TOLD BY THE WIND at International Theatre Festival of Kerala, India 15-22 January 2020

The Llanarth Group (Phillip Zarrilli, Kaite O’Reilly, and Jo Shapland) returned last week from a week’s residency in Thrissur, Kerala as part of the 2020 ITFoK Festival in Thrissur, Kerala, India. Amitesh Ghosh—this year’s Artistic Director—invited us to share performances of Told by the Wind along with a three day intensive workshop for actors at the Calicut School of Drama, lectures from my new book, and an open ‘meet the artists’ session. We were very pleased to be able to accept the invitation, and with the additional support of Wales Arts International (ACW), we were able to be present in Thrissur from 15-22 January. Needless to say, it was an incredibly busy week !

It was very special for me to return to Kerala to share my approach to training contemporary actors using Asian martial arts and yoga—especially my use of kalarippayattu in helping actors learn how to ‘attune’ their attention and sensory awareness, and especially to share how we apply that sensory awareness work in performances of Told by the Wind.

The forty or so students who were at my three day workshop where I was assisted by Jo Shapland, responded incredibly well to the five and one half hours of intensive work. The Director of the Calicut School of drama—Sreejith Ramanan—organised our three days with the Calicut School of Drama students. I know Sreejith from his years at the Intercultural Theatre Institute in Singapore where I directed him in the 2008 production of Attempts on her Life. He is a marvel—doing wonderful creative and administrative work, and providing clear and sound leadership for the school.

Given that Told by the Wind is a response to East Asian/Japanese aesthetic principles and dramaturgy, and especially to ‘Quietude’ in performance, we were unsure what the response might be in Kerala. We were somewhat overwhelmed by the tremendously positive response to the work. Journalist/critic Renu Ramanath was with us throughout our week, attending my lectures, the workshop, and our performance, and writing to intelligently about our work:

Renu Ramanath

22 January at 20:02 · 

Perhaps, the most precious experience of this ITFoK would be the opportunity it gave to watch a master performer at work - 'Told by the Wind,' co-created by Phillip Zarrilli and Kaite O'Reilly, performed by Zarrilli and Jo Shapland. 

The synopsis refers Theatre of Quietude and String Theory (Quantum Physics). I haven't learnt much about either. But, there is no need to learn these theories to set myself afloat within the intimate world of silence and slowness that permeated the performance space. It was meditative, to put it briefly. 

Earlier, during an interview, Zarrilli had mentioned about the play, describing how it was inspired by Japanese Noh and how the Japanese audience had identified with it, recognising how the classical art form informed the dramaturgy and movements. 

Slowness is not new for those who are familiar with Kerala's classical theatre - Kutiyattam. Remember the entry of 'Azhakiya Ravanan,' Asokavanikankam. You'd barely notice the actor was moving, till you suddenly realise he has reached the front of the stage. 

The performance might have been disappointing to many members of the audience who are used to look for story lines, for some kind of 'meaning.' Someone told me that he could not find anything to identify with, in it. There is no need to always 'identify' with something in a performance. You can just experience. He later added that he had enjoyed the silence and slowness. And that was what mattered. 

Perhaps, for me, the most touching aspect of this performance was watching the aged master at work. Somehow, it was so reassuring. Here was a 72 year old man, an actor and trainer, who had mastered the martial art of Kalarippayattu many, many years ago, accepting the age creeping into his limbs so gracefully. He was not rejecting or refusing to accept ageing. Just accepting, with infinite grace. It was so touching, and so distinguished. 

Earlier, I had got the opportunity to watch him conduct a three day long workshop for the students of the School of Drama. The energy that kept him on his feet the whole day was just amazing. And the way he'd show the movements to the students ! He'd add, 'I can't go down more than this, since I'm old now !' And would request the amazingly lithe performer Jo Shapland to demonstrate the movements. The youngsters found it tough to keep up with him. 

Its a great and beautiful experience to have a great master among us. It's not always that we get to enjoy that privilege. Thank you, Amitesh, for making this happen.

 Amitesh Grover, ITFoK Director: responded by saying…Amitesh Grover Thank you, it is indeed an honour to showcase Phillip’s work in the festival this year.

BEYOND ITFOK:

While in Kerala, I was able to return to the ‘roots’ of the traditions and modes of embodied practice that have been interwoven into my work as a performer, teacher/actor-trainer, and director. As always I returned to the CVN Kalari, East Fort, Thiruvananthapuram to pay my respects to my teacher, Gurukkal Govindankutty Nair—visiting his son who now runs the kalari—Gurukkal Sathyan Narayanan Nair, as well as Rajashekharan Nair who manages much of the teaching at the kalari. I ‘grew up’ in the kalari working closely with Sathyan and Rajan and owe so much to their work with me during my seven years at the kalari!

With Sathyan inside the CVN Kalari, Thiruvananthapuram

While in Thiruvananthapuram we also visited Prof. Prabodhachandran Nair—Professor of Linguists at Kerala University, and one of the most knowledgeable individuals about Kerala culture and its arts. Prof. Prabodhachandran Nair worked closely with me on the translation of four kathakali dance-drama plays in 1993—a wonderful time of collaboration enriched by his tremendous knowledge of kathakali. [The translations appear in Kathakali Dance-Drama: where gods and demons come to play, published in 2000.]

Next stops were in Cheruthuruthy and Killimangalam where I visited and paid respects to my kathakali teacher, long-term collaborator, and friend—MP Sankaran Namboodiri, as well as my dear dear friend, Kunju Vasudevan Namboodiripad of Killimangalam. What a wondrous time was had visiting, remembering, laughing (as always).

