University Theatres

and Repertoires
Edited by Vito Minoia, Maria S. Horne
Elka Fediuk, Franoise Odin, Lucile Garbagnati
Dennis Beck, Aubrey Mellor
 University Theatres
and Repertoires
Edited by Vito Minoia, Maria S. Horne
Elka Fediuk, Franoise Odin, Lucile Garbagnati
Dennis Beck, Aubrey Mellor
 First published in September 2016 by Edizioni Nuove Catarsi, Urbino (Italia)
Publisher of the European Review Theatres of Diversities
Websites: www.edizioninuovecatarsi.org, www.teatridellediversita.it

Copyright AENIGMA Associazione Culturale Cittadina Universitaria

Registered office: Via Giancarlo de Carlo n 5, 61029 Urbino, Italia
Organizational address: Via Peschiera n 30, 61030 Cartoceto, Pesaro e Urbino (I)
e.mail: aenigma@uniurb.it website: www.teatroaenigma.it
co-published with International University Theatre Association

Art director: Antonio Cioffi

Logo Theatre & University by Ludovico Cioffi

Cover image
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (photo 1965), Moscow U Theatre Repertoire

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the copyright holder for which application should be addressed in
the first instance to the publisher. No liability shall be attached to the author, the copyright holder or the
publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of reliance on the reproduction of any of the
contents of this publication or any errors or omissions in its contents.
 Editorial Series
directed by

Vito Minoia (Universit di Urbino, Italia)

Publications Director (Editor)

Elka Fediuk (Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico)

Publications Co-Director (Co-Editor), Spanish

Maria S. Horne (University at Buffalo, USA)

Publications Co-Director (Co-Editor), Spanish

Lucile Garbagnati (Universit de Franche-Comte, France)

Publications Co-Director (Co-Editor), French

Franoise Odin (INSA de Lyon, France)

Publications Co-Director (Co-Editor), French

Dennis Beck (James Madison University, USA)

Publications Co-Director (Co-Editor), English

Aubrey Mellor (Lasalle College of Arts, Singapore)

Publications Co-Director (Co-Editor), English

The volumes of this series are subjected to a double-blind referee system.

Edizioni Nuove Catarsi

AITU / IUTA
Printed in Italy 2016 by Press Up Srl
ISBN: 978-88-905373-9-4
ISSN: 1594-3496
General Index

Introduction
The University Theatre Community 13
Vito Minoia

Seccin 1
Editado por Elka Fediuk y Maria S. Horne

Repertorio como proyecto de cultura:

Compaa de Teatro de la Universidad Veracruzana 23
Elka Fediuk

La diferencia de representar:
Teatro Universitario en Puebla, Mxico 39
Isabel Cristina Flores

Teatros universitarios en Chile:

continuidades y reformulaciones 55
Pa Salvatori Maldonado

Escena e interaccin social:

hacia un teatro educativo de inclusin 65
Vito Minoia
Section 2
Sous la direction de Lucile Garbagnati et Franoise Odin

Le festival interuniversitaire de Lille 3 79

Sotiri Haviaras et Hlne Routier

Vingt cinq ans de thtre antique 91

Nathalie Duplain Michel et Anne-Sophie Meyer

Servir sur un plateau 109

Anne-Frdrique Bourget

Section 3
Edited by Dennis Beck and Aubrey Mellor

Freeing the Ugly Voice 117

David Hugo

Shakespeares Hamlet on the Russian scene:

Classic and Contemporary 129
Ruzaeva Nadezda

The Influence of Spanish and Latin-American

Theatre on University Theatre in Portugal 145
Margarida Torres

Interactive Theatre for Social Change:

Who Are We and What Do We Do? 159
Anne Fliotsos

Moscow University Theatres Repertoire

since its Foundation to the Present Day 169
Anatoly Safronikhin and Elena Illarionova

On The Subject of Repertoire at Graduate Theatre

Programs in the United States 189
Maria S. Horne and Chelsea L. Horne
Exploring Family, Expanding Repertoire: A Model for Devising 205
Angela Konrad

Student Experimental Theatre as

Experiential Learning Environment 219
Dennis Beck

Student Performances at the Arts Centre 235

Karin Freymeyer

The Themes of the International University Theatres Forum in

Vilnius as the Litmus of Lithuania Student Theatres Repertoire 253
Dalia Kiaupaite

Theatre as a Site of Pedagogical Tension:

A New Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns 269
Cara Gargano

Contribution spciale 285

Entretien entre Maurice Durozier et Franoise Odin
En ouverture du Xme Congrs Mondial de lAITU, Lige, 30 juin 2014
Franoise Odin

Contributors 303
Introduction
12
The University Theatre Community

Introduction by Vito Minoia

In 2006 I started working on a research project on the history of university

theatre on behalf of the International University Theatre Association (IUTA).
Since 2010 history has significantly influenced culture, and we are now
assisting increasingly important projects that are helping us to obtain our
goal.1 These initiatives encourage researchers to consider the need to support
policies in favour of humanistic and art studies.
The collection Theatre and University published by Edizioni Nuove Catarsi
began in consideration of this cultural background.
It wishes to provide information on the study and research projects by the
International University Theatre Association in the most accurate way and
following both recognized and innovative research criteria. The association
was founded in 1994 and can count today on the participation of members
from more than fifty nations on five continents.
This first volume of the collection deals with the specific features of the
repertoires of university theatre through a selection of works (commissioned
after the 10th World Congress of University Theatre held at the University of
Lige, Belgium, in 2014).
This book is a step forward that demonstrates the value of the idea that we are
dealing with a phenomenon that should not be considered marginal or worthy
of only low historical consideration. University theatre itself constitutes a field
that serves important functions for culture and theatre phenomena tout court.
With their specific features depending on their academic contexts, cultures,
or the level of freedom they possess in their countries, university theatres have
evinced a research spirit that is not exclusively found in the avant-garde. In
many situations these theatres managed to contribute to a significant increase

1 Le thtre universitaire. Pratiques et expriences was published in 2013 by Robert Germay and Philippe
Poirrier (ditions universitaires de Dijon). In May 2015 the Kotumos association and the University
Theater Association of the Vilnius Gediminas Technical University organised the international conference
The Beginning. The conference was held in the context of the 16th Vilnius International Theatre Festival
and on the occasion of the 445th anniversary of the first university theatre production in Lithuania (the
show took place in 1570 at Vilnius College and was based on Stefano Tuccis comedy Hercules. The College
became the University of Vilnius thanks to the Jesuits contribution). In 2015 the European journal
Theatres of Diversities introduced a new column dedicated to University Theatre History by publishing the
essay A Glimpse through Time by Maria S. Horne (Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit XXI, n 70-72: 15-20),
stating that it is possible to find records of the existence of university theatre in the United States from the
origin of the Union.

13
in audience and in the number of active participants. The latter have been
involved by developing new initiatives such as decentralisation, new social
connections in local theatres, community theatre and the renewal of scenic
practices, such as the idea of a collective organization, with its revolutionary
spirit. An example is the Thtre du Soleil by Ariane Mnouchkine, created in
1964 by the Sorbonne Student Theatre Association (ATEP).2
Today it is possible to think to a unified university theatre community in
which many languages and ways of interacting coexist, a community where
actors and audience can be together and understand each other even if they
live in a kind of Tower of Babel.3
This trend is confirmed by director Gianfranco de Bosios experience too. He
founded the first Italian post-war university theatre experience in Padua in
1946:

The university theatre actor is guided by many different choices, starting from
knowledge or study, scientific discussion or simply theatre vocation. He/she
is nowadays led to participate to the flow of history in a multicultural and
multiethnic theatre perspective... The choice to focus just on a single aspect
of theatre in ones language is not excluded in order to discover the rich and
universal features of the human being.4

Over the last 25 years, a new generation of university students chose this
perspective with a progressively less Eurocentric point of view. They created
over a hundred theatre festivals around the world, identifying themselves as
part of an international cultural approach.
After World War II, the Erlangen University Theatre Festival first5 and
the Nancy festival later 6 erased the division between professional and
nonprofessional theatre, inviting student theatre companies as well as
those of the New Theatre, such as the Living Theatre, Jerzy Grotowski, and

2 In this publication we wanted to pay tribute to experience; we did so with a conversation by Franoise
Odin with Maurice Durozier, actor and collaborator of Ariane Mnouchkine.
3 We remember the words of the theatre historian Emilio Pozzi during the opening of the 6th World
University Theatre Congress (Urbino, July 2006). He spoke about the production experiment of Cymbeline
by William Shakespeare promoted by the Becanon University in the period 1991-93 (just after the
signing of the Convention for the Schengen enforcement agreement in 1990). The show, interpreted in
five languages and in the different drama research approaches of Lithuania, Scotland, Romania, France,
Belgium and Italy, was performed in the universities of Besanon, Dijon, Urbino, Iasi, Vilnius and Glasgow
and revealed a fascinating range of voices and styles.
4 Gianfranco de Bosio, Lo Specchio Infranto in Actors in University Theatre, ed. V. Minoia, M.S. Horne,
J. Baldwin, C. Page (Urbino: Edizioni Nuove Catarsi, 2010), 21.
5 Created in Germany in 1946, following the horrors of World War II, it successfully managed to develop
significant reconstruction work until 1968.
6 Directed from 1962 to 1984 by Jack Lang, who closed it down during the first of the two mandates by
the Culture Minister under the Mitterrand government.

