opposition, ofnot accepting the theatrical system, of the group, then Iam not pleased. Inthe end Iwill say that theatre is a possibility of shaping revolt in the worldso that it doesn't crush you. Inspite of the world,you leave your messagesfor those to whom these messages are important.

18







lessandro

F e r s e n

Alessandro Fersen has had a long distinguished career in the theatre. Heheaded the TeatroStabile in Genoa (1951-54)at the time one of Italy's major

theatres, presenting world classics. In 1957 he founded his own Studio

Fersen and began to pursue research linking theatre and anthropology.Since then he has lectured extensively on his work and toured with his com-

pany to introduce ideas on mnemodrama. Fersen, who resides in Rome,is the author of The Theatre and After and The Universe as a Game. This in-

terview was taped by Bonnie Marrancain New YorkCity in April 1984.

What made you give up your work as head of Italy's distinguished Teatro

Stabile to begin research in a workshop situation?

Ibegan to do theatre in 1947, as a director, actor and playwright.Already in

1957 when I headed the TeatroStabile, I felt that the theatre was not a clear

goal. It was not clear what the theatre must be in society and in the life of

one person who was completely occupied with theatre as a life choice. I felt

that aesthetic values were not sufficient to consider the theatre an impor-tant activity in our culture. Itwas at this time Istarted my workshop. Itwas

a school.

Whatwas your earliest programof study at the studio, and how did you find

your way to anthropology research?

19







I have a great respect for my theatrical past. The first stage was to exploreStanislavsky in order to understand the mechanism of the actor. I was in-terested in this phenomenon: that a man at a certain moment becomes

somebody else. That is a very strong psychological event which I began to

study. Iwas still heading the Teatro Stabile. Duringa tour in South AmericaIdecided to leave the company and go to Brazil. I flew to Bahia where Ihadsome contact with a tribe living in the north. This was in 1958. But my in-terest in anthropology dates from earlier in my past. After Iobtained a doc-torate I left Italy-this was the period of Fascism. I went to Paris where Ifollowed the lectures of Levy-Bruhlat the College de France from 1936 to1939.

It was in Brazilin 1958 that Imade myfirst field observation. Here Ibegan toobserve and study the behavior of participants in a ritual. Itwas clear that

they reached the state of identification with their gods-it was apolytheistic religion-through two things: the technique of abandonment,coupled with the technique of control. In a codified rite you can see thatthere is the possibility of the abandonment of the participant in the rite to

god, to the shamanic journey. At the same time there is a great control ofthis abandonment. When Ireturnedto ItalyIcreated a series of exercises to

teach abandonment and real sponteneity.

Whatrelationship do abandonment and spontaneity have in yourview of ac-

ting?

In theatre, actors talk about living a role and not living a role. There is a

jargon about this. But the condition of the actor is an oneiric condi-tion-one of non-ego.

You speak of it as a somewhat Pirandellian idea. How did you combine

Stanislavsky, Pirandello, and anthropology to arrive at the idea of thetheatrical non-ego?

Stanislavsky belongs to naturalism so he speaks always of living a role. All

his work is constructed in order to create the condition in which actors canlive another life from their own. Inanthropology this point is not clear, but Ithink that in all ritual the identity with primitive gods and the shamanic

journeyare not a form of livingthe life of the gods. It is something different.We can understand this by adopting the language of aboriginal Australian

people. They speak of the age of the dream: an era in which there was no

life as we conceive it. Itwas a strange state in which the condition of beingwas in the sphere of the dream. They speak of the creation of the world thattook place in the age of the dream. This is the real condition of what we doin theatre. Itis not a life, not a second life. It is a second state of mind whichhas an oneiric

quality.

Where does Pirandello enter as the third component of your immediatesources?

20







LL

n

Fersen at work in his studio

InSix Characters Pirandello had a premontion of what theatre was. The ac-

tors speak of wanting to live their interiordramatic nucleus. Inreality theyare not able to. When they try to live their hope fails. The characters of

Pirandello fail because they live a misunderstanding. They think theyneed

to live but that is not true.So what they reallyneed is to dream their roles, to

enter on a special level, an oneiric level. You can only define it as a way dif-

ferent from life.