'richard III redux': Fantastic reception at the National Theatre of Catalonia, Barcelona 30 November and 01 December 2019

On November 30/01 December, The Llanarth Group was invited to tour richard III redux OR Sara Beer IS/NOT Richard III to Barcelona for two performances at the National Theatre of Catalonia. The invitation was from We Act—the organisation that sponsors the annual Festival Simbiotic. Our wonderful hosts at We Act and the National Theatre of Catalonia provided all the support we needed so that Sara Beer was able to give two outstanding performances. She received numerous (was it four or five) curtain calls at the conclusion of both performances.

In Alba Cuenca Sanchez’s review of Sara’s performances, ‘WE NEED MORE SARA BEER(S)’, notes how ‘Beer pulls off [a performance with] charisma and acidic humor without renouncing warmth. On the stage, she is a woman proud of her body and invites us to normalize it. An actress who remembers with great irony all the blows that have advised her to change her profession without even having seen her act. And a person who makes us accomplices… and asks us why her body must talk more than her actions…Let us all talk. Of her and all the Saras Beers that are so necessary’ [on stage].

As reported elsewhere, the script of richard III redux was one of three finalists at the Traverse Theatre in 2019 for the (2018) James Tait Black Prize in Drama for innovation in dramatic form.

WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF PLANNING FURTHER TOURING for richard III redux in 2020/2021. Please contact Phillip Zarrilli if interested.

Across [supposed] ‘divisions’….TALKING ABOUT ACTING AND ACTOR TRAINING between West Wales and Mashhad, Iran

Phillip Zarrilli in conversation with Alireza Mahvelati

Phillip Zarrilli: (initial communication)

Approximately ten days ago, Alireza Mahvelati contacted me via email from his home base in Mashhad, Iran. He was inquiring about the possibility of translating my 2009 book, Psychophysical Acting: an intercultural approach after Stanislavski (London: Routledge Press), into Farsi. [In 2014 my book was translated into Mandarin and released as part of the 2014 Taipei Festival for which I had been invited to direct the world premiere of Kaite O’Reilly’s the 9 fridas with Mobius Strip Theatre (Taipei).] 

I immediately referred Alireza to the Theatre/Performance Studies list editor at Routledge Press only to be told via return email that unfortunately, at this point in time it was impossible for the press to conduct any business with Iran. Welcome to the ‘realities’ of Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear power agreement with Iran, and his imposition of sanctions against Iran which include and extend to the UK of course. It had not occurred to me that translation of books would be under the same sanctions! Silly me… 

As an artist, writer, and teacher, what interests me most is exchange and sharing of processes and ideas. So it was…however naively…a bit of a shock to feel the impact of Trump’s actions on something as seemingly innocuous as potential translation of a book about acting into Farsi.

I immediately wrote to my editor at Routledge, asking whether it might be possible for them to rewrite my contract and release permission for a Farsi translation of the book to me. Thankfully, he immediately agreed! So I have given my permission to Alireza to proceed with finding a publisher in Mashhad for a translation. Hopefully, he’ll be able to find a publishers, and the translation will be published at some point in the future.

But just as important if not more important was what followed. Alireza asked if we might have a skype interview/discussion based on his reading of my book—and that of his theatre colleagues. Alireza has been working together with Mahla Bazregari, Ehsan Rouhi, and Danoush Yazdan Panah as an independent theatre group (‘Dramaturg Theatre Group’), and they have been inspired in their considerations of acting by the alternative view of acting and performance offered in Psychophysical Acting. 

So a few days ago I was privileged to have an initial 50 minute conversation with Alireza and his colleagues, responding to a series of questions they had prepared about acting. What a refreshing exchange! Their curiosity and passion was exhilarating. It was clear that they shared a desire to learn, understand, and grow as young theatre artists/actors in search of alternative ways of working and understanding acting and performance processes. I talked about my understanding of acting, how I approach training of actors through a preparatory process of performer training, and how important it was to get beyond the limitations of the notion of ‘character’ on acting, especially when working on Beckett’s plays, or when co-creating/devising new performance—as with The Llanarth Group’s creation of Told by the Wind or playing ‘the maids’. 

Amongst those in the group in Mashhad, Mahla Bazregari is a playwright. In our conversation her ears obviously perked up when I mentioned my close collaboration with Kaite O’Reilly and the complex dramaturgies of her plays. They immediately wanted to get hold of copies of Kaite’s plays in order to devour and understand her writing and the complex dramaturgies that inform her writing. So a list has been sent through. And I expect they will devour her plays when they arrive.

A conversation has been opened with Alireza and his colleagues in Mashhad, and so I turn over this specific conversation to Alirez, et al, to offer their thoughts about our exchange.

Alireza Mahvelati: (responding) 

What a fascinating experience! Mahla Bazregari (my colleague friend in our theatre group) and I started reading a marvelous book on acting written by Phillip Zarrilli: Psychophysical Acting: an intercultural approach after Stanislavski (London: Routledge Press, 2009)while we were thinking about how to make a better understanding of what an actor should engage in when doing preparation for a role in a play. The problem we were dealing with arose as we were thinking about the relation between the actor’s living experience and the role which she/he is about to play on the stage. Thinking about the relation between body and mind and the philosophy of acting, we came across Phillip Zarrilli’s book with which amazed us. Psychophysical acting”:what a great name for a book, especially when seeing the rest of the title: “an intercultural approach after Stanislavski”. That was what we were really looking for. 

