... In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek) is controversy: the exchange of arguments and counter-arguments respectively advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses). The outcome of the exercise might not simply be the refutation of one of the relevant points of view, but a synthesis or combination of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue. [W]
What if there is "second," no reflection, no shadow?
... is it possible?
"Mirror" (Tarkovsky) in film [ symbol and method ].
Richard Schechner: ‘Everything and anything can be studied ‘as’ performance’.
[ advertising space ]
Stage Directing Theory
"Folding" is a new name for the ancient idea of double and doubling. All I want is to change the perspective and see the stage is this doubling of the audience. They, this great black hole, generate the static reservoir of energy, which become kinetic on stage. You, Mr. Spectator, is the originator of all roles we play. Your dramatic experience during the show is nothing but the eternal return of the life of drama in you, which you bring to the theatre from life...
Where does it come from? I guess, from the old human quality of realization of our mortality. This is what makes us "dramatic" a priory, by definition, by default. The rest is history. Theatre, like any other art (more than any other art, since theatre is the mother of all muses) simply expression of the dramatism. You see, I hold myself back from saying "tragic" essence of being human (existentialism)....
The most intriguing view of spectatorship is webcast technologies! Here spectator gains much more control and crosses the line separating him from stage. He is participant of the spectacle! He is a COMPOSER of the narrative (thanks to keyboards). The composition of the story is in his hands...
If you read the pages on identification (including acting pages in Method Acting), you understand that the "folding" principle is in very nature of any thought process. Consider Shakespearean image of theatre as mirror -- this is why we need both, stage and public -- and only both can give birth to theatre phenomenon. Stage asks for audience no less than spectators crave for action in front of them. One generates another. But why, nevertheless, I stress the public a primary engine?
The genesis of acting in ability of all for imitation (Aristotle); gaze itself produces stage (dramatic space-time)...
Thirty years later I still ask the same question -- where does theatre begin?
I know the answer.
Not with an actor, but with your gaze at the space which becomes stage, charged with your expectations. Yes, theatre starts with the public.
Public could be one single soul. It's me, director. I prepare the spectacle for them, I know what they want because I am a spectator myself. I know what I want to see.
Directing is easy, to be a spectator is not...
Thanks to Method Acting we talk about Identification (ID), which is impossible without our ability for doubling. The birth of humans is this understanding of the mirror effect: another one is me too! Next, institutionalization of Plato -- Christianity. Through identification we understand our equality. Social Christianity of the French and American Revolutions, extreme of the socialization in communist formula... the short history of this principle.
Our interest in how doubling works in theatre.
THEORY of SPECTATORSHIP
MEYERHOLD'S FORMULA
...
All my theatre and film classes I begin with the concept of spectatorship. I use the formula introduced by Meyrhold:
ACTOR = ARTIST + MEDIUM
sometimes he would put it as:
ACTOR = ACTOR1 + ACTOR2
The important aspect in this dual organization of creative process is that we have a separation within each profession -- acting, directing, writing -- between Creative and Performing Bodies. First invents, the second executes. The first demands skills from the second. You have to know how to work with and develop both. The second part in Meyerhold's formula is about craft, something which we train but under the supervision of the Artist in us. The first, the creator, is the organizer, architect, manager, thinker. He is the first and last judge... Who is he? Yes, yes, the spectator.
You!
If Plato called a thought process a dialogue with oneself, this doubling (or folding) is the nature of any event. An "aggressive" spectator gets on stage and becomes an actor. Or writes his own story... and becomes playwright. Or organizes the space and time of spectacle... as a director. This spectator's quality must be develop in order to learn a profession. We are PROFESSIONAL SPECTATORS, if we are actors, directors, writers.
To divide ourselves is a step to master ourselves. To develop the creator is to learn the methods of artistic judgment, ways to improve and force yourself into new challenges.