It seems to me that when you combine Stanislavsly, anthropology, and

Pirandelloyou are verymuch interested in the relationship of the public and

the private to the performingself. InStanislavsky there exists the idea of the

private moment of the actor; in ritual the transformation of the self is

acted in a public realm. In Pirandello you can speak of public and privatemasks of a character. Wouldyou say that one of yourimportantconcerns is

the relationship of the actor to the public and the private?

It is avery importantpoint to me. Inmy life Ihave thought deeply of this prob-

lem because the problem of the identity of the theatre addresses this idea.

It is always a question of relationsips. Identity can't be described without

something which limits this identity. You can't have an identity in the void.

You are somebody in relation to somebody else. There are others who

create your identity. Immediately you have the problem of the connection

between yourself and the other. But the self, the ego, is an entity that is not

vague, not circumscribed by others, by reality. So when you begin to speak

of ritualthe first fact is this: to make your personality, your ego emerge, butalways in connection with others present. This is the essence of theatre,too.

21







The first point of what Icall mnemodrama is to determine the identityof a

person. There is horizontal identity and vertical identity. We need both ofthem. Horizontal identity gives us a social identity in our lives, a little of

what Pirandello says. At the same time we are not satisfied by this identity.Itis not sufficient. So we go back in our private life and we look for our iden-

tity in the past. This is vertical identity. Inpractice mnemodrama shows that

people look for the dramatic moments of their daily lives-family stories,ancestral stories. Their stories have great importance in their lives because

they are personal stories and so they suffer when they act them inmnemodrama. But at the same time they are happy. They are experiencingtheir true identity.

How do you define mnemodrama?

Theoretically, it is a drama of memory, the actualization in dramatic-oneiric form of an event or trauma that emerges from the unconscious ofthe performersand which is expressed scenically. The mnemodrama is theresult of a kindof exercise that represents an advanced step in the techni-

ques of abandon : the play-relationto a neutral prop. Mnemodrama can be

spoken or silent, the work of one person or a group. It is spontaneous anddoes not proceed from any text or direction. It is not a play, only a personalexperience for the actor.

What is the specific role of the prop in mnemodrama?

Duringthe mnemodrama the prop becomes the symbol of something elsewhich then constitutes the subject matterof the mnemodrama itself. Myex-

periments are based on psychic processes set in motion by a particularrelationship between the actor and a prop that gives rise to a state oftrance.

Whatfor you is the difference between psychodrama and mnemodrama?

First, psychodrama has its roots in psychology, psychiatry, and

psychoanalysis. The roots of mnemodrama are only anthropological.Secondly, psychodrama is directed toward persons who are deeply disturb-ed psychologically. Mnemodrama is addressed to very sound, very healthypeople. You can't undergo a mnemodrama if you are not such a person.Mnemodramais a dangerous experience. You must be very strong. Ifthereare psychotic elements in a person he or she is not admitted to the ex-

perience of mnemodrama.

Whenyou speak of mnemodrama you don't mention an audience, only theactor.

Mnemodrama is a workshop experiment, it is not aimed at production. I

think now in our time we poduce too much, we think only of production, an

industrial chain of performance. At this stage theatre needs a moment of

22







reflection. What are we doing? Where are we going? Where have we comefrom? Mnemodramaattempts to create a new form of theatrical language.This is the basic definition. It is also a technique aimed at developing the

personal feeling of existence. Thirdly, it is a technique aimed at the

recovery of inner dimensions that have been lost in our civilization. This allmay seem to be outside theatre but I think the theatre will be just this: to

develop the personality of people who are participating in theatre. Not tomake beautiful performers and wonderful spectacles. That is not in-

teresting for me.

Do you think that this new theatre of collective memory and myth will leave

any space for individuality?