14
Peter Brook. This approach derived from the desire to break away from the
social, moral, political and esthetic order of the period. More recently young
generations have been expressing new requests for an increased focus on
roots, cultural critique and identity research.
Studying a repertoire that has been produced during the life (short or long) of a
university theatre allows us to assess its cultural project, as Elka Fediuk7 says.
The chapters of this volume consider such cultural projects from a variety
of perspectives and, while they issue from many cultures, each is published
here in one of the three official languages of the IUTA, Spanish, French,
or English. The volume is divided into sections by language, which vary in
length depending on the number of submissions received in each language.
In future volumes, therefore, these proportions will no doubt change,
but critical consideration of a theme will continue. The extraordinary
documents collected and analysed here, for example, allow us to express
some considerations on repertoire through categories such as continuity and
reformulation for the first time.
The Chilean experience presented by Pia Salvatori is one of the above-
mentioned cases. In the 1940 s and up to the present time in Chile, the
Pontifical Catholic Universitys aesthetic and social trends have had a strong
influence on the national theatre scene.
Since 1290, when the first Portuguese university was founded, and until today,
the history of the countrys theatre scene described by Margarida Torres cant
be detached from university theatre history for its resistance, experimentation
and modernity. It was also considered an example of democracy during the
long dictatorship between 1933 and 1974.8 Here the influence of Spanish and
Latin-American theatre was particularly significant.
The analysis by Anatoly Safronikhin and Elena Illarionova is very detailed
as well. Thanks to archive documents, the authors have studied the Moscow
University Theatre programmes related to more than 250 years of history.
The theatre was founded in 1756 and has had on several occasions the role
of accelerating the development of professional theatre (as an ancestor of
Bolshoi and Maly). This theatre has always fought stagnation, promoted new
energies and ideas, and has avoided oppression and censorship. It preferred
adaptations of prose to dramatic plays that are generally preferred in State
Theatres, recently becoming an incubator of contemporary drama.
We decided to dedicate the book cover to the Moscow University Theatre,

7 Researcher and professor at the Study Centre for Art Creation and Documentation from the Veracruzana
University (Mexico).
8 The Coimbra, Lisbon and Oporto Festivals gave birth to anticolonial approaches, to a new audiences
and to an underground scene with new generations of actors and directors very active in the independent
international scene.

15
choosing a shot from The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht,
directed by Sergei Yutkevich and Mark Zakharov and performed in 1965 at
the international Zagreb Festival.
A second analysis from Russia is the one by Nadezda Ruzaeva. It receives
inspiration from recent university productions of Hamlet and provides
information on the fortune of the most popular Shakespeare play on the
Russian drama scene. The author considers its various adaptations from 1837
until now, after its first representation in 1748 and, in the 20th century, in
relation to the Moscow Art Theatre.
The historical perspective is also the focus of the two contributions from
Mexico, from the Veracruz and Puebla Universities. Elka Fediuk takes into
consideration the sixty years of activity of the Veracruz company (1953-2013)
and provides reference for the representation of values and aspirations from
the institutions, directors and actors in a pedagogical perspective and in
dialogue with the audience. Isabel Cristina Flores, director of the University
Theatre of Puebla, focuses on the relationships with history, tradition, socio-
political development and also on the influence on local culture and theatre
tradition since its origin in 1948. Particularly interesting is her original
comparison of three productions of Antigone (1957, 1995, 2002).
Karin Freymeyer, professor at the Art Centre of the University of Bochum,
considers and describes the plays performed over the last 15 semesters by
natural science, engineering, medicine and human sciences students. She
focuses on what young people wish to communicate with a performance and
their inspirations and interactions with recent literature and cinema in the
creation of original plays.
An interesting contribution is also the history of the twenty-five years of
Ancient Theatre that are described in the work of Nathalie Duplain Michel
and Anne-Sophie Meyer of the University of Neuchtel, which tried to
revitalize the classics (from Latin, Greek and medieval cultures) through
dramatic language.
We then turn to the specificity of the role of Festivals in influencing Repertoire
choices.
Two cases are taken into consideration: the Lille and Vilnius Festivals.
The first, described by Sotiri Haviaras and Hlene Routier, has become an
experimental occasion that is constantly connected with the evolution of
professional European theatre.
The second has become a test case on Lithuanian student theatre: Dalia
Kiaupaite indicates how the Forum has influenced the Lithuanian university
repertoire, indicating production lines and limits on historical and social themes
or on topics related to cultural heritage. The development of an environmental
theatre aimed at giving value to specific architectural sites also emerged.

16
Another point of view brings us to considerations of how methodological
approaches generate conceptual and operational decisions (including those
regarding Repertoire) that are addressed to specific communities, often
oriented by a pedagogical commitment or simply aimed at preferring a
specific kind of training.
This is the case of the Inclusive Education Theatre experiments developed over
the last twenty years in Italy by the Aenigma Theatre at the Urbino University.
They deal with symbolic productions that have involved university students
together with disabled people, prisoners, people with psychic disorders (also
thanks to the international scientific work promoted by the European review
Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit and to the contacts between the Social and Art
Theatre).
In an educational perspective, Dennis Beck at James Madison University
(USA) underlines how student experimental theatre can become an
experiential educational environment fostering personal initiative and
responsibility, discipline, innovation, and professional courage, reflecting the
theories of educator and education theorist David Kolb.
And if creativity is at the centre of the observations and productions by
Anne-Frdrique Bourget at Lille University (France), Anne Fliotos at the
Purdue University (USA) theorizes an Interactive Theatre for Social Change
with cultural references such as Augusto Boal, Viola Spolin, Michael Rohd
and other researchers of the past and present, advocating a wider university-
level international discussion.
Two contributions come from Long Island University. In the first, Cara
Gargano defines theatre as a place of pedagogic tension highlighting how
in the United States a debate is still open between tradition and innovation,
written and spoken language, text and the actor interpreting it.
In the second contribution, David Hugo, incorporating his research with
the Suzuki method, focuses on the most consistent ways to perform in the
heightened form of the musical theatre genre while remaining honest and
expressive.
Angela Konrad from the Trinity Western University of Vancouver (Canada)
suggests the devised theatre. She offers an autobiographical model that
originates from need and instinct. It should be practised as an ethical
experience with artistic goals and at the same time for the protection of the
psychological health of the person.
The contribution by Maria S. Horne and Chelsea L. Horne from University
at Buffalo, New York, and American University, Washington, DC, provides us
with a detailed overview On The Subject of Repertoire and Graduate Theatre
Programs in the United States. The authors considered University Resident
Theatre Association (URTA) schools for the academic year 2013-2014. The

17
urgency of the above-mentioned research is based on the understanding that
student training and audience development depend on the fact that universities
must remain research and knowledge-centred places. The data recorded are not
very optimistic: funding cuts to the arts have jeopardised the development of
new productions able to effectively communicate in our time. The future of
American Drama cant be based on commercial theatre only.
University theatre in the second half of the 20th century gradually managed to
get universal acknowledgement, and the presence of acted theatre in academic
programmes made obsolete a vision of it as a merely literary subject.
In the following decades it contributed, also through the development of
international Festivals, to boosting research and experimentation on dramatic
language as well as the development of efficient democratic practices (research
on repertories allows us to understand esthetic as well as ethical, social and
civil implications of theatre).
Today it is increasingly important to protect the role of theatre, culture and
humanistic studies in the contemporary university system.
To overcome utilitarian and extreme economic approaches that present
themselves as dogmas, it is currently necessary to create new categories able
to overcome the limits of traditional economic analysis. A new developmental
concept should increasingly differentiate itself from that of growth. Economic
development shouldnt coincide with an increase in wealth anymore, but with
an increase in the quality of life.9 The attention placed on quality rather than
on quantity would help us to better understand the potential of theatre art in
general and at university as well.
University theatre is a kind of theatre that has known many corporate
obstacles that always risk to imprison it.
With a deeper understanding and the new perspectives opened by our
considerations on the University Theatre Repertoires, I quote the historian
Claudio Meldolesi as a conclusion:

It is vital to think to oneself also beyond the university participation so that

the latter becomes a multiplier of possible encounters, starting from the ones
between the north and south of the world. Since the theatre game proves the
ones that do not follow its rules wrong, any opening towards art will be able
to relaunch the socio-cultural foundations of the participation of everybody.
Lets extend this territory together.10

9 Cfr. Amartya Sen; Martha Nussbaum. The Quality of Life (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press Oxford
University Press, 1993).
10 Claudio Meldolesi, Le Scene Universitarie per il Teatro Sociale e quello dArte in Actors in University
Theatre, edited by V. Minoia, M.S. Horne, J. Baldwin, C. Page (Urbino: Edizioni Nuove Catarsi, 2010), 33.

18
19
20
 Seccin 1

Editado por Elka Fediuk y Maria S. Horne

Repertorio como proyecto de cultura:

Compaa de Teatro de la Universidad Veracruzana 23
Elka Fediuk

La diferencia de representar:
Teatro Universitario en Puebla, Mxico 39
Isabel Cristina Flores

Teatros universitarios en Chile:

continuidades y reformulaciones 55
Pa Salvatori Maldonado

Escena e interaccin social:

hacia un teatro educativo de inclusin 65
Vito Minoia

21
 The Theatre Company of the Universidad Veracruzana
(University of Veracruz) is the oldest university
theatre company in Latin America, and was founded
in 1953. In 2013, the company celebrated its sixtieth
anniversary. At different periods the company
followed movements such as the theater of art, as
well as experimental and educational perspectives in
dialogue with the public. The document contextualizes
and characterizes the current and historical periods
and opens a reflection on the meanings that emerge
from the composition of the repertoire in the past and
also in relation to postmodern poetics. The decision
to stage certain authors or subjects may reflect
cultural policies, as well as the political and artistic
beliefs of the producers. In any case, the repertoire is
a representation of the values and aspirations of the

institution or responsible artists (directors, actors).

22
Repertorio como proyecto de cultura: Compaa de Teatro
de la Universidad Veracruzana
Elka Fediuk

Repertorio y proyecto de cultura

Para el diccionario de la RAE, repertorio tiene como primera acepcin

Conjunto de obras teatrales o musicales que una compaa, orquesta o
intrprete tienen preparadas para su posible representacin o ejecucin.
El uso de este trmino se remonta al siglo XVI y su vigencia se mantiene
en las compaas estables, comerciales o subvencionadas, as como en el
teatro independiente o teatro de grupo, una categora que por momentos es
aplicable a la Compaa.

