From the minimal to the grandiose
Stamatis Gargalianos
Assistant Professor in the University of Western Macedonia
Abstract
In this article, we examine the new tendencies in theatre direction in the 21st century. Theatre, as all social expressions does not remain stable but evolves, in an automatic way. We analyze the new efforts of improving sceneries, costumes, music and lighting in this art. Here are analyzed also the elements that stay stable and the reasons for that stability.
In this paper we examine the reasons for these changes, regarding the fact that theatre is a part of a whole social system, which is also evolving. If society evolves, the theatre will also evolve. So, we are examining their parallel “roads” towards the future.
One major aspect of this analysis is the public that is the theatre spectators. Theatre is depending on them, so we are examining its preferences and gouts that are forming the shape and the context of this Art.
Key-Words: Theatre, Direction, Tendencies, Public, Theory of Semiotics
Introduction
Theater evolves, like all forms of Art, over time. The question is whether this is towards to be positive or negative. If we see images of representations of ancient Greek drama on poetry, we will understand that everything in antiquity, but for many centuries, was elementary and simple. Theater was initially one-dimensional and univocal. The speech was more important than the picture.
Gradually, however, and especially at the beginning of the 20th century, the image prevailed in the speech. Today, in modern theater, we see a trend of both gigantism and minimalism, but also an abstraction. Minimalism means minimizing all means of expression, from the actor’s playing up to the set. Abstraction is something similar, but in this case prevails the tendency to remove -to extract – elements of the stage or actors, so that only the elemental remains.
Other performances
What has to be examined is whether there are any tendencies to improve contemporary theater based on previous performances, as if there is a straight line which is inevitably followed. Does this line -the one that arrives up to modern times- is the natural outcome of the previous? Each director takes into account the performances of previous directors, mainly aiming not to repeat what has already been done, having as first purpose to present something new.
With this in mind, we can estimate that theatre performances are evolving, but we do not know if they are getting towards a better situation. Besides, the improvement is an ambivalent question: some spectators will say that what new performances are better than old ones, while some others not at all.
Modern theater directors are definitely looking for renewal and modernity, but this brings them to a perplexity. We are interested here to see, for the first time, which theater is being renewed? We accept, first of all, that the theatrical audience is not as big as the total population (estimated at 7% of the second).
We also accept that most of this audience -again according to scientific measurements- goes to theater only for musical and satirical shows, i.e. a social survey in Greece. In other words, modern directors forget that most spectators go to the theater in order to amuse themselves and not to proceed to perplex thoughts, based on what they see.
So, when we talk about refreshing the theater, we mean that this happens for about a small portion of the audience, the one that we would call “initiated” or “advanced” spectators. This is what the directors (must) know, and, relying on that, we dare to accept directions that are particularly sophisticated, but inappropriate (we would call it tricky) for the great part of the audience.
Their efforts are based on the principles of semiotics, which is a valuable tool for directing and analyzing from both directors and initiated spectators. Consequently, the general public -who does not know the rules of semiotics or the basic ones– can not perceive the messages of these performances, so it does not want to see these works.
Modern directors “struggle” between the tendency for novelties and the attraction of audiences. It is a dilemma that is strong; it concerns both the artistic and the commercial part of a performance
Special elements
Theater refreshment is based on four key areas:
a. in selecting the texts
b. innovations in directing
c. the improvement of actors’ techniques
d. to the renewal of the scenery
The other elements (music, sounds, colorings, lighting) are of minor importance, because they do not greatly influence the overall effort.
a. Texts chosen and performed are, in last three decades, not purely theatrical but poetic and narrative. The directors choose non theatrical texts supposedly for renewal, but this is due, also, to the lack of appropriate theatrical texts. On the other side, it is now considered not clever to play purely theatrical works.
Perhaps, too, the well-known theatre texts have been already presented many times and thus are no longer interesting. Perhaps, also, the contemporary artists are afraid of been compared with other directors who have left their mark on tested and approved performances, which are milestones for many artistic generations to come.
Every well-known and tried-and-tested text is also a “trap” for contemporary theater artists who are afraid to be compared with older artists.
The two major orientations
Direction tends to set up performances in two directions: towards the big (grandiose) and the small (minimal). In the first case, everything is large or oversized, often unnecessarily. The “big” here is tented for reasons of impression and not for the service of dramaturgy or the understanding of the possible spectators.
The minimal, on the other hand, has to do with diminishing sizes, first of all in search of something new, but we can suppose that it s done for reasons of economy. Unfortunately, theater is an expensive “sport”, so the solution of minimalism may hide a failure to pay a lot of money for scenery and costumes. The empty space, in many projects, is impressive, but it hides a sting of relative “poverty”.
In theatre direction, the choice of spaces is also calculated, as discussed below. Theatre is presented not only in classic spaces (with seats, large courtyard, full of lights) but also in underground areas, in small apartments, in warehouses, in fields, in hammocks and many other unusual places.
Renewal in actors playing
The actors are invited to find new ways of rendering their own texts, either on their own initiative or after the suggestion made by their directors. In both cases these tendencies may be at the expense of their own physical forces, resulting in mental and physical injuries. In other words, contemporary actors are called upon to find new ways of physical expression, but they are likely to harm themselves because they go up to their ends. The big question is whether the actors are driven to new performances or if they are imposed on them by directors or even the public.
Renewal on stage
Concerning the stages, we see, firstly, the choice of spaces that are not theatrical. A scene to set up must take into account the general space that will come in, so even the choice of general space is an element of scenography. Then there comes the combination of spaces and texts, where the first does not match the second ones, and this makes the dramaturgy of the space worth analyzing, based on a lasting “why”: Why that, why that.
A great deal of presenting a text and organizing the space leads to questions from spectators, but it often they hide behind a lack of new ideas. The latter is covered by such solutions, but they simply leave unanswered questions to spectators. Whatever they are looking for to answer, they will not do it because some issues at the theater are inexplicable by nature…
Generally speaking, modern Theater is driven by novelties due to the audience’s own desire to see always something new and different, but also to the directors’ need to present something innovative, perhaps provocative. Many directors are driven to novelties by their own producers (i.e. the directors of the groups or organizations), who also want to present new “openings” in theatre presentations in the hope that they will cause the public’s interest, hence potential gains.
We are thrilled at the idea of the “form” and “shape” of theater after 30, 50 or 100 years. Will it be dominated by the incredible powers of technology? We’re already seeing big “steps” in lighting, audio and video issues: video projections have been multiplied over the past 20 years on theatre stages, to the point where several actors do not appear themselves live in front of the spectators but through cinema or video projections. Can we imagine that we will see a day where holograms will dominate on stage?
Conclusion
To summarize, we will say that theatre direction is experimenting endlessly, moving between experimentation (for reasons of internal renewal) and the attraction efforts of the public, into a modern and postmodern point of view. The 21st-century theatre tends towards the modernity and the imagination, in order not to be stagnant.
At the same time, contemporary directors create a heterogeneous ensemble that wants to rely on symbolism and semiology in order to enchant or even disorientate the audiences already squeezed by their economic coordinates and socio-artistic impasses. But they know at first sight that such attempts lead to the reduction of the mass public from theater because it gradually creates a state of art form that drives this art into incomprehensive (we would say deadlock) paths.
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