There was another problem though. Buying that book from Amazon was impossible, so I had to ask one of my friends living in Australia to get the book and bring it with her to Iran. After 3 months, we received the book and voraciously started reading it. I have to confess that this book is miraculous. We had heard about “psychophysical” before, yet this reading, this approach, this insight into body and mind in order to achieve acting was quite astounding. What amazed us mostly about Zarrilli’s ideas was the fact that he has been trying to eradicate the duality of mind and body which has dominated the western philosophy for a long time. Once Gilles Deleuze, the French philosopher, pointed out that the role of philosophy is not to remind people of what they already know, but pushing them into creating new concepts. This is only the theory; however, Zarrilli seems to have transformed the whole concept mentioned in Deleuze’s philosophy and the notion of body and mind in Husserl’s phenomenology into practice which makes understanding of creativity quite possible for everyone. 

While reading his book, Mahla suggested that I start translating the book, and I was really passionate about doing so. There is no copy-right rule in Iran and unfortunately everyone starts translating a book into Farsi without the author’s permission. I have never done that and in our theatre group in Iran, this has been prohibited. Therefore, I decided to email Zarrilli to ask his permission. Very immediately I received Phillip’s reply showing his deep interest in his book being translated into Farsi, and also mentioning that his book had been already translated into Mandarin. Mahla and I were absolutely thrilled and Phillip said that he would put me through to the person in charge in Routledge Press so that I could ask their permission. Unfortunately, our happiness did not last too long when the person in charge declined our request due to sanctions imposed on Iran by Donald Trump’s government which came as a shock. Nevertheless, Philip insisted on his request and thanks to his support, the permission right for the book to be translated into Farsi was transferred to him, and he issued a formal permit for me to get the book translated into Farsi. I greatly appreciate his deep kindness and support which comes from his profound enthusiasm about sharing ideas. I have been looking for a reputable publishing company and I have done some negotiations with Afraz Publishing company which is one of the oldest and most experienced companies working in the field of theatre and drama and most probably we will reach an agreement on publishing Zarrilli’s book soon enough and the process of translation will get started as soon as possible. 

While doing our correspondence, I made a request from Phillip to have an interview with us based on his ideas mentioned in his book, and again fortunately he agreed to do so. I talked to Mahla about this and two of my best friends and colleagues--Ehsan Rouhi and Danoush Yazdan Panah--who are both experienced theatre directors and researchers. We decided to prepare our questions based on our concerns about acting approaches after Stanislavski, and I set a time with Phillip for the interview. On the 28thof June, at 12:30 p.m. UK time we started our conversation with Phillip which took about 50 minutes. That was fascinating. Really exhilarating. I asked the questions and Phillip, very very patiently answered all of them. It had been a dream come true for me having a chance to meet one of the role models of my life. He explained all the ins and outs related to his ideas very clearly. He told us about his precious experiences working with different actors, which were really useful for us as young directors and actors.  I ended the questions with asking about Phillip’s latest book, toward a phenomenology of actingwhich will be published by Routledge this October. Having finished Psychophysical acting, I will definitely ask Philip for permission to translate his latest book into Farsi, and I hope I can manage that. The interview is in the process of being translated into Farsi and soon enough we will publish both the film and the written form to make this possible for all interested and passionate theatre activists to get familiar with Phillip Zarrilli’s ideas of acting and philosophy of theatre. 

What was also interesting was that while talking to Phillip, we realized that he has been working with his close collaborator and well known playwright, Kaite O’Reilly. Mahla Bazregari is also a playwright, so she was fascinated and we asked Phillip to send us a list of Kaite O’Reilly’s published plays so that we can buy them. The day after, again very kindly, Phillip sent us the list and we managed to buy them from Amazon and since we have a Kindle account, we could buy the electronic versions of Kaite O’Reilly’s books, of course the ones which were available for Kindle. 

Mahla and I have already read two of the plays which astonished us.  We have been so fortunate getting familiar with Phillip Zarrilli and Kaite O’Reilly. Mahla is writing some notes while reading Kaite O’Reilly’s plays, and she is doing her own analysis on them which will be sent to Phillip and Kaite soon enough. Actually, she is devouring them. She told me that she is going to ask Kaite’s permission to translate her plays into Farsi, and if possible, perform one of them. I strongly and hopefully believe that this is going to be a turning point in our theatrical life. 

We have set up a theatre group named “Dramaturg Theatre Group” intending to work professionally on theatrical works and producing quality performances along with doing research and critical writing about both Iranian and international theatres since we realize that criticism of theatre is a real necessity nowadays, especially in Iran. I believe that getting familiar with Phillip Zarrilli, Kaite O’Reilly and The Llanarth Group could be of great help for us in this way, which we greatly appreciate it. 

We hope that this exchange of ideas and cooperation both in research and performance could be continued in the future. 

Phillip Zarrilli: (brief follow up response)

The initial dialogue and exchange recorded above is obviously continuing as I write this brief response to Alireza’s return message. Throughout my career as a director, actor-trainer, writer, and performer I have always valued above all else interacting with those who have a shared interest. I have been fortunate when early in my career to have had mentors who challenged me to learn—my direct teachers or those who have guided me such as Gurukkal Govindankutty Nair, M.P. Sankaran Namboodiri, Killimangalam Vasudevan Namboodiripad, A.C. Scott, and those who oversaw my initial reading of philosophy many years ago at Ohio University, especially Troy Organ. And I have had wonderful encounters  and discussions with Eugenio Barba, Richard Schechner, Esa Kirkopelto, Rustom Bharucha, Navtej Johar, Christel Weiler, Erika Fischer-Lichte, and many others that have enriched my thinking. It is an honour and privilege to open this dialogue with Alireza, Mahla, and their collaborators.