Por teatro de grupo comprendo aquel que ha sido conformado por adhesin
libre, plantea un proyecto a largo plazo a partir de determinadas concepciones
de teatro, generalmente se sustrae de la escena comercial y frecuentemente de
la oficial, y aspira a crear una potica que lo distinga1.

La industria del espectculo prefiere explotar el producto y deshacer el

compromiso al trmino de una o dos temporadas. En el caso del teatro grupo y
las compaas estables podemos referirnos al repertorio vigente obras que se
presentan alternadamente y al repertorio histrico, es decir, el historial de las
producciones teatrales, incluyendo sus versiones. Las compaas como la Royal
Shakespeare Company o la Comedi Franaise ligan su repertorio con la misin
de su existencia, otras, como por ejemplo La Compaa Nacional de Teatro
(Mxico) actualmente pone sus propuestas a consulta de la comunidad teatral.

La Compaa Titular de la Universidad Veracruzana, subvencionada por

universidad pblica, es inobjetablemente teatro universitario, ya que en todo
momento ha permanecido ligada a la institucin mediante apoyos y, a partir
de 1976, como parte su estructura. No cuenta con la autonoma de gestin
y su director artstico es nombrado de una terna. A pesar de ello durante
ciertos periodos el director artstico funga como lder, una personalidad
eje y autoridad moral del grupo.
Georges Banu subraya la diferencia entre un liderazgo institucional de
un director de recinto y compaa teatral, y un director cuyo liderazgo es
efectivo cuando es el iniciador del proyecto y gana su legitimidad por el

1 Elka Fediuk, (2013) Proyecto posideolgico y teatro de grupo en Latinoamrica Teln de fondo,
Nm. 17/2013, pp. 41-55.

23
hecho reconocido de que no hereda a un grupo, sino que lo engendra2. Por su
estatus la Compaa presenta caso mixto.

El nacimiento de la Compaa ocurri en el contexto de Mxico

posrevolucionario3, marcado por lo que Bonfil Batalla4 denomina querella
por la cultura. El proyecto nacional nico refundaba la nacin como una
sntesis cultural, asentada como modelo en el cine mexicano de su poca de
oro, apostaba por la educacin y cultura propia. Un ejemplo son las Escuelas
de Artes y Oficios, en Xalapa creadas en 1922, donde al lado de oficios tiles
se imparta clases de pintura, msica, danza y declamacin. La expansin del
proyecto nacional tras la creacin, en 1936, del Instituto Nacional de Bellas
Artes (INBA) hizo que en 1953 la joven Universidad Veracruzana asumiera
la proteccin del Taller del Nuevo Teatro y luego de la Escuela de Teatro que
funcion entre 1953-1956.

En competencia con la visin nacionalista aparecan los brotes del proyecto

cosmopolita Bonfil Batalla le llama sustitutivo y, ms tarde, ve sus estragos
en los monopolios de la televisin. En el terreno artstico se manifest en la
apertura al arte europeo y norteamericano, siguiendo las actualidades y las
vanguardias. El ejemplo temprano fue el movimiento estridentista que finc
su sede en Xalapa entre 1921-1925, la corta vida del Teatro Ulises en 1928,
el grupo Los Contemporneos, el teatro en la UNAM5 y el proyecto Poesa
en Voz Alta6. Con el tiempo la fuerza del proyecto nacional nico absorbi a
los intelectuales antes disidentes , dejando en sus manos la direccin de
la cultura.

El proyecto pluricultural segn Bonfil Batalla asume la imposibilidad

de una cultura homognea ante la diferencia de las lenguas, costumbres y
valores, lo cual alent la resistencia cultural hoy ratificada en los derechos de
los pueblos indgenas. Uno de los ejes del anlisis que propongo es justamente
la relacin del repertorio de la Compaa con alguno de estos proyectos.

Si bien existe una relacin entre el contexto temporal y el repertorio, ste se

modifica por circunstancias complejas y discursos artsticos dominantes, sin
olvidar las convicciones teatrales de los creadores. De la vasta produccin de
la Compaa mencionar brevemente las etapas y sus caractersticas, para
revisar con ms detalle las ltimas temporadas.

2 Georges Banu, (2013/2014) Los lderes efectivos y las comunidades artsticas, Investigacin Teatral,
Vol. 3/Nm. 5 Segunda poca, p. 100.
3 El estallido en 1910, culmina con la Constitucin en 1917.
4 Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, (1991) Pensar nuestra cultura, Ensayos, Alianza, Mxico.
5 En 1949 se crea en la Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico el Departamento de Teatro que
promueve la dramaturgia universal.
6 Agrupaba a escritores, poetas y artistas, uno de ellos fue Octavio Paz.

24
Del Taller a la Compaa (1953-1961)7

La perspectiva de proyecto cultural evidencia el porqu del repertorio en esta

etapa. Moctezuma II (1953), del entonces joven dramaturgo Sergio Magaa
(dir. D. Guillaumin) declara los temas nacionalistas. Su director, Dagoberto
Guillaumin, formado en los talleres de Seki Sano maestro japons que
introdujo en Mxico el Sistema stanislavskiano , har patente la perspectiva
esttico formativa de las siguientes puestas: Antn Chejov (El aniversario, El
canto del cisne y Sobre los perjuicios que causa el tabaco), Eugene ONeill (Antes
del desayuno), Arthur Miller (Todos eran mis hijos). La vocacin nacional
incluye a los dramaturgos mexicanos jvenes como Hctor Mendoza (Las
cosas simples), Sergio Galindo (Un dios olvidado) y la revelacin del autor
veracruzano Emilio Carballido (Felicidad, La danza que suea la tortuga
-1956).

La ideologa nacionalista cuyo anlisis agudo inici Octavio Paz en El

laberinto de la soledad (1950) motivaron a Sergio Magaa para enfocar en
Moctezuma II un personaje histrico controversial y profundizar sobre la
tragedia de la conquista. El temido y cruel emperador Azteca haba recibido al
conquistador Hernn Corts con obsequios, creyndolo seal del retorno de
Quetzalcatl. Magaa lo convirti en hroe trgico8, abonando a la reflexin
sobre la mexicanidad.

Apertura poltica y esttica 1962-1974

Mxico atravesaba la contradiccin entre sus intereses de apertura con el

vecino del norte y la simpata revolucionaria con Cuba. La desobediencia
civil ante la opresin del estado result en cruda represin del movimiento
estudiantil en 1968. En el campo teatral se gestaba una nueva dramaturgia,
al tiempo que las poticas escnicas se independizaban del texto dramtico.

La composicin del repertorio sigui el credo artstico de los directores. La

puesta de los clsicos incluy dos obras de William Shakespeare: Hamlet
realizado al aire libre , y Macbeth (1963 dir. M.A. Montero), obra que
inaugur el Teatro del Estado. A la par en la esttica del realismo: Arthur

7 Los datos histricos fueron corroborados con los archivos de la Candileja y las siguientes publicaciones:
Francisco Beverido Duhalt (2000) Medio siglo de teatro. Xalapa: Ciudad teatral 1950-2000 (Tomos 1-8).
Xalapa: Candileja A.C.;
Elka Fediuk (1994) El teatro de la Universidad Veracruzana en: El Teatro Mexicano visto desde Europa.
MARGES, Collection Etudes, Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 1994;
Serrano, Alejandra (2013) Compaa Titular de Teatro de la UV. Testimonios de 60 aos. Direccin
Editorial de la Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa.
8 Beatriz Aracil Varn,Moctezuma II: ausencia y presencia en el teatro mexicano,Amrica sin Nombre,
Noviembre2007no. 9-10p. 12-20.

25
Moctezuma II (1953, ver Cronologa de la producciones): Manuel Fierro, Susana Cacho, Fidelia Tapia
Camacho. Fotoarchivio del Centro de Documentacin Teatral Candileja, original de la puesta, donada
por Benito Lpez.

Miller (Panorama desde el puente), Thornton Wilder (Reinas de Francia),

Tennessee Williams (Zoolgico de cristal) y Antn Chejov (Peticin de mano),
al lado de la dramaturgia nacional: Sergio Magaa (El pequeo caso de Jorge
Lvido) y Emilio Carballido (La perfecta casada, El relojero de Crdoba).

La llegada de Manuel Montoro, espaol y participante de Universit du

Thtre des Nations, fundado en 1961, introdujo un repertorio comprometido
y de vanguardia con autores como Federico Garca Lorca (Mariana Pineda,
1966) de nimo revolucionario, teatro pnico de Fernando Arrabal (El
triciclo y Pic-nic, obra antiblica, estrenada en 1968). Posterior a los hechos
del 2 de octubre9, se dispersa la Compaa, en tanto Manuel Montoro y
Guillermo Barclay realizan Festivales de Teatro Universitario, asesorando a
los estudiantes en las tareas de direccin, actuacin y produccin.

La ltima fase del periodo se debe a Guillermo Garza Balandrano. A su

llegada de Londres donde estudi teatro, reuni a actores y bailarines en un

9 Brutal represin del movimiento estudiantil y masacre de Tlaltelolco.

26
taller del cual salieron puestas con autores y temas tratados en la potica de
la transgresin y la dramaturgia escnica: de Stphan Mallarm Igitur o la
locura Elbehnon y de William Blake El matrimonio del cielo y del infierno.
La obra de mayor impacto fue Persecucin y asesinato de Marat de Peter
Weiss. El trabajo intenso y al borde de la locura atrajo a los jvenes, pero dej
escptico al pblico convencional, particularmente la violencia de la ltima
puesta. Al final de este periodo se estrena La virgen loca, obra unipersonal
escrita y actuada por Hosm Israel, la primera produccin travesti y la nica
con ms 1000 representaciones y con el mismo actor a lo largo de 40 aos
(estreno 1974).