SPECTATOR'S EXPERIENCE
Apply this formula to a spectator and you'll discover that stage or screen are his MEDIUM where he creates HIS "texts"! It always unique and personal. You can watch the same film and have a different experience, because you conditions (emotions, life experience, frame of mind, present environment of spectacle) are always different. To learn how to act, direct or write, you need to position as a spectator and we call it "identification." In fact, our spectator does the same -- he identifies himself with heroes, situations, space and time of action. His thoughts and feelings are his medium for creating drama in his heart and mind. Our business is to help him in it -- we are co-creators.
THREE PROFESSIONS
I divided the construction of spectacle in three major fields -- acting, directing, writing. Mostly, because of the different medium we use in creating PERFORMANCE TEXTS. If actor is centered around himself and immediate space and time, writer is limited to words and silence, director is in the middle -- he organizes it all. That's the reason why he became so important in the last century -- he is a representative of spectator. He is the one to execute the will of public. We need to see those three fields separately in order to know what, who and how performs each task. There are common structural laws which govern everything in spectacle and I start my lectures from the very beginning -- The Poetics.
SIX PRINCIPLES
For practical purposes I simplified Aristotle. There are three structural principles:
In Acting One or Dramatic Literature I can't go too deeply into each of the six laws. More important is to establish the meaning of each. To make sure that the understanding becomes applicable. Yes, it's an analysis. The basics of dramatic language.
The first question is the difference between structure and texture. Why would Aristotle position PLOT, CHARACTER and IDEA as the principles which build the whole of spectacle? Of course, the three are interconnected. Idea or Meaning doesn't exist by itself without being formed through Plot and Character. But how to separate THOUGHT from the story?
PLOT AND STORY
Plot is a sequence of events we see, the story is always bigger. The story of Hamlet begins way before we see him on stage. To understand how it works, we have to talk about the first segment of dramatic composition -- EXPOSITION.
Again, I break it down only in three main elements of composition, follow Aristotle's suggestions:
BEGINNING -- MIDDLE -- END
I have to drill my students on "ABC of dramatic structure" as 1-2-3. This organization they have to apply in monologue, scene and improvisation classes. They must understand the function of each. I use a simple rule -- I won't allow to go further till the functions of exposition are completed. What do we need to extablish at the very beginning? Oh, the same six principles! And first of all -- the main three. The story can't be told without a character being established and present and giving the direction -- a thought. Yes, I, the spectator, have to follow in order to get active. We are directing mind and hearts of our audience.
....
Folding is a term used by Deleuze and has many deep philosophical applications -- see SELF
(More pages on spectatorship, when I'll have time to get them from my hard drive!)
NB
This page should link the theory pages back to the instructional ones!
This is old (pre-web) page and has no reflections on internet experience [ web.vtheatre.net ] -- most interesting. Spectatorship in Ritual (Turner, Shekhner), when reflective state is gone (trance).
Pre-historical forms of rites [new primitives, us].
... but the alternative state is DIFFERENT experience!
Is it this simple secret of "entertainment"?
... Spectator-2 : "web-ship"? This new spectator is not more acting, it's an "open structure spectator" -- we simply can see the spectator-in-action.
He has many identities : viewer, guest, surfer, visitor...
All of them still have this "passive" connotation.
u21.us -- Project Utopia : does the third millennium remove the "mirror" by making spectator into creator of his dramatic experience [video games]?
Or it is simply became visible -- the mind of a slave. We never pay attention to the inner being of mass-man. All what we knew the study of Master [Plato].
Only at the time when the Earth history became Cosmos story we began to learn about man from the chorus...
[ notes for tech 1 and tech 2 ]
... will anatolant.vox.com help me? [ connection between Virtual Theatre (VT) and Spectator is simple = praxis and theory ]
The problem is that VT still not REAL, only a concept. Nothing to study; we do not know how it looks like!
How far we are from Virtual Theatre forms?
Technology is not ready. Another ten years before the machinery [computer] will be replaced by holographic experience?
Then the difference between "real" and "virtual" becomes obvious.
Too early.
Too sooner for new (virtual) theatre; too late for old forms...
Alas, the traditional ("live") theatre will still exist.
NB. "Live" is confusing term: even TV has "live" format.