Although this initial dialogue has been primarily between Alireza and I, I have no doubt that this dialogue has already expanded to include communication between Mahla and Kaite as playwrights/dramaturgs. Whatever the ‘supposed’ boundaries that Donald Trump and others may impose, what is important is that we find a way into continuing these types of intercultural dialogues.

To conclude this brief further response I would just mention that another key source of inspiration and understanding for my own practical work and thinking has come from my encounter with Sufism—first through my practical training with C. Mohammed Sherif at the Kerala Kalarippayattu Academy in Kannur, and subsequently through my readings in Sufism, most recently in relation to considering the centrality of ‘imagining’ in the embodied consciousness of actors/artists. This will no doubt be a subject which we may discuss further.

Alireza Mahvelati (concluding note)

This is going to be my brief reply to Phillip Zarrilli’s kind response to my return message. A golden opportunity has been created in starting a dialogue with Phillip who has definitely and seriously opened a real philosophical interpretation and conceptualization of acting. What astonished me and Mahla in this practically valuable and exhilarating experience is the fact that Phillip is helping those interested in exchanging ideas so generously that no political obstacle could stop the exchange. The initiation of this sharing of ideas and discourse means that art and also the beauty that is created by it can go beyond boundaries. Phillip is talking about the ones who have provided him with teachings and trainings open-handedly, and I would like to name Phillip Zarrilli as our real teacher and trainer who is not only influencing us as much as theatre, performance and acting are concerned, but also instructing us in what really makes us humans. From the very beginning of this Dialogue, Mahla and I were telling each other that Phillip’s first lesson to us was humanity and respect from which the real art of theatre starts. Art is nothing but a concept which is about to transform this world into a more beautiful place for all humans to live with each other peacefully. This very important lesson we learned from Phillip Zarrilli at the start of our dialogue.

Again I would like to refer to a very important concept coined by Gilles Deleuze named “Difference” and also a term created by his colleague Felix Guattari, the French Philosopher and Psychoanalyst named “the lines of flight”.Both these concepts in essence are trying to insist on the fact that life equals to the beauty of existent differences in the world and also the way these differences could help people fly beyond their territories to talk to each other and create novel ideas and notions. Phillip Zarrilli is exactly doing so with the use of theatre and philosophy of art. Although, as Phillip mentioned, the initial dialogue started between Phillip and I, the plays that Kaite O’Reilly has written are proving so about which Mahla has been talking since she has started reading them. Hopefully she would write about them soon enough.

Thanks to Phillip’s generosity in sharing his philosophically and theatrically novel ideas, a perfect communication and dialogue has started, and we are so hopeful about its being as highly fruitful as possible in the near future. 

We owe Phillip as our greatest teacher since this is the first time we are learning the true meaning of Art as well as its genuine functions which might have been forgotten due to political interferences which have created these insensible problems and distances in the world of real Art. 

To conclude, Sufism mentioned by Philip has been the inspiration for many great Iranian poets including Rumi, Hafez and many other ones in the history of literature. Many plays have also been being inspired by Sufism in Iran. It really does have a significant role in Iranian art and history. My curiosity has been aroused regarding how it could evoke acting and performance. To me also, this would be a great subject about which further discussions could be formed undoubtedly. 

CORK 'Cosy' REHEARSALS

It’s wonderful to be back in Cork, Ireland, working with Gaitkrash Theatre on Kaite O’Reilly’s ‘Cosy’—with the Irish premiere set for 18-22 June as part of this year’s Cork Midsummer Festival.

We’ve got a fantastic cast of six women creating (Irish & Welsh) life into O’Reilly’s equally hilarious and moving play in/around issues of ageing and facing our mortality. I’ve had the pleasure of working with four members of the cast before: (paint-roller) Bernie who is playing Camille; (tea-cup-and-saucer) Maureen who is playing Rose; (Ganesh sculpture) Regina who is playing Gloria; and (Welsh flag) Sara who is playing (the character) Maureen). These four wonderful performers are joined by (bookish) Chrissie who is playing Camille’s daughter, Isabella, and (tea-pot with tea-cosy) Pauline who is playing Pauline.

What a joy to be in the rehearsal space with these six dynamic women who are bringing all their experience, craft, and imagination into our daily work together.

I first worked with Bernie, Regina, and Maureen in 2004—fifteen years ago now !!!—on THE BECKETT PROJECT with performances at the Granary Theatre in Cork. It was a splendid set of performances of Beckett’s later/shorter plays. I also worked with Bernie, Regina, and Mick O’Shea (sound artist with Gaitkrash) on the 2014-15 previews and performances of ‘playing “the maids”’. I was fortunate to work with Sara Beer in 2018 on both Kaite O’Reilly’s AND SUDDENLY I DISAPPEAR as well as on our co-created ‘richard III redux’.

All this means that there is a rich mix of experience that is in the rehearsal room each day!

INTERVIEWED: 'Martial Arts Stories' 1....Phillip Zarrilli reflects on his relationship to kalarippayattu and taiqi

I am pleased to share this interview in which I reflect on my relationship with Asian martial arts and how and why I utilise these trainings in my work with actors. [Please note that the credits yet to be added to the video include citing my primary teacher, Gurukkal Govindankutty Nair at the CVN Kalari, Thiruvananthapuram, as well as my work with his son, Sathyan Narayanan Nair (now Gurukkal) and Rajashekharan Nair, as well as my other teachers. Also yet to be posted are the credits to the teachers and students shown in short video/film clips.]