La virgen Loca (1974) Texto y actuacin: Hosm Israel; direccin: Enrique Pineda. Foto Jorge Castillo.

Magno proyecto (1975-1985)

El rectorado del Dr. Roberto Bravo Garzn (1973-1981) hace realidad un

gran proyecto de artes. La Universidad tom el mecenazgo de la Orquesta
Sinfnica de Xalapa (la ms antigua del pas), dio impulso a varios grupos
de msica, danza folklrica y contempornea, teatro, marionetas y atelier
de artistas plsticos. Se crearon institutos de investigacin y creacin y
facultades de artes. La Compaa se renov integrando actores reconocidos,
otorgndoles a todos estatus laboral de personal acadmico. La adquisicin
del Teatro Miln en la Ciudad de Mxico, permiti mantener la visibilidad de
la Compaa.

27
Con Ral Zermeo al frente repatriado de Polonia la Compaa enfoc
la dramaturgia nacional: Luisa Josefina Hernndez (Pavana de Arnzazu),
scar Villegas (Atlntida), Sergio Magaa (Los signos del zodiaco),
Jorge Ibargengoitia (El viaje superficial). Sin embargo, es el repertorio
internacional, comenzando con Las brujas de Salem de Arthur Miller, y que
se sum a las crticas del nacionalismo cerrado, lo que marc una serie de
xitos. La vocacin cosmopolita confirman Samuel Beckett (La ltima cinta
de Krapp), Sawomir Mroek (La fiesta, y En alta mar), Vladmir Horowitz
(Ratas), Arthur Kopit (Interrogatorio de Nick), Arnold Wesker (Sopa de
pollo con cebada), Witold Gombrowicz (Ivonne, princesa de Borgoa) y la
multi premiada, En los bajos fondos de Mximo Gorki, mexicanizada en la
direccin de Julio Castillo, A la cacata verde de Arthur Schnitzler, Rashomon
de Ryunosuke Akutagaua, y una obra argentina, Juguemos en el bosque (1976)
de Osvaldo Dragn, dirigida por el autor. Este repertorio y los premios de las
producciones situaron a la Compaa en la categora de teatro de arte, lo que
en Mxico se entiende por nacional y universitario.

La crisis econmica imperante en la dcada disminuy la frecuencia de estrenos.

Se observa un cambio en las poticas dominantes que tienden a lo grotesco y
anuncian la cada de las ideologas y de los cnones. Como ejemplo, Corazn
diario de un canalla de Alexandre Ostrovski o El retablo del gran relajo de Hugo
Argelles. El baile de los montaeses de Vctor Hugo Rascn Banda abrir una
nueva forma de colaboracin entre este dramaturgo y la Compaa. El tono
conservador se aprecia en Othelo y una vez ms Felicidad de Emilio Carballido.

En los bajos fondos (1979), direccin Julio Castillo. Foto: Archivio CECDA-UV.

28
La reorganizacin ocurrida en 1984 redujo las tres compaas, a saber, la
Titular, Foro Teatral Veracruzano e Infantera Teatral, a una sola bajo el
nombre de Organizacin Teatral de la Universidad Veracruzana (ORTEUV)10.
Desaparecieron los institutos y se sumaron producciones externas. La
Compaa diluy su proyecto, entre las pocas producciones se encuentran
Sfocles (Electra), Moliere (Don Juan), Federico Garca Lorca (La casa de
Bernarda Alba), Jordi Teixidor (Ratas otra vez?) y un espectculo con la
Orquesta de Msica Popular. El parteaguas fue Mscara vs. cabellera (1985),
obra que mitifica la cultura popular de la lucha libre, escrita por Vctor Hugo
Rascn Banda para la Compaa. La escritura en escena, modalidad de trabajo
creador en una relacin dinmica entre autor, director (E. Pineda) y actores11,
pareci reinventar el proyecto de la Compaa generando su nueva identidad,
ms cercana al teatro de grupo que a un teatro institucional.

Mscara vs. cabellera (1985), direccin Enrique Pineda. Foto Roberto Jimnez.

Poltica neoliberal y su contradiscurso 1986-1992

La crisis econmica produjo malestar y retroceso en todos los aspectos

de la vida pblica y privada. Hasta mediados de la dcada la Compaa
lograba mitigarlo gracias a la estructura del magno proyecto, pero una
vez desmantelada sta, se hicieron sentir las carencias y el vaco de nuevos

10 He omitido las posiciones del repertorio del Foro Teatral Veracruzano, dirigido por Ral Zermeo
y orientado a experimentacin y de la Infantera Teatral, grupo dirigido por Enrique Pineda con perfil de
dramaturgia mexicana. Ambos grupos con programa definido funcionaron entre 1980-1984.
11 Elka Fediuk, (2005) Procesos de creacin: Mscara vs. Cabellera desde la cocina en: Bixler, Jacqueline
E. y Stuart A. Day (Comp.) El teatro de Rascn Banda: voces en el umbral, Col. Escenologa, Mxico.

29
estrenos paliado en parte por la participacin en los Festivales. En 1987
coinciden dos posiciones de literatura polaca: la adaptacin de la novela de
Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Madre Juana de los ngeles12 (Trad. M. Muoz; Dir. E.
Pineda) y Con mi propia vida de Helmut Kajzar (Titulo original Gwiazda La
estrella, Trad. y Dir. E. Fediuk).

La entrada de polticas neoliberales y el ambiente de superacin de la crisis

reavivaron la agenda nacional con los llamados por un teatro mexicano y,
por una escuela mexicana de actuacin que lanz un grupo de teatristas
(Luis de Tavira, Julio Castillo, Hctor Mendoza). El repertorio de la Compaa
se reorient hacia autores nacionales, contemporneos y temas prximos. La
obra de Sabina Berman sobre el asesinato de Trotski, Rompecabezas (dir. A.
Oceransky), Rascn Banda con Cierren las puertas (dir. E. Pineda), obra que
evoca la tragedia de Electra, ambientada en las peleas de gallos y el juego de
la Lotera, jugando a la tragicomedia. Los gallos salvajes de Hugo Argelles
(dir. M. Chzaro) transporta la tragedia de Orestes al contexto de Mxico
moderno. La apropiacin de los mitos, desde Mscara vs. cabellera, serva de
lente para evidenciar las tragedias contemporneas y pareca dar un sello al
grupo.

Los festejos o antifestejos de los 500 aos del descubrimiento de Amrica

o conquista del Nuevo Mundo, tornaron las poticas de actores y tteres al
tono grotesco y estructuras de la deconstruccin. Desde Cristobalito Coln de
Agustn Chvez dedicada para nios, luego Tragicomedia de don Cristbal y la
seo Rosita (Los tteres de cachiporra de Garca Lorca), una comedia histrica
de Carballido El lbum de Maria Ignacia y una obra satrica, La teleconquista
de Mexicou, de C. J. Islas, el repertorio prioriz la comedia, la stira y la crtica
de la historia. Se suman el humor custico de Agua clara de T. Urtusstegui y
una excepcin en la dramaturgia de Sabina Berman, la stira a las telenovelas,
El pecado de tu madre (1992, Dir. E. Fediuk).

El empoderamiento de la sociedad civil pareca borrar de un tajo las fronteras

y las limitaciones. Al firmar Mxico el Tratado de Libre Comercio, el
repertorio, sin abandonar el proyecto nacionalista, estableci una alternativa a
la aldea global13. Destilando crtica aguda, revivi el cabaret poltico, aadi
el humor light y el sarcasmo de una mirada posmoderna deconstruyendo las
frmulas sociales y polticas.

12 Basada en el guion de la pelcula de Jerzy Kawalerowicz (1961).

13 Concepto acuado por Marshall McLuhan.

30
La fiebre de la globalizacin 1993-2000

Mxico se acomoda en la nueva realidad, decreta la obligatoriedad de la

educacin secundaria e ingls en las escuelas, construye un monumental
Centro Nacional de las Artes, cambia el perfil del Festival Cervantino hacia
una imagen comercial, moderniza la educacin superior y crea un nuevo
organismo en materia de las artes, CONACULTA con becas y fondos de
coproduccin.

La Compaa traza planes de desarrollo y restablece el ritmo de sus

producciones con directores invitados, nacionales e internacionales. La
internacionalizacin incluye puestas de gran formato, pero muestra el apego
a lo clsico: Nuestro pueblo de Thornton Wilder (dir. M. Montoro 1993),
Caballo de Len Tolstoi (dir. M. de la Cruz-1995), Kasimir y Karoline de
dn von Horvth (Dir. B. Sacki, 1997), La gaviota de Antn Chejov (Dir.
M. Pankova-1999).

La dramaturgia mexicana es representada por autores consagrados y puestas

exuberantes: Veracruz, Veracruz de Vctor Hugo Rascn Banda (dir. E. Pineda
-1994), donde la dcima baila al son y se consuma una tragedia amorosa al
estilo de Carmen; de Emilio Carballido, La caprichosa vida (1995, dir. R.
Bentez) y Las cartas de Mozart (1998, dir. E. Lazariev -coprod. Conaculta),
ambas en el tono ligero de comedia y nostalgia; El tesoro perdido de Jorge
Ibargengoitia (1998, dir. S. Mndez); y Un hogar slido (2000) de Elena
Garro, que en la direccin de Ludwik Margules hizo que la pesada eternidad
de los muertos abarcara a actores y espectadores en un espacio blanco,
elevando el toque simbolista y colocando la reflexin filosfica como un
contrapunto a la euforia tecnolgica.

