excerpts from interview with Alan Schneider (12 December 1917 to 3 May 1984) & Reza Abdoh (23 February 1963 to 12 May 1995) and the classicism of avant-garde performance, by John Bell
– Beckett left & Schneider right
Alan Schneider: … indicative of my whole position, philosophical or aesthetic, if I have any – is that, to the theatricalist guys, I tend to be a realistic director, a Stanislavski-oriented director; to the Stanislavski guys, I’m a theatricalist director.
…
I will use any and
the structure of rehearsals with book – mementi vitae (or three & four paradoxes of time): contemporaneity, coexistence, preexistence & conservation or coexistence of the past in and with itself
Regardless of whether we wish to think difference as essence, structure, assemblage, machine, system, or whatever other term we might fetishize to the detriment of actual inquiry, all of these notions become incomprehensible in the absence of an ontological dimension like Memory or the virtual. The reason for this is
from the Lives of the Saints series
make it difficult from the Lives of the Saints series
a festival means holding tight to something wild for the photo opportunity
‘Samey’ could have been misleading in the last post. I meant same-ily different, heterodox and differentiated; each show / event in the programme possessing a clearly separate, a recognisably different, and in sum a recognisable identity. This identity, however, is about marking difference rather than making difference or different. It
here is a piece of shit
Reading through the programme for Auckland’s biennial festival of the arts, struck with two thoughts: we have discovered avant-garde theatre; and it’s all so aesthetically pleasing, visually rich, hybridized, sexy, with striking branding… and samey. Makes one want to say: Here is a piece of shit, visually