Recipes for remixing Shakespeare's Richard III

       RECIPE 1:  Take One Actress + Three Personas = Sara Beer's richard III redux

One actress takes the audience on three simultaneous journeys in response to Shakespeare's Richard III:

• a child's self-awakening as she unexpectedly finds 'herself' IN Shakespeare,
• a professional actress' journey toward playing Richard, and
• a personal journey through Wales in search of the historical 'richard' on the 'Henry Tudor Trail'

RECIPE 2: Take One measure "cutting wit" add One measure thoughtful reflection =

Sara Beer in richard III redux

In response to Sara Beer's performance of the idiosyncratic role of the outsider for the world premiere performances of Kaite O'Reilly's Cosy at Wales Millennium Centre in March 2016, here's what the critics and the audiences said:

• 'Sara Beer...steals the show...a brilliant and disconcerting comic turn that from the off envelops the play in a sense of the otherworldly' (Gary Raymond, The Arts Desk)
•    ...'bloody hilarious...a cutting wit...(Denis Lennon, Arts Scene in Wales)
•    'Maureen (Sara Beer), the strange friend lurking. She is the jokes, the light touch, the kind heart finding the patterns in the confusion of a family tale. (Holly Joy, 3rdActCritics)
• ...'one of the stand-out performances...witty, funny, and astutely observed... (Dr. Mark Taubert, Clinical Director & Consultant, Palliative Medicine, Velindre NHS Trust, Cardiff)

RECIPE 3: Take Sara Beer x 3 personas + live performance + video + on-stage live-camera = 

                                                        richard III redux

Chapter Arts Centre (Cardiff): March 8, 9, 10, 16, 17 (8pm) and 17th (3pm matinee)

Aberystwyth Arts Centre Studio: March 14-15 (7:45pm)

Theatr Clwyd (Mold): March 19-20 (7:45pm)

The Torch Theatre (Milford Haven): March 21 (7:30pm)

Small World Theatre (Cardigan): March 23 (8pm)

Sara Beer at the 2017 re-enactment of the Battle of Bosworth

On location video shoot for 'richard III redux': Cilgarren Castle, near Cardigan, West Wales...Premiering 08 March, 2018 Chapter Arts Centre Wales

27th January: a typical cold, very wet winter's day in West Wales...

Performer Sara Beer, playwright/dramaturg Kaite O'Reilly, videographer Paul Whittaker and rendezvous at Cilgarren Castle, near Cardigan in West Wales four our second location shoot. At Cilgarren we filmed the (NEW!) opening monologue for our forthcoming performances of 'richard III redux OR Sara Beer [IS/NOT] richard III'. In this solo performance, Sara takes on a number of different personas as she/we explore, respond to, and re-mix Shakespeare's Richard.

To help capture her various personas, the performance will juxtapose Sara performing live, short pre-recorded video-clips, and onstage 'live' camera work. Read Sara's reflection on playing three personas in the 'richard III redux': http://www.asiw.co.uk/my-own-words/sara-beer-playing-three-personas-richard-iii-redux.

Below is Sara in a phone box in Roath, Cardiff, playing another of her personas we are developing.

SHANGHAI INTENSIVE TWO WEEK WORKSHOP: August 14-26, 2017...at the Shanghai Theatre Academy

I was invited to Shanghai by Qian Peng Li, Director of Vertebrae Theatre (Shanghai), to conduct an intensive workshop in my pre-performative approach to actor training between August 14-26, 2017. The workshop was conducted at one of the studios at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. In addition to teaching acting at the Academy, Qian Peng is focused on introducing alternative modes of actor training to both professional actors and students of acting in the PRC.

Assisted during the two weeks by long-term collaborators Sunhee Kim (Theatre P'Yut: Seoul, Korea), and Bernadette Cronin and Regina Crowley (Gaitkrash: Cork, Ireland), I led a group of fourteen actors through my approach to the pre-performative/psychophysical training of actors using Asian martial arts and yoga, and then we applied the principles of the training process to both a series of structured improvisations, as well as some of Samuel Beckett's later/shorter plays. 

Shanghai workshop participants Jingwen (centre) and Shao Yipei (centre behind) going through the kalari vanakkam as part of the preliminary/preperformative training.

The group of fourteen worked tirelessly during the six hour a day process for the full two weeks. Our work together culminated in a three hour work demonstration with a packed studio of about 45 observers. We shared the process of training, the application of the work to structured improvisations, and each of the participants' progress on working with Beckett's later/shorter plays. 

Thanks to Qian Peng, May, Annie (translator), and all of the participants for a terrific two weeks of very productive and focused work!!!

At work with Jinwen on principles of the training including emphasising sensory awareness of the palms while carrying a 'heavy load'--preliminary work on this specific structured improvisation. 

Three participants work on May's 'walk' and sensory awareness in the palms/fingers in Beckett's FOOTFALLS. Their focus is ahead along the path where the 'feet fall', 'indirect', and slightly down emphasizing a looking back within oneself and an opening of one's back awareness.

Detailed work via translator (Annie) on the Mandarin translation of Beckett's OHIO IMPROMPTU. We worked specifically on the tempo-rhythm of each text with specific reference to Beckett's punctuation in the original English text, ensuring that the Mandarin translation captured as best it could something of the 'movement' of the original text.

Working with Yi Song on OHIO IMPROMPTU, and inviting his imaginative engagement with specific images in the text.

Bernie Cronin and Yi Song carrying the weight of 'a heavy load' in one of our structured improvisations.

At work on one of Beckett's texts in the Shanghai studio.

