The sensuality of theatre
Apr. 5th, 2006 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
franceslievensThis text partly reinterprets and retells the words of stage director Guy Cassiers, said during a conversation with dramaturge Erwin Jans and critic Jeroen Verseele held March 28th at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
Today's theatre is shaped by a bodyliness that distinguishes it from film. Cameras, lights and silver screen took from the theatre what it had been doing so well for so many centuries: telling stories through pretence. Theatre is a lie and the audience goes along in it. When film came along it could tell the lie so much better, because who believes that the gun that went off on the stage really went off? Blood on the stage can never be real blood. There's a medium that orchestrates the make-belief so much better.
Theatre had to rethink itself, reinvent its own being. What distinguishes a performance from a film viewing is the singularity. A performance is unique. However long you rehearse, every performance will be different, every audience will be different. Theatre is based in the here and now, where it interacts with the audience. More than film ever can, theatre has the direct possibility of going into debate with the public.
Instead of simulating sensuality, theatre gives it to the audience for real. Film throws the viewer back into herself. She watches on her own and is damned to playing with herself. In the theatre she interacts directly with what happens on stage and sensuality springs up between different people (which is of course its definition – for sensuality you need more than one person). Performance works with the flesh. There lies its tension. It pushes you with your nose into what is happening. Not only can you see and hear, you could smell, touch and taste as well. In a way theatre is carnal.
These words were only an exploration of the ontology of contemporary theatre. I don't know if I can and want to explore these thoughts further. In case of if, there is – as always: when that will be, I do not know.
I do seem to be indebted to the style of Walter Benjamin.
Today's theatre is shaped by a bodyliness that distinguishes it from film. Cameras, lights and silver screen took from the theatre what it had been doing so well for so many centuries: telling stories through pretence. Theatre is a lie and the audience goes along in it. When film came along it could tell the lie so much better, because who believes that the gun that went off on the stage really went off? Blood on the stage can never be real blood. There's a medium that orchestrates the make-belief so much better.
Theatre had to rethink itself, reinvent its own being. What distinguishes a performance from a film viewing is the singularity. A performance is unique. However long you rehearse, every performance will be different, every audience will be different. Theatre is based in the here and now, where it interacts with the audience. More than film ever can, theatre has the direct possibility of going into debate with the public.
Instead of simulating sensuality, theatre gives it to the audience for real. Film throws the viewer back into herself. She watches on her own and is damned to playing with herself. In the theatre she interacts directly with what happens on stage and sensuality springs up between different people (which is of course its definition – for sensuality you need more than one person). Performance works with the flesh. There lies its tension. It pushes you with your nose into what is happening. Not only can you see and hear, you could smell, touch and taste as well. In a way theatre is carnal.
These words were only an exploration of the ontology of contemporary theatre. I don't know if I can and want to explore these thoughts further. In case of if, there is – as always: when that will be, I do not know.
I do seem to be indebted to the style of Walter Benjamin.