La generacin ms joven introduce temas incmodos. Pastel de zarzamora

de Jess Gonzlez Dvila (dir. C. Michaus-2000) presenta una familia
disfuncional y violenta. Por primera vez nos inquieta la desaparicin de
una hija (ser una de las muertas de Jurez o es por rebelde?), despliega
los silencios y el miedo que acompaan el tab de la homosexualidad
de un hijo. Otro ejemplo de la dramaturgia del norte, La Esperanza de
Cutberto Lpez (dir. F. Beverido-1998) es la negacin de su ttulo: en un
barco varado se consuman los destinos de personajes sin futuro.

Al pblico infantil se ofrece Pluff el fantasmita de Mara Clara Machado,

actriz y escritora brasilea (dir. M. Montoro-1993) y se introduce la
novsima dramaturgia espaola, La construccin de la catedral del ganador
del Premio Tramoya14 2000, Luis Arajo (dir. R. Obregn-2000).

14 Revista de teatro de la Universidad Veracruzana, fundada por E. Carballido en 1975.

31
A lo largo de su trayectoria la Compaa acoga proyectos personales de
los actores. En este periodo se acrecienta el fenmeno autogenerativo;
las obras sin autor exponen slo el ttulo, la direccin y el reparto, los
actores an no se reconocen autores de espectculos. En general se trata
de ejercicios que alcanzaron una expresividad escnica suficiente para ser
confrontada al pblico. As sucedi con Gnero femenino/No soy feminista,
y que! (dir. Y Gallardo-1993), Cada quien su Minotauro, basado en textos
de Marguerite Yourcenar y Julio Cortzar (dir. J. Rodrguez-2000) o las
adaptaciones libres: El cmico proceso de Jos K, (Proceso de Franz Kafka
adaptado por Hctor Ortega y dir. M. Zapata-1996).

El tono de comedia, dominante previamente, se diluye en el advenimiento

del miedo. Los temas relacionados con el gnero se insertan tmidamente,
an se sobrepone el inters esttico. En esta etapa claramente compiten
espectculos de corte textocentrista y escenocentrista15, los primeros
siguen los procesos deductivos y los segundos nacen de procesos escnicos
inductivos y no siempre conservan las huellas textuales. En esta etapa
la Compaa muestra intenciones de convertirse en una empresa, pero
tambin busca alternativas que enganchen el dilogo con el entorno.

Inclinacin a lo clsico y apuesta posmoderna (2001-2013)

Las poticas de ruptura fueron cambiando las prcticas y la recepcin

teatral. La presencia de obras de la clsica nacional y universal renuevan
la misin educativa, pero las puestas en escena esgrimen recursos
actualizados, interpretaciones desempolvadas e incluso variantes que
rebasan la propuesta del autor. As lo muestra El que dijo s y el que dijo no
(2003), como anuncia el cartel versin librrima de Abraham Oceransky
a partir de un texto de Bertolt Brecht. La reescritura, el diseo de espacio
y vestuario y la direccin estn en las mismas manos y apuntan hacia un
creador total o integral, tendencia iniciada en los aos sesenta.

De manera ms convencional, aunque con recursos de espectacularidad,

se present Sueo de una noche de verano de Shakespeare (dir. A. Lomnitz
2005). Las puestas mayores, Rinoceronte de Eugene Ionesco (dir. A.
Lomnitz y B. Schoeman 2006) y La visita de la vieja dama de Friedrich
Drrenmatt (dir. A. Lomnitz 2007) obedecen la agenda de homenajes y
de nostalgia. Ambas contaron con invitados de prestigio: escenografa,
iluminacin y vestuario (Gabriel Pascal, Pilar Boliver, Edyta Rzewuska,
Vctor Zapatero), coreografa (Marcela Aguilar), musicalizacin (Marc
Burbail, Joaqun Lpez Chas), aspirando colocarse de nuevo en la rbita

15 Patrice Pavis, (2000) El anlisis de los espectculos, Paids, Barcelona.

32
de un teatro empresa.

Al tono nostlgico se suma Rosalba y los Llaveros (2008), comedia

juvenil de Emilio Carballido en la cual enfrenta el modelo progresista
simbolizado en una joven venida de la capital con una mentalidad
provinciana. Aquel progreso, hoy aplastante, no coincidi con el sentir
de los espectadores volcados al mundo globalizado. Por el contrario,
El atentado (2008, dir. E. Singer), adaptacin de la famosa novela de
Jorge Ibargengoitia, remueve los pasajes oscuros de la guerra de los
Cristeros en una disposicin escnica que mantiene vigente el tema de la
manipulacin poltica en la aplicacin de la justicia.

Seguido de estas primeras apuestas, se da un giro brusco con la integracin

de un dramaturgo residente, Luis Enrique Gutirrez Ortiz Monasterio,
mejor conocido como LEGOM. Su potica impone lo que conocemos
por narraturgia16, siguiendo la construccin del hecho escnico en forma
que desdibuja los personajes y prioriza el discurso literario. El texto es el
principal material, texto sin historia o historia fragmentada enviada de
modo directo al espectador. La palabra vuelve a ocupar el primer plano en
las obras de LEGOM: Civilizacin (2007), Odio a los putos mexicanos (2007)
Lampart, o de cmo colarse a la historia (2009) y El origen de las especies.
De cmo este animal sali de las cavernas, trep hasta las estrellas y luego se
extingui (2012). La palabra inteligente, de tono sarcstico y al tocar temas
actuales devela lo perverso en las relaciones polticas y humanas.

La vocacin de la dramaturgia cuyas metforas remueven los subsuelos

de lo que hoy nos corroe, motiva o inquieta, ha puesto en el repertorio
de la Compaa obras de autores jvenes que estrenan aqu su reciente
produccin, como es el ejemplo de Alejandro Ricao con Idiotas
contemplando la nieve (2010, dir. A. Lomnitz) o En medio del mar salado
de Conchi Len, actriz y dramaturga yucateca, cuyo boom despeg con
Mestiza power (2005). En esta categora est tambin Usted est aqu de
Brbara Colio, (dir. A. Rogel 2011), poniendo el dedo en la llaga cuando
el secuestro en Mxico lleg a estadsticas alarmantes.

Un breve espacio para el repertorio infantil y juvenil incluy Bichos de

viaje de Perla Schumacher (2006, dir. E. Soberanis) y Un campo de Louise
Bombardier (2008, B. Schoeman). Las autoras, actrices y pedagogas, una
argentina y otra quebequense invitan a un viaje conmovedor y divertido
por la defensa del medio ambiente, la amistad y la proteccin de los ms
vulnerables.

16 Ver: Jos Sanchis Sinisterra, (2012) Narraturgia. Dramaturgia de textos narrativos, Mxico, Paso de Gato.

33
La nica obra estrenada en 2013 para festejar los 60 aos de la Compaa
fue Bisbol, escrita y dirigida por David Gaitn. Como es frecuente
en la escritura en escena, los ensayos comienzan con ejercicios de
tipo teraputico al interior del grupo. El tema de Bisbol es de corte
autorreferencial, expone el deterioro fsico y humano de los actores y
actrices de la Compaa, pero est puesto en una estructura de juego de
la tmbola o ruleta rusa, mediante la cual se indican temas o acciones, a
veces de modo drsticos, enfrentando a los actores entre s. Por ejemplo,
un actor debe desenmascarar a su compaero usando todo lo que
sabe de l y lo que (supongo) ha escuchado en confesiones privadas. Es
agresivo y humillante escuchar lo que otros murmuran, pero el actor debe
resistir desprovisto del escudo de personaje, porque se trata de la puesta
en escena de lo real17. Los actores cuyo origen y arte era ponerse en
los zapatos del otro exponen a su persona, su deterioro, falta de talento,
mediocridad, lo que arranca risas en el pblico ajeno, pero no en quienes
compartimos la condicin de actor y el escarnio de estar en la picota. Es all
donde veo una gran diferencia entre grupo y compaa institucional: en
el primer caso la participacin en el proyecto es libre, por muy arriesgado
que sea, mientras que una compaa institucional no exime de la coercin
a los actores con sueldo. Lo interesante es que justamente esta obra result
ser gran xito de la Compaa en los festivales y giras, y signific una
gratificacin importante para el ego de los actores.

Para finalizar, un breve comentario sobre Psicoembutidos (2014) de Richard

Viqueira, experimento conceptual-escnico o como l mismo lo llama,
carnicera escnica. La idea de Viqueira es enriquecida con aportaciones
de actores y de Luis Mario Moncada, dramaturgo y ahora director artstico
de la Compaa. La dramaturgia cronometrada se desarrolla en plataformas
individuales, ocupadas por 19 actores y actrices, conectadas por estrecha
escalera de caracol para subir a la plataforma ms alta y de all ir bajando
por los tubos tipo tobogn que conectan las de ms abajo. La estructura
fsica y dramtica conduce al espectador desde un afuera, acercndose de
silla en silla para ser succionado, empujado, masticado, engullido, tragado,
absorbido y expulsado como desecho. Una vez adentro ya no hay retorno,
cada espectador es dominado y enviado a la siguiente estacin, desde Mam
cuando Longaniza, visitando Mortadela joven, Salchicha y Chistorra joven,
la Ginecloga Butifarra, el galn conquistador Mondongo, Mam cuando
Moronga, Zungerwurst plaidero, Gur Albndiga, Salchicha madura, Dr.
Peperoni, Mam cuando carne molida, Cardenal Salami, Mr. Mortadela viejo
y Blanquet, recorrido en que el espectador se convierte en la contraparte
de la historia; es seducido, involucrado, interpelado, tomado por testigo,
por enviado, por amenaza, por salvacin, por intruso o por inexistente.