Reflections on performing and co-creating 'playing "the maids"'

Three of those who co-created our 2015 critically acclaimed production of 'playing "the maids"' recently reflect in print on the performance and its making. See the two companion essays by Sunhee Kim and Jeungsook Yoo: ‘The Actor’s Process of Negotiating Difference and Particularity in Intercultural Theatre Practice’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 7.3 (2016), 417–37. Below is an extract and link to Adrian Curtain's essay, 'Recomposing Genet: Analysing the Musicality of 'playing The Maids' recently published in Contemporary Theatre Review. The production is available for international touring.

 

Recomposing Genet: Analysing the Musicality of ‘playing The Maids’

BY ADRIAN CURTIN

Track 01: Prelude

In 2012 Deutsche Grammophon released an album entitled Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Max Richter, Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, André de Ridder, Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin, Daniel Hope. Part of their ‘ReComposed’ series, which includes electronic remixes of classical recordings, this album features a ‘recomposition’ of Vivaldi’s score rather than a remix of a prior recording of the work. Richter explains:

I wanted to make the piece because I loved the Vivaldi. So it was my way of having a conversation with Vivaldi. I decided to rewrite the score on a note level, which meant re-recording it with an orchestra. [That] let me […] get inside it and […] start to work with the alchemy of the material itself, and […] gave me much more scope in terms of what I could do with it. I […] went through [Vivaldi’s score], picking my favourite bits and kind of ‘turning those up’ and making new objects out of those. It was […] like a sculptor having fantastic raw material and just putting it together in a way which kind of pleased me.

he Four Seasons, which has become depressingly familiar through tinny reproductions heard on the telephone, in shopping malls, and on elevators and airplanes, gets a new lease of life courtesy of Richter’s recomposition. Richter abstracts elements from Vivaldi’s concertos (about 25 per cent, in his estimation) and gives them a new spin, looping and collaging fragments, creating new textures, recasting the patterns of baroque music as electronica-inflected post-minimalism. Richter’s version provides an uncanny listening experience. It sounds both familiar and unfamiliar; the composer deliberately subverts expectations in places. The effect is disconcerting, but intriguing – rather like overhearing a delightfully skewed mental rendition of Vivaldi’s iconic work.

Musical recomposition is not new. As Joseph N. Straus observes: ‘[t]he desire to recompose the works of one’s predecessors seems to be almost as old as Western music itself’. Straus argues that twentieth-century composers such as Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern were prompted to recompose the work of earlier composers as a result of ‘anxiety of influence’ (Harold Bloom’s famous phrase). ‘In their recompositions’, Straus writes, ‘[these twentieth-century composers] reinterpreted the past in order to avoid being crushed by it. They attempted to neutralize significant or characteristic works of the past by imposing upon them a new, distinctively twentieth-century musical structure’. Richter’s statements about his recomposition of The Four Seasons suggest that he was motivated, not by a struggle for artistic autonomy, but by a desire to enter into dialogue with Vivaldi and create something that would complement this canonical work and allow it to be heard differently.

Adrian Curtin (cello) and Mick O'Shea (sound-artist) in performance

It is commonplace for playwrights and theatre-makers to adapt existing dramatic material and present it in an altered, updated form. This can involve deliberate subversion of the source material. For instance, Richter’s recomposition of Vivaldi’s score is suggestive of contemporary ‘Regie’ approaches to theatre and opera, as undertaken in continental Europe. Regie ‘plays’ with the text in an often overt, directorially provocative manner. It can lead to the ‘recomposition’ of a text for performance.  To my knowledge, the term ‘recomposing’ has not been used to refer to the creation of new theatre that directly draws on an acknowledged ‘primary’ source (i.e. an existing play). Yet, it is an apt term to use, I suggest, when discussing work that borrows from the dramatic canon but eschews the conventions of dramatic theatre in favour of alternative ‘compositional’ methods. Matthias Rebstock and David Roesner have proposed the term ‘composed theatre’ for work that, in Roesner’s words, ‘[brings] the musical notion of composing to the theatrical aspects of performing and staging’. This aligns with ‘recent developments towards postdramatic forms that de-emphasise text, narrative, and fictional characters, seeking alternative dramaturgies (visual, spatial, temporal, musical), and focusing on the sonic and visual materialities of the stage and the performativity of their material components’. Composed theatre does not simply refer to the use of music in theatre; rather, it is a way of conceptualising theatre made using compositional strategies and techniques that are ‘typical of musical composition’. Recomposed theatre, I propose, may denote theatre that explicitly reworks pre-existing source material from theatre history in a musically compositional manner. The term provides a new way of thinking about adaptation.

An example of recomposed theatre is playing ‘the maids’, a co-created piece made by an international ensemble of seven artists working with Kaite O’Reilly (dramaturg) and Phillip Zarrilli (director) that premiered at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff in February 2015. playing ‘the maids’ previewed at the Granary Theatre in Cork, Ireland as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival on 20–21 June 2014. It was performed at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff on 19–21 and 27–28 February 2015, in Theatr Brycheiniog, Brecon on 26 February 2015, and at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on 6 March 2015. A 14-minute promotional video is available here. 