I want to be cautious speaking of collective memory because Ido not follow

Jung. Surely mnemodrama is very important not only for what we can ob-tain from people when they perform a mnemodrama, but to gain new

knowledge. The real essence of mnemodrama is the creation of a solidarity.

The goal of the archaic rituals was to confirm and develop the solidarity ofthe group. To give people the sense of existence in a world that filled themwith emotion, and anguish. Primitive minds are shocked by what they seeand suffer in the world.They feel that their presence in the world is veryfee-ble. They don't feel assured of existing. They are always fearful of disap-pearing. Rituals give them a memory of their past which is an identity that

they really exist.

So, theatre is first of all an ontological presence in the world. This is partofritualbut it has left the theatre. There is still a hole after a beautiful theatre

experience. We are filled with enthusiasm, we are happy. When we are soenthusiastic about the show it is because we have experienced the plen-titude which is rarely in our daily life, and this is the very goal of theatre.This plentitude can have a political character, a mystical character, anaesthetic character. What is really important is the sense of existence, thatwe are existing in this moment in an importantway. This is what is lackingin our lives. We have less and less the

feelingof

existing.

Youspeak of trance, ritual,being connected to an ancestral past, but whereis the space for the critical sense of the actor? Is the actor lost in the ex-

perience in an uncritical, unthinking way? Is there an opportunity for an ac-tor to be critical of the role he or she is playing?

First I must say that my technique doesn't concern the actor of today. I am

going on an itinerarywhich will give its fruits to future generations. I thinkthat theatre today must undergo a big change culturally.Without a new pat-ternof culture we will not have a new theatre. Itwill always repeat the same

thing. We must be patient and be humble in orderto bringthe future changeof culture. There is no other possibility. What I am doing now is not some-

thing which can be codified as a new language for the existing actor,

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but a future model of the actor, completely different from the actor we

already have.

Are youspeaking

of a theatre of the future with nospactators, only par-ticipants.?

Here we are facing utopia. But I thinkthat we need a theatre with complete-ly different relationships between actor, spectator, and play. Actors and

spectators will be more involved than now because today theatre is alreadyoverwhelmed by rock houses. We must see with open eyes what has hap-pened and find a way to recover theatre as an important experience.

Is mnemodrama, as self-history, a totally autobiographical experience forthe actor?

I was for many years worried about this question-that it is only a privateexperience. Iwent through a crisis and completely interrupted my work onmnemodrama. Ithought Ihad arrivedat a stage Icould not go beyond. After-

wards, I discovered that at this stage when the communication of themnemodrama moves at a conceptual level tha actors necessarily speakabout their biographical experience. But this biography has the signs of

something deeper. You see in spoken mnemodrama that the actor begins tohave hallucinations: this is a very tormenting moment-he tries to speak,

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Actors performa mnemodrama

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then you hear dialogue, for example, a confrontation between a father andson. So there is a violent situation. After some time you see that the fatherand the son are symbols of an instinct of frustration which is mostly what

produces the lack of identity. Ouridentity is always an object of aggressionby all forms of frustrationwhich inhibit us. You see that there is somethingbeyond the symbol of the father, etc. etc. ...

When we leave the spoken mnemodrama, the people are not bound to their

biography, their conceptual life. Then they come to very archaic states inwhich the actor lives in a traumatic way his pre-natal state and his birth,which is something terrible-crying inside his mother. It is extremely mov-

ing. But I have actors who returnto a bestial stage. Icouldn't believe it thefirst time I saw it.

When you pass to another kind of mnemodrama, not one with words but toa silent mnemodrma,you move to a more deeper level. Inour lives there arecrucial moments we can't speak of. Silence is more important.We are com-

municating more through silence than by words. Inmnemodrama you reachsuch deep stages where there is acting, vision, but not the words. When youarriveat this stage you discover that the origins of theatre were always in vi-

sion, in dance, in mime. Other things were added afterward. Aristotle tellsus that dialogue came after a long time to theatre. Ireached this stage onlyin my laboratory through experiencing these things with the people whoworked with me. Afterwards Idiscovered that the same itinerarywas made

in the opposite direction by the theatre. I was coming back and back andback to origins. At the beginning of theatre there was only silence and vi-sions. We must face this reality. It is impossible for us to begin another lifeof theatre.

