Open a Page (August 1st)

Today's quote:

"Art, like life, is understood through experience, not explanations. As theater artists, we cannot create an experience for an audience; rather, our job is to set up the circumstances in which an experience might occur. Artists are always dependent upon the person at the receiving end of their work."

--Anne Bogart, A Director Prepares (page 69)


This passage speaks to one of theater simple’s core beliefs: that the audience is smart, and that they love the chance to use their own imagination to follow us into the worlds that we create.

It is very seductive to try and ‘explain’ while you are creating work for the stage. (“Will anyone get this?!?”) However, my favorite memories as an audience member have been when I’ve fought through a moment (sometimes longer) of disorientation and found myself not only enjoying an experience, but stumbling upon comprehension much like we do in life itself. And the chance to explore that journey with the other members of the audience is where the true magic is.

“The audience grows together and becomes a group. There is the impression of a journey undertaken together, and a goal achieved.” ---Alfred Brendel

Open a Page (or...Thoughts on a Random Quote)

“Generally speaking, we can conclude that tradition, in the sense we use the word, means “frozen”. It is a frozen form, more or less obsolete, reproduced through automatism. There are a few exceptions, such as when the quality of the old form is so extraordinary that even today life remains in it, in the way that some very old people remain incredibly alive and touching. However, all form is deadly. There is no form, beginning with ourselves, that is not subject to the fundamental law of the universe: that of disappearance. All religion, all understanding, all tradition, all wisdom accepts birth and death…”

Peter Brook, The Open Door (page 59-60)


To get us started off blogging away. I thought it would be fun to literally "open a page". So today, I picked up a book that I had been meaning to re-read and opened it to a random page from which I pulled today's quote.

So, do you believe that there is a fundamental law in the universe that speaks to everything's eventual disappearance? And what about tradition? It is a solid foundation from which to draw from that allows us to achieve without having to re-invent the wheel? Or conversely is it a shackle that prevents us from dreaming, seeing, learning, or communicating in new ways?

Mr. Brook is referring, in the passage, to the benefits of not being ‘tied’ to traditional forms of generating or performing theater. Taken out of context, we can have a little more fun with it and make it even more personal.

In reading this passage, I'm reminded of the many ways that we try to 're-invent' ourselves every day: How people see us, what kind of person we strive to be, what kind of health or shape we're in.... but I don’t know that who we were, or what steps came before our current destination ever truly disappear. (We may wish that some would, but these are usually the things that cling tightest to us!)

It’s my opinion that we need question our past. We need to truly understand our traditions and habits. Be it from our parents, our heritage, our religion or just the daily life patterns we’ve led for year after year, we still need to strive to reach higher, or at least outside of the zone where we are used to functioning. One of my favorite things that Peter Brook ever said was that…”we need to allow each other to fail gracefully” because it’s in these failures that grand ideas will appear.

This is just one of the reasons that I love theater, the creation, fruition of and eventual release of ideas and labor to whatever end. We hope for our ideas and labors to support the best and the brightest, the creation of the “Aha!” moment for every single audience member who comes to witness what we’ve done. But truth be told, those moments are few and far between, and they usually lie within a flower bed of compost ideas that doesn’t always smell sweet. ;)

So this returns to my thought earlier. I don’t believe that things ever disappear (even traditions) Instead, I believe that they fade or breakdown into a ‘mulch’ of sorts that help support other ideas or methods that are just starting to sprout.

And we feebly begin...

OK - months after I got all energized and created this(on my birthday no less) in Adelaide, Australia during our fringe time there, I am actually, for real and truly, POSTING to it. Lamely, feebly, and soon - much better. This is for all intents and purposes, merely a TEST.

So -

TEST.

One. Two. Zebra.

Thanks.

SOON - I promise - all sorts of mischief and creatively lazy plots will be revealed.

Llysa