Three theatre companies collaborated on this project: The Llanarth Group (Wales), Gaitkrash Theatre Company (Republic of Ireland), and Theatre P’yut (South Korea). Jing Hong Okorn-Kuo (from Singapore) and I (also from Ireland) worked with these companies as independent artists (Okorn-Kuo as an actor/devisor, I as a cellist/devisor). As the title suggests, playing ‘the maids’relates to Jean Genet’s classic drama Les Bonnes (The Maids, 1947). However, it was not a production of that play. This was stated in the programme. There have, of course, been many experimental stagings of Genet’s texts. For an account of key productions of The Maids, see David Bradby and Clare Finburgh, Jean Genet(Abingdon: Routledge, 2012). Rather, it used Genet’s text as creative inspiration, focusing on its character relationships and power dynamics as part of an oblique investigation of modern servitude, wealth-as-privilege, cultural notions of guilt and oppression, phantasms, and the politics of intimacy. It took themes from Genet’s play and recomposed them via a montage of newly written, found, and adapted text (primarily English-language, with some Mandarin, Korean, and Irish), psychophysical scores, choreography, and sound compositions that Mick O’Shea (a sound artist) and I performed onstage. The production featured two sets of maids, one Irish (performed by Bernadette Cronin and Regina Crowley) and one Korean (performed by Sunhee Kim and Jeungsook Yoo). Okorn-Kuo played a Chinese ‘madame. I will refer to Okorn-Kuo’s character as ‘madame’ rather than ‘Madame’ to differentiate her from Genet’s creation. The idea of using lower-case spelling for this purpose is Zarrilli’s. Similar to Richter’s recomposed Four Seasons, playing ‘the maids’ appropriated a canonical work for the artists’ own purposes, mining the source-text for raw material, re-contextualising it, and playing it anew.

In this article I will outline how playing ‘the maids’ functioned as a stage composition, and more precisely as recomposed theatre, by analysing its musicality. I will consider the sonic/musical components of playing ‘the maids’as well as musically inflected aspects such as its dramaturgy and performance style. In this, I follow Roesner’s lead in treating musicality as a ‘perceptive quality that goes beyond the aural sphere’ to attend to ‘musical qualities or relationships of non-auditory events, such as silent movement, gesture, or even colour schemes’. David Roesner, Musicality in Theatre: Music as Model, Method and Metaphor in Theatre-Making(Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), p. 14. Analysing playing ‘the maids’ using this theoretical lens illuminates various aspects of contemporary theatre-making and demonstrates the significance of their inter-operation here. These aspects include the creative re-use of canonical source material, international collaboration, intercultural dramaturgy, musicality as process and paradigm, the continuing relevance of Genet’s work, and the vibrant legacy of theatrical modernism. My analysis of playing ‘the maids’as an example of ‘recomposed theatre’ is not meant to foreclose other ways of conceiving it. I primarily situate the piece in relation to western concepts and cultural traditions because of my background and knowledge specialism. I recognise that the piece might be interpreted outside the context of modernism, for instance. My collaborators Jeungsook Yoo and Sunhee Kim have co-authored their own scholarly account of this piece. See Jeungsook Yoo and Sunhee Kim, ‘The Actor’s Process of Negotiating Difference and Particularity in Intercultural Theatre Practice’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 7.3 (2016), 417–37. I develop these motifs in the following ‘tracks’.

The rest of Adrian Curtin’s essay can be accessed here.

THEATRE | BENEATH THE SURFACE OF TOLD BY THE WIND

DATE: 29.09.16  First published on-line in Wales Arts Review. WRITTEN BY: PHILLIP ZARRILLI  POSTED IN: ARTICLES, RECOMMENDED, PERFORMING ARTS

Phillip Zarrilli takes us “…beneath the surface” of The Llanarth Group’s Told by the Wind an intercultural experiment in dramaturgy and aesthetics.

After touring internationally to Tokyo, Chicago, Berlin, Poland and Portugal between 2009 and 2013, The Llanarth Group’s Told by the Wind returns to Wales for performances between October 9-13. Told will have a natural light preview (09 October 3p.m.) at Small World Theatre (Cardigan), and returns to Chapter Arts Centre (12-13 October) where the performance premiered in 2010. Co-created by award-winning playwright/dramaturg, Kaite O’Reilly, dancer/choreographer Jo Shapland, and Artistic Director/performer Phillip Zarrilli, Told by the Wind combines movement, dance, minimal fragmentary text, subtle lighting by Ace McCarron, and silence to create a unique experience for audiences.

Responding to the unique experience of Told by the Wind, Elisabeth Mahoney of THE GUARDIAN described the performance as ‘…hypnotic…[with] a haunting, painterly beauty…[and] the astringent purity of a haiku poem…’ Similarly the critics in Chicago at SEE CHICAGO DANCE and CHICAGO TIME OUT described the performance respectively as ‘…minimal…mesmerizing…evoking both later T.S. Eliot and haiku’, and ‘…Beckettian magnetic poetry…all dropped like shapeless stones into a moonlit lake of silence…’

I briefly explore here the subtle terrain ‘beneath the surface’ of what is visible onstage in performances of Told by the Wind.

During the development process as co-creators our work was informed equally by three points of departure: (1) East Asian sources of inspiration, especially the aesthetic principles and dramaturgy of Japanese nō theatre, (2) contemporary cosmology, astrophysics, and the possible existence of parallel universes, and (3) ‘quietude’ or the role of ‘silence’ in performance.

East Asian sources of inspiration

Throughout my career as a professional director, actor, and actor trainer I have had an abiding interest in Japanese theatre–most importantly Zeami’s (the founder of Japanese nō during the 14thcentury) commentaries on acting, the unique dramaturgy/structure of Japanese nō dramas, the aesthetic principles informing nō, and the distilled/concentrated/embodied intensity of the nō performer onstage. Very early in my career, in 1982 I had the opportunity of training intensively and working with Kita nō-school master actor, Akira Matsui on a production of one play from the nō repertory (Funa Benkei) as well as a ‘modern’ nō play. This experience prompted me to direct two of William Butler Yeat’s nō influenced ‘dance-plays’—At the Hawk’s Well and The Only Jealousy of Emer in 1984. Fortunately, for our co-creative process, Jo Shapland also has a long-term interest in nō and has had her own opportunity to train with Akira Matsui.