Does the idea of mnemodrama confront history? Is it ahistorical?

Not necessarily. I'mnot veryconcerned with historical problems in theatre.Mnemodrama is a structure not a content. When I speak about newtheatrical language I think that we need to recover the original structure ofthe theatre which is a frame in which it will be

possibleto

putall the con-

ents of modern man, but completely transformed by this language.

You seem certain that the crisis of identity in contemporary culture can beresolved in a theatrical context.

We can't continue to speak of theatre in the very limited concept of theatrecreated in our post-Renaissance culture. That is only a matter of four or fivecenturies whereas theatre has existed for terms of thousands of years. Ifthis is what is called theatre Iwill not do theatre. What Iam speaking of istheatre that is the center of the life of the community, of the polis. Theatre

was always the cultural center of the life of the people, not something tosee and discuss and thinkabout. Onlysuch a theatre has a reason to exist. Iam interested in the destiny of man and the identity of human societies. We

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need something which could be the cultural basis for the development ofthe original personality of individuals and societies. Ithink that theatre cando this-not because I have any utopian idea of man but because I thinkthat the inner structures of mankind are always the same. They have not

changed very much through time.

Your work seems to me a corrective for a future technological society.

This is the danger. Because of that I am fighting for a theatre which is adirect contact from man to man. That doesn't exist any more. We are ab-

dicating our power. Only theatre has the possibility to save the ancienthuman structures which can be the home of modern contents and whichwill save contacts between people. Not only the utilitariancontact we havein life, but also festive contact which is important,and ontological contact.

This is the real future of theatre.

Do you feel your work is close to the research Grotowski is doing now?

I don't know exactly what he is doing now. He came to my studio in 1964. Iwas already performing mnemodrama. But at this time to speak about an-

thropology was folly because in Italy Iwas known as a good theatre direc-tor. Grotowski was then involved in zen and yoga and such things. I

presented mnemodrama in Paris for the first time at the Universite duTheatre des Nations in 1962. After a time I saw that people began to speak

about and connect anthropology and theater. But when I first presented thiswork in Rome I presented it as a catacombal work because for twentyyears it was a secret. It was not possible to speak of such work then-itwas absolutely incomprehensible to people.

The strongest new direction in theatre, certainly in American and Europe,when it has not been to embrace technology, is the link of anthropology andtheatre.

But Imyself am not interested in making theatre. Ithink I am more honest if

Iconsider this research as not having as its goal a show. Mytechniquesare looking toward the future.

Also, the danger in using anthropological research to create a show isthat another culture is absorbed in an artificial way.

Bravo. I agree totally with you. In 1967 I made an anthropological show. Itwas very successful. I took wonderful legends, chronicles and so on and

put these on stage, with songs-Japanese, Mexican, Spanish, and manyother materials. Itwas an operation I don't agree with now: an operation ofa

playwrightand director who transformed some folklore into a show.

You falsify folklore if you stage it in theatre.

In some ways if you take, say, an African ritual, and choreograph it on the

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Actors perform a mnemodramama

F .

body of a Western actor, it looks ridiculous. It's a confusion of techniqueand tradition. Traditiondoesn't travel, only the technique does.

This is actually my polemic to all people who deal with anthropology. Theyhaven't understood how to use it. I see that they borrow techniques from

anywhere and think that they can change the theatre and human behavior

by practicing these new techniques. But this is tourism, not culture. Youcan't do culture. I am criticized for not adopting new body techniques. Iam not interested in this way-it leads to nothing. Any technique growsfroma tradition, as an expression of a civilization. The technique is the con-

sequence of this and bound to this civilization. You can't extrapolate and

practice it. Maybe it is good foryour health or foryour spirit. Butyou are not

doing culture with it.

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Documents

Anthropology and Theatre-Interviews