17 Jos A. Snchez, (2012) Prcticas de lo real en la escena contempornea, Paso de Gato, Mxico.

34
Bisbol (2013), direccin David Gaitn. Foto Luis Antonio Marn.

El recorrido por las plataformas y la historia fragmentada que tejen sus

ocupantes multiplica cada escena por los 40 espectadores que entran uno por
uno en intervalo de una escena. Aunque existe una estructura prediseada la
inclusin personalizada del espectador altera los detalles. El tiempo de cada
episodio en repeticin es igual para todos y cada cierto tiempo se incluyen
rutinas fsicas que unifican la accin corporal (gestos, palmada, saltos, pasos,
etc.) en todas las plataformas. Los actores/embutidos estn totalmente
desnudos, a veces algn accesorio permite reconocer los lazos filiales de
la historia cuya nica progresin es el deterioro en el tiempo, carcter del
embutido y el proceso digestivo, como si toda la historia fuera siempre igual.
Los participantes nos convertimos en una carne ms al compartir el sudor, la
vehemencia y el trazo de un destino irreversible.

La reflexin existencial sobre los procesos bio-carnales combina un medieval

recorrido por las estaciones desde la juventud y procreacin de la inocente
Longaniza, por todas las edades de otros embutidos y la reaparicin de los
personajes que ya habamos conocido en otra etapa de su vida/historia.
Nuevamente en la cima nos encontramos con Blanquet, el embutido blanco,
una anciana dulce que nos enva por un largo y sinuoso tubo de la digestin
para expulsados por el ano caer frente al esqueleto sarcstico, sentado con
la pierna cruzada en la silla y la mesa de todas las estaciones. De los elementos
de mayor repeticin es el plato, vaso y cubiertos, objetos fsicos y auditivos,
relacionados con la existencia de los embutidos y de la nuestra, salpimentada
de presuncin, congoja, frenes, depresin y resignacin.

35
Estos ejemplos muestran la recomposicin del proyecto hacia una
experimentacin esttica que a diferencia de la transgresin dirigida
al espectador ahora enfrenta a la propia Compaa, actor/actriz, como
cuerpo-materia del acto performativo desprovisto de personaje y del piso
firme de la representacin.

Conclusiones

La revisin del repertorio en los 60 aos de la Compaa fue guiada por

una periodizacin acorde a un proyecto de cultura. En sus inicios se
despliega el proyecto nacional nico (Bonfil-Batalla), pero la doctrina
esttica del realismo psicolgico inclin el repertorio hacia la dramaturgia
rusa y norteamericana. Durante las siguientes etapas vemos en la poltica
de reparticin de cultura un intento de equilibrio entre la dramaturgia
universal y nacional, dominando esta ltima en varios periodos. La vocacin
de experimento no logra cuajar un proyecto de teatro universitario, la
Compaa se mueve entre gustos personales de sus directores y la coyuntura
y ambicin de ser una empresa. Al posicionarse el proyecto pluricultural se
fortalecen la escritura en escena, los temas cercanos y el reconocimiento de
lo local.

A lo largo de 60 aos encontramos escasamente autores de la antigedad y

clsicos europeos y ninguna presencia de dramaturgos del siglo de oro, una
fuente importante de la referencia lingstica. Tampoco hubo puestas, a
excepcin de Osvaldo Dragn, de la dramaturgia latinoamericana. Este breve
anlisis pretende invitar a la Compaa de la UV al anlisis de su repertorio
histrico, para comprender su papel histrico y actual dentro del campo
teatral y el universitario, ahora que traza nuevos proyectos.

36
Bibliografa

Aracil Varn, Beatriz.Moctezuma II: ausencia y presencia en el teatro mexicano.

Amrica sin Nombre, no. 9-10(Noviembre2007): 12-20.

Banu, Georges. Los lderes efectivos y las comunidades artsticas Investigacin

Teatral Segunda poca. Vol. 3/No. 5 (2013/2014): 99-109.

Beverido Duhalt, Francisco. Medio siglo de teatro. Xalapa: Ciudad teatral 1950-2000.
Tomos 1-8. (CD), Xalapa: Candileja A.C., 2000.

Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo. Pensar nuestra cultura. Mxico: Ensayos, Alianza. 1991.

Fediuk, Elka. Las artes en la Universidad Veracruzana y las polticas culturales La

Palabra y el Hombre. Nueva poca, no. 1 (2007): 48-54.

------. Procesos de creacin: Mscara vs. Cabelleradesde la cocina en: Bixler,

Jacqueline E. y Stuart A. Day (Comp.)El teatro de Rascn Banda: voces en el
umbral. Col. Escenologa, Mxico. (2005).

------. Proyecto posideolgico y teatro de grupo en Latinoamrica,Teln de fondo.

no. 17/2013 (2013): 41-55.

------. El teatro de la Universidad Veracruzana en: El Teatro Mexicano visto

desde Europa. Editado por MARGES, Collection Etudes, Presses Universitaires
de Perpignan, 225-237, 1994.

Pavis, Patrice. El anlisis de los espectculos. Barcelona: Paids, 2000.

Paz, Octavio. El laberinto de la soledad. Mxico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1999.

Snchez, Jos A. Prcticas de lo real en la escena contempornea. Mxico:Paso de

Gato, 2012.

Sanchis Sinisterra, Jos. Narraturgia. Dramaturgia de textos narrativos. Mxico: Paso

de Gato, 2012.

Serrano, Alejandra. Compaa Titular de Teatro de la UV. Testimonios de 60 aos.

Direccin Editorial de la Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa. 2013.

37
 University Theater: repertory, culture, tradition and
history represent, in our experience, an encounter
with the distinctive practices of each study center.
Universities in Mxico have written their own story,
so the development of artistic expressions created
within them testifies to the relationships among
history, tradition, idiosyncrasy, socio-political
developments and their geographical location in
Mxico. This study proposes ascenic metaphor that
reflects the University Theater trajectory in three
areas: its makers, the repertoire, and the public, and
in this line it emphasizes the events that demonstrate
the significance of University Theater in culture and
theater tradition in Puebla. Emblematic expression
of art being translated into institutional proposals
has created its own academic structures, spaces of

diffusion, impact area and captive audience.

38
La diferencia de representar: Teatro Universitario en
Puebla, Mxico
Isabel Cristina Flores

Teatro Universitario, creado por la Universidad Autnoma de Puebla1,

implica repertorio, cultura, tradicin e historia. En nuestra experiencia
representa un encuentro con las prcticas distintivas de cada centro de
estudios. El teatro en el seno de las universidades en Mxico, ha escrito una
historia singular, por tanto el desarrollo de las expresiones artsticas surgidas
en el interior de las mismas, dan testimonio de la relacin entre historia,
tradicin, hacedores, idiosincrasia, acontecimientos socio-polticos, adems
de su ubicacin geogrfica en el mapa teatral de Mxico. Este estudio propone
una reflexin, sobre la trayectoria del Teatro Universitario en Puebla, en tres
tiempos, donde concurren en una metfora escnica, hacedores, repertorio,
pblico, tiempo de los sucesos, dando muestra de la incidencia del Teatro
Universitario en la tradicin teatral en Puebla. Expresin emblemtica de arte
en Puebla, que al ser traducida en propuestas institucionales, ha generado sus
propias estructuras acadmicas, espacios de difusin, mbito de repercusin
y pblico cautivo.

Ecos de la Historia

La historia del teatro en Puebla cuenta con tantas gestas para no olvidar y
sucesos para anotar con letras maysculas. Este recordatorio sugiere decir
en voz alta y reconocer que gracias al trabajo ferviente y tenaz de muchas
personas, hombres y mujeres distinguidos por su hacer, podemos hablar hoy
en da de un teatro universitario.

Corra el ao de 1967 y se comentaba en El Da, lo siguiente:

Ese teatro universitario del que es alma, corazn, msculos y huesos Ignacio
Ibarra, parece vivir una vida subrepticia, de la que nadie se entera. En una
palabra, es un puro esfuerzo dramtico, un puro acarreo de cubetas de agua
salada, que van a ser echados al mar. Uno dira que esto es doloroso e intil;
pero Ignacio Ibarra considera que es molesto y esforzado pero til a su
tiempo2.

1 A partir de aqu se usaran sus siglas BUAP.

2 Fausto Castillo, El Da, Mxico D.F. agosto 1967.

39
Desde aquellas dcadas y hasta la fecha, este espacio ha constituido un
punto de referencia de las expresiones artsticas. En su seno vio la luz, un
movimiento artstico que, traducido en cifras, representa ms del 80% de la
actividad teatral en Puebla. Grupos, espacios, directores, actores, eventos,
colman la cartelera teatral en la entidad y lo colocan como una de las fuentes
ms importantes de cultura en la regin3.

Pasado y presente que nos involucra y nos atae as, nuestro Teatro
Universitario, motiva y enciende pasiones por comentarlo, escribirlo,
documentarlo y atestiguarlo. Los significantes en su trayecto hay que
desentraarlos todava de los pocos registros y escasas memorias, armar el
rompecabezas de una desconectada y muchas veces interrumpida tradicin,
da la idea de las dificultades que enfrenta la investigacin teatral en el pas.
En esta pesquisa, nos proponemos a revisar un solo eje del repertorio en que
encontramos una suerte de coincidencia. Es un tema que sin un propsito
deliberado, ni afn de acuerdo, ha identificado al teatro universitario de manera
recurrente en tres momentos, 1957, 1995, 2002. Hechos que nos brindaron
la oportunidad de conocer el repertorio, los temas, el desarrollo del arte del
actor y director, la audiencia, las transformaciones y giros del movimiento
teatral poblano en los ltimos 68 aos. Ocurre que la tan comentada herona
de Sfocles, Antgona, tambin se ha colado con la determinacin de burlar
las leyes y edictos del poder en nuestra historia, solo que en la versin de Jean
Anouilh. Muy francs el autor dirn! Pero las puestas en escena la hacen
nuestra.

Primer teatro universitario 1948-1972

Indagar en la memoria de los hechos, es recordar, as, entre los datos notables
del teatro universitario en Puebla. Encontramos, que la sala para 110
espectadores, ubicada en la Av. Ayuntamiento # 407, (hoy Juan de Palafox y
Mendoza # 407), abre sus puertas un 7 de Diciembre de 1957, con la puesta
en escena de Antgona de J. Anouilh, bajo la direccin del Mtro. Ignacio
Ibarra Mazari. La nueva propuesta, llam la atencin de los interesados en
el teatro, no porque se abarrotara la pequea salita quiz muchas personas
en Puebla ni se enteraron de su existencia , sino porque las obras que ah
se presentaban esas extraas semillas cadas en el desierto un da dieron la
sorpresa4.

Al revisar los archivos encontramos testimonios de una actividad teatral

3http://eduardopicazo.blogspot.mx/2005_10_01_archive.html.
http://sintesis.mx/articulos/83621/inicia-foro-internacional-de-teatro-universitario-x-/puebla.
http://www.capitalpuebla.com.mx/cultura/inicia-el-xi-foro-internacional-de-teatro-universitario.
4 Teatro Universitario de Puebla veinticinco aos de trabajo permanente, 1948/1971, Puebla: 1972.

40
relevante desde 1948: El Dr. Arturo Alonso Hidalgo e Ignacio Ibarra Mazari
dos ex-universitarios , inventan el Teatro Universitario en Puebla en el
Cine Teatro Guerrero, el 13 de noviembre se presenta Topacio de M. Pagnol.
La produccin marca en la ciudad un nuevo concepto de la manera de hacer
teatro5. Durante estos aos, el grupo, no contaba con espacio propio, motivo
por el cual presentan sus obras en teatros de la ciudad, Teatro Principal, Teatro
Estudio Odiseo, Saln Barroco, Cine Guerrero. El grupo lleva a escena obras
del repertorio universal, imparten cursos, mantienen temporadas, asisten a
festivales en la Ciudad de Mxico, Veracruz, Nuevo Len.

El Mtro. Ibarra escribe una de las pginas ms notables del teatro poblano:

la intencin profesional es la de formar actores, transmitirles el amor por el

teatro, ese amor que se siente con el alma, con los msculos, con los huesos;
y no solo transmitirlo a los actores, sino al pblico tambin. Cada personaje
que sale al escenario hace sentir al pblico, porque se debe cumplir con
ese compromiso emocional de trascender, de dar lo mejor y lo bueno para
habituarlo a ser exigente6. (palabras de ngeles Pedraza vda. de Ibarra).

Pleno de ilusiones y esperanzas, tratando de cumplir con la faena de su

vida7, estrena obras cada mes, incluyendo estrenos mundiales, experimentos
en Foro Isabelino, Teatro Circular, Escenario Desnudo, etc. Esta etapa es
prolfica en repertorio y triunfos a nivel nacional, Ignacio Ibarra, trabaja
con tesn, su obra describe una lnea de teatro experimental, novedosa en el
teatro mexicano. Incursionan en la escena universitaria grandes dramaturgos:
Benavente, Shaw, Drrenmatt, Albee, Pinter, Williams, Kauffman, Chjov,
Fry, Beckett, Giovaninnetti, Pirandello, Novo, Villaurrutia, Arreola, Usigli,
Anouilh, Arrabal y otros8.

El teatro hace ruido, atrae la atencin de las autoridades, en 1953, el Rector

de la Universidad Autnoma de Puebla, Dr. Gonzalo Bautista OFarril,
propone a H. Consejo Universitario la creacin del Teatro Universitario,
el nombramiento de Ignacio Ibarra como director y maestro del mismo9.
Asigna el espacio que ocupaba la antigua Biblioteca B. Franklin para la
construccin del Teatro Universitario (edificio). El grupo decide colaborar
con el importe de los premios obtenidos con la obra La hora de todos de Juan
Jos Arreola, que ascenda a $12.228.00 m/n, para la readaptacin del espacio,
con el fin de convertirlo en el Saln de Espectculos del Teatro Universitario.

5Ibd.
6 38 aos de quehacer escnico del Teatro Universitario de la BUAP, La Opinin Universitaria. 22
Enero,1996.
7 Teatro Universitario de Puebla veinticinco aos de trabajo permanente, 1948/1971, Puebla: 1972.
8Ibd.
9Ibd.

41
En la ciudad de Mxico toman fuerza los grandes movimientos teatrales del
siglo XX: Los contemporneos, Teatro Ulises, Teatro de Orientacin, Poesa
en Voz Alta. Se fundan el Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, el Departamento
de Teatro, la Escuela de Arte Teatral del INBA y arrancan los festivales
y los cursos de teatro en la Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico.
Villaurrutia, Novo, Usigli, Gorostiza, sientan las bases para un Nuevo Teatro,
ellos proponen una renovacin del arte interpretativo y la direccin escnica
en bsqueda de expresiones del teatro mexicano. En paralelo, Ignacio
Ibarra en Puebla, traduce, dirige, produce obras, avanzan los trabajos de
readecuacin del espacio. La sala result ser la ms clida y con mejor acstica
construida en Puebla, equipada con escenario circular y foso. En 1972 por
incomprensibles razones, ajenas al teatro, la administracin universitaria, en
turno, cierra el espacio y separan al Mtro. Ibarra de su teatro.

Invitada por ngeles Pedraza, escudri en los archivos del maestro, en

ellos pude apreciar su gran amor por el teatro, sus talentos, los diseos de
escenografa y vestuario, la memoria fotogrfica, su biblioteca, ah, ante su
obra, me sorprendi la dimensin de un artista completo. Durante 25 aos
mantuvo un trabajo propositivo digno de elogios, este periodo es reconocido
con su nombre.

Movimientos Populares en el Teatro Universitario 1972-1979

Al cierre del espacio en 1972, le suceden tiempos difciles, de agitacin

poltica posteriores a los Movimientos del 68 en Mxico. En referencia a este
periodo, no encontramos acervo teatral concreto, solamente un panorama
difuso, por referencias de contemporneos, podemos anotar la existencia de
grupos estudiantiles y la actividad de talleres en el Edificio Carolino, huella
de los Movimientos Populares o Teatro del Pueblo en la pequea salita. En
algn momento, la sala se convierte en bodega, en este estado la encontr un
grupo de actores y bailarines, quines tomaron la tarea de lijar la duela de la
escena circular y renovar el teatrito a finales de los 70s.

Talleres de Teatro 1979-1997

Con el paso de los aos, otros tomaron la estafeta y continuaron reinventando el

teatro de cada da en Puebla. De 1979 al 89, en su reapertura ocupan este espacio,
el grupo Macehualtin, el grupo de Danza Contempornea y posteriormente el
Grupo Taller de Teatro. Ofertan talleres, montan obras, realizan temporadas,
se anota una importante presencia local y nacional del teatro universitario.
En 1989, el espacio es cerrado por remodelacin. Destacan como hacedores
del teatro universitario en este periodo: Tomas Amaya, Marko Castillo, Vctor
Puebla, Patricia Lezama, Jorge Sago, Carlos Gama.

42
El 30 de abril de 1990, se reinaugura el edificio teatral, con el nombre de
Teatro Universitario Ignacio Ibarra Mazari. Reabre sus puertas con un
nuevo lema, organizar y apoyar la actividad teatral, poner las instalaciones
al servicio de todos los teatristas y grupos universitarios en igualdad de
condiciones. Ese mismo ao se crea el Consejo de Teatristas Universitarios,
iniciativa que haba nacido, en 1987, en las mesas de trabajo organizadas
por Difusin Cultural, denominadas, Problemtica y Perspectivas del
Teatro Universitario. En 1991, se integra el Elenco Experimental de la
BUAP, grupo representativo de los hacedores del teatro universitario. En
1997, por designacin institucional el teatro se cierra, reinaugurndose, el
11 de agosto del mismo ao, pero el sismo de 1999, daa severamente su
estructura y se clausura. Reabre sus puertas diez aos ms tarde, en 2009,
bajo la administracin de la Escuela de Artes. Cabe destacar la importante
labor por mantener viva la ilusin del Teatro Universitario de Puebla, en
este periodo, de: Lilia Prez Ramrez, Armando Bautista, Alberto Morales,
Jorge Lus Vargas, Alejandro Ferrero, Felipe Galvn, Olivia Zacaras, Emilio
Salceda, Cristina Flores, Oscar Rosas.

Actividades Artsticas

1983-1990
Taller de Danza, presenta: entrenamiento, coreografas e imparten talleres.
Taller de Teatro, obras: Voces en el Umbral, Rascn Banda; Rey Lear,
Shakespeare; Las Preciosas Ridculas, Molire; El Rastro, Elena Garro;
Tarde con Chejov, La casa de Bernarda Alba, Garca Lorca; Las criadas,
Jean Genet, entre otras.

1990-1997

Grupo de FFyL, dirigido por Alberto Morales Ruffo. Obras estudiantiles.

Grupo La Cuchara, dirigido por Alejandro Ferrero y Jorge Luis Vargas.
Presentan obras de A. Ferrero y otros autores.
Grupo Siluetas, dirigido por Lilia Esther Prez Ramrez. Creaciones
poticas.
Grupo Juegos y Sueos, dirigido por Oscar Rosas. Obras experimentales.
Compaa Libre de Teatro, dirigida por Felipe Galvn. Teatro Infantil.
Grupo Creacin Teatral, dirigido por Cristina Flores. Obras: Las Mujeres
Sabias, Molire; El Eterno Femenino, Rosario Castellanos; El Rastro y la
Mudanza, Elena Garro; Antgona, Jean Anouilh, entre otras.

1990-1992

Temporadas de los grupos integrantes del Consejo de Teatristas

Universitarios.
Presentaciones del Elenco Experimental de la BUAP. Obras: Tu voz de

43
 Felipe Galvn, Muestra Regional en Quertaro, Teatro de la Repblica,
Muestra Nacional de Teatro en Aguascalientes, 1991; La Banca de
Alexander Guelman, 1992.

De 1997 a nuestros das

El Teatro Universitario, se erigi como un espacio privilegiado en el corazn

del Centro Histrico de la ciudad, su voz transgredi fronteras, el paso a la
profesionalizacin se hizo posible. Es grato recordar el clido atardecer del 14
de Mayo de 1997, da en que se presentaba el Proyecto de Artes, en sesin
del H. Consejo Universitario de la BUAP. El entonces Director de Extensin
y Difusin de la Cultura, Dr. Roberto Hernndez Oramas, comentaba en el
estrado:

Mientras nosotros estamos aqu discutiendo, si es prioridad o no para la

institucin, la apertura de las Licenciaturas en Artes, el Teatrito Universitario
est repleto de gente y se ha quedado fuera ms de la mitad de personas, que
no lograron conseguir un lugar, para ver la ltima funcin de la temporada de
Antgona, pueden ir a ver si quieren constatarlo10.

El Teatrito, ha sido fiel testigo de los cambios en el hacer teatral

universitario, en l hizo historia Ignacio Ibarra; ah, presentaron sus obras
grupos y personalidades del teatro; ah mismo, tom cuerpo la idea de
profesionalizacin del teatro poblano en 1987; se reunieron los integrantes
del Consejo de Teatristas en 1990; mismo lugar que propici las condiciones
para sustentar el proyecto de creacin de la Escuela de Artes y la Licenciatura
en Arte Dramtico en la BUAP en 1997. Por ello la imperante necesidad de
retomar el estudio que d testimonio de su micro-historia para ubicarlo en el
panorama de bsquedas y la macro-historia del teatro en Mxico.

Significantes del Teatro Universitario en Puebla

La conjuncin de miradas dirigidas a la trayectoria del teatro universitario en

Puebla en los ltimos 68 aos, donde el ngulo de referencia es una metfora
escnica, encontrada en el repertorio teatral de tres tiempos convergentes
con Antgona, nos arroja un muestreo de tiempos teatrales distintos y una
proyeccin en una suerte de ptica para comprender las manifestaciones
del teatro universitario en el periodo estudiado. Antgona, en la versin de
Jean Anouilh, imagen totalizadora que habla de una visin del hacer teatral
en el amplio universo de la relacin universidad-teatro-sociedad. Hecho
que motiv la recoleccin de datos, documentos, testimonios, curiosidades,

10 Dr. Roberto Hernndez Oramas, testimonios.

44
ancdotas, para acercarnos a los tiempos que han marcado la historia del
Teatro Universitario en Puebla.

Los significantes de los tres tiempos se entrecruzan, en primer trmino,

en el alto compromiso de sus hacedores en la gestin, ante las autoridades
universitarias, de recursos y medios para hacer teatro. En segundo lugar, que
cada tiempo renueva la vigencia de la pregunta sobre Teatro Universitario con
relacin a la formacin, repertorio e historia, ubicndolo como el lugar donde
comienza y retorna para inscribirse en la historia contempornea del teatro
en Puebla. En tercer lugar, encontramos un distintivo de semilla generadora
de cultura teatral, conexin con la formacin de cuadros artsticos, vertiente
de apreciacin artstica y formacin de pblicos.

Entre sus faenas se cuenta, proponer a la oferta y demanda de eventos una

opcin culta para ver y apreciar buen teatro, misin enaltecedora que se
contrapone a la invasin televisiva, medios masivos de comunicacin, al
comercio teatral, al facilismo, a la charlatanera, posicin que lo resignifica
en el espacio-tiempo, como una fortaleza de la tradicin de un Teatro de
Arte en Puebla. Lluvia de ideas que al ser traducidas en el teatro de cada
da, han marcado territorio de la escena universitaria al espectador poblano,
determinando posiciones de ver, decir, hacer y apreciar el Teatro.

Entre los referentes estticos encontrados podemos mencionar:

movimiento artstico de vanguardia
extensin de ncleos de cultura teatral
entretejido de tiempos y acontecimientos
temas de actualidad
conexin con su entorno
formacin de cuadros artsticos
parmetros de calidad
revelacin de criterios de apreciacin artstica
repertorio con acento en la dramaturgia nacional
rostro universitario
expresin de la multiculturalidad
formacin de pblicos y pblico cautivo

En esta retrospectiva teatral, donde la decisin de hacer teatro y el propsito

de responder a las interrogantes que aquejan a nuestros contemporneos,
caminan de la mano, proponemos la intervencin de los planos de creacin,
poticas, formacin, prctica teatral, entrelazados en un punto cercano
de referencia con nuestras realidades y vivencias: la resonancia vital del
espectculo en un tiempo y entorno especficos. Condiciones que responden
a un solo interrogante: presente, razn y motivo del teatro.

45
Antgona en Tres Tiempos

Por qu Antgona? George Steiner, en un amplio estudio, denominado,

Antgonas11, refiere la travesa de un mito universal que atraviesa la historia
de occidente, al medir las colosales dimensiones que adquiere el tema en su
paso por casi todas las pocas teatrales, pases, teatros. Con base en estudios
de pensadores como Hegel, Hlderlin, Kierkegaard, coloca en primer plano
la grandeza temtica de la obra y dirime los interrogantes a contestar:

cmo podemos leer ahora Antgona, como podemos vivirla? qu clases

de comprensin son posibles bajo el peso de la herencia hermenutica, de la
suma de anteriores comentarios y de interpretaciones poticas?... nos llevar
a considerar nuevamente la compulsin nica, sin igual, que los mitos y
personajes griegos ejercen en las races de nuestro ser12.

Por qu Antgona y no otra...? la obstinada respuesta a pesar de la distancia

temporal, puede referirse a las fibras intimas de nuestro ser que continan
vibrando con los hroes transgresores, para decir mejor de las verdades
presentes. Esta constante parece ser la justificacin de la irrupcin de
Antgona en la escena poblana. Nuestra historia teatral, esa historia peculiar
mezcla de teatro propio y ajeno, de fiesta y rito, de ofrenda, de abstraccin, de
irona y de verdad, reflejo de una realidad motivante que ata y desata nudos
en pos de un rostro del teatro mexicano. La Puesta en Escena en la Historia
del Teatro Universitario en Puebla, suena extraordinario! expresin viva
de una realidad y las sorprendentes dimensiones del fenmeno teatral en s
mismo.

Primer Tiempo de Antgona

Rostro de Antgona 1957: romntica luchadora. Grupo de Teatro Universitario,

Direccin: Ignacio Ibarra Mazari.

En una escena intimista para 110 espectadores en el recin inaugurado Teatro

Universitario de la UAP13, un 7 de Diciembre de 1957, irrumpe Antgona.
Ignacio Ibarra, emprende la tarea de direccin con un grupo de jvenes
actores, se propone desarrollar la idea del ambiente poltico de la post-guerra
de manera creativa, sobria, limpia, con trajes a la moda del momento, faldas
amplias a medio tobillo y mucha etiqueta. En este contexto, la voz del coro
reson por primera vez en este espacio, interpretado por Jos Luis Ibarra

11 G. Steiner, Antgonas. Gedisa, Barcelona, 1996.

12------, Antgonas, Gedisa, Barcelona, 1996. pp. 233.
13 UAP, Universidad Autnoma de Puebla, siglas anteriores a la denominacin de Autnoma.

46
Mazari14, poseedor de un extraordinario tono grave y distinguido, se muestra
Antgona, femenina, sencilla, defiende con nfasis su ideal de justicia. La
obra logr un xito singular, atrajo la atencin de los amantes del teatro y
del Departamento de Difusin Cultural de la UAP. La ancdota o irona
de la vida, el Mtro. Ibarra, despus de haber presentado Antgona y otras
muchas obras de fuerte contenido social y poltico, es expulsado del teatro
universitario y acusado de hacer teatro burgus.

Antgona de J. Anouilh (1957), Antgona, Carmen Morales; Guardia. Direccin Ignacio Ibarra Mazari.

14 Jos Luis Ibarra Mazari, destacado comunicador y locutor de radio en Puebla.

47
Segundo Tiempo: los entretelones del poder

La original propuesta de Sfocles de una herona mujer, personificada

en Antgona y su desacato a la ley de Creonte, deviene en esta propuesta
en una figura aparentemente frgil de Antgona, que en los momentos de
mayor conflicto, responde con fiera osada al rebasar la prohibicin del Rey.
Este bravo carcter, la lleva junto al cadver insepulto de su hermano para
rendirle honores fnebres, arrancando la tierra con sus propias uas. Accin
fraterna que en la enrarecida atmsfera de guerras fratricidas, intervencin,
traiciones, incertidumbre y calamidades en Tebas, adquiere la magnitud de
rebelin. En esta creacin, el suceso desacato de Antgona, se convierte en
revolucin silenciosa.

Un significativo acto de justicia y fe, ejecutado por una sola persona, saca a
la luz los sucios, desgarrados y endebles entretelones del poder. Acento que
destaca Anouilh, motivacin para la puesta en escena, quedan al desnudo las
discrepancias entre la maquinaria del poder, la frialdad de la ley, el ideal de
justicia y la calidez de lo humano. Duea de una voluntad inquebrantable,
Antgona, cuestiona las decisiones del poder, lo hace tambalear y finalmente
derrumba el Reino de Creonte. La certidumbre en medio del caos, por lo
visto y acontecido en la sala, interesan y conmueven al pblico poblano.

Rostro de Antgona 1995: apasionada guerrera.

Grupo Creacin Teatral, Direccin: Cristina Flores

Los entretelones del poder, los tejes y manejes de las maniobras polticas
se ponen de manifiesto, los hilos del poder que Creonte sostiene desde su
corona, poderosa mano de metal colocada sobre su cabeza, reflejan un tiempo
palpitante de angustia en espera de lo peor. Percepcin sonora de chicharras
y grillos, irona cotidiana de los oscuros favorecidos en cada historia, trados
por el silencio de la noche o el viento. El sonido de la angustia, la percepcin
del miedo, el impacto emocional de los sucesos, visualizacin