After working directly on nō with Akira Matsui in 1982 and with the nō-style performance of Yeats’ plays for dancers inn 1984, I put aside any performance work directly on or influenced by nō or in nō style. But I continued to reflect in as much depth as I could on the subtleties of Zeami’s texts on acting, and on the aesthetic principles and structure informing nō plays and their performance. These influences have continued to haunt my imagination and my vision of the optimal performer throughout my professional career.

As co-creators of Told by the Wind, we of course recognized that none of us were specialists in Japanese or nō, and that we therefore had no intention or interest of attempting to create a performance that in any overt way appeared to be nō or nō-like for the UK/Western audiences that would constitute our primary audience, and the vast majority of whom would have absolutely no familiarity with Japanese theatre or nō. We therefore took an indirect approach to the source tradition of nō–-touching on but not attempting to reproduce nō stylistically in any way. In certain ways this choice reflects the underlying Japanese aesthetic concept of yūgen: a term which suggests ‘mystery and depth’ or ‘what lies beneath the surface’. Japanese scholar Tom Hare describes yugen as ‘the subtle, as opposed to the obvious; the hint.’

Another important source of inspiration for our creative process was the specific type of nō drama known as ‘phantasmal nō’. Here the main stage-figure (known as the shite) often appears as a “restless” female spirit who remembers a past event through a dream or unsettling memory, encounters a priest-type figure who reveals what is troubling her, and is pacified and/or transformed in some way. Japanese theatre specialist, Shelly Quinn, describes this specific type of nō as like “an echo chamber of allusions”. While keeping female and male figures, in Told by the Wind we wanted both figures as well as their relationship to remain “restless” and unsettled in some way like “an echo chamber of allusions”. There is no sense of pacification at the conclusion of Told by the Wind. 

In our creative process we constantly addressed “the hint”, i.e., the question of “’what lies beneath the surface’” for these two figures. Dramaturgically, could the two onstage figures be constantly present to one another, yet could the presence of each to the other remain a question mark? O’Reilly framed and articulated this “question mark” as follows: who is “dreaming” whom? We interpreted “dreaming” as the active task of constantly “imagining” or “conjuring” an-Other. This question mark was central to the final development and overall aesthetic of Told by the Wind.

One additional Japanese aesthetic principle that informed the visual elements of Told by the Wind, was wabi-sabi—a principle that emphasizes simplicity, impermanence, and the unique ‘beauty’ associated with natural processes of the passing of time and aging.

wabi-wabi: a close-up image of decaying wood in West Wales

Contemporary physics and cosmology

We found parallels between the multiple ‘worlds’ or shape-shifting ‘realities’ that are staged in nō performances and the multiple ‘worlds’ articulated in the most recent developments in contemporary physics and cosmology. Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Cornell University, Brian Greene explains in The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, that the notion of there being a single ‘universe’ has been replaced today amongst physicists by a much more complex understanding of ‘the totality of realit[ies]’ as ‘parallel universes or multiple universes’. Theoretical cosmological physics today is a whirlwind of exciting new models as we increasingly realize the vastness of the universe(s) we inhabit. Scientists today are (re)imagining our place/role within the complexities of the world(s) we inhabit. If there are multiple/parallel universe(s), do we have an-Other elsewhere?

…at and then inside a threshold: two figures…two lives…multiple time spaces… During the performance of Told by the Wind Female and Male Figure never once look directly to one another

Quietude and ‘silence’ in performance

The third source informing our work was the notion of “quiet theatre” exemplified in the body of work created by contemporary Japanese director/playwright Ōta Shōgo (1937-2007), as well as some of the work of Samuel Beckett. Ōta created three non-verbal dramas of “living silence” such as The Water Station. [I directed productions in 2004 in Singapore and then in a new 2015 production in Norway, both with international casts.] Ōta created dramas of “living silence” in which everyday action is slowed down and in which there is a divestiture of all unnecessary words. As Japanese theatre specialist Mari Boyd has explained, “Quiet theatre” does not attempt to “aggressively transmit meaning to the audience”. Rather, it turns down the often busy volume of theatre’s multiple modes of communication, paring away anything non-essential. Whatever performance material we generated and/or whatever text we tried out during our research/devising process we kept asking ourselves whether it was necessary. Working with that which lies “beneath the surface,” in Told by the Wind, each element generated had to operate at the subtle, suggestive level of ‘the hint’.

Poetic/lyric performances

Unlike narrative or character driven theatre performances, Told by the Wind operates like poetry through allusion and suggestion, but in three space-time dimensions. Each of the performers ‘dances’ an inner landscape. Like haiku, poetry in general, and Japanese nōdramas, Told by the Wind invites the audience to enter an imaginative space of possibilities. Responding to Told, critic and specialist in Japanese theatre, Mari Boyd described the performance as ‘suggestive, evocative, metaphorical. It’s not conveying meaning in a discursive way so much. It’s creating an atmosphere, throwing up images–like haiku–so that the listener has to make the connection.’

Phillip Zarrilli is the founding Artistic Director of The Llanarth Group, Wales. He maintains the Tyn y parc Studio in Llanarth. He works internationally as a director, performer, author, and teacher of acting. Most recently he directed the world premiere of Kaite O’Reilly’s Cosy at Wales Millennium Centre (March, 2016). He is remounting the 2014 Mandarin production of O’Reilly’s the 9 fridas with Mobius Strip Theatre (Taipei) for performances at the Hong Kong Rep Festival in late October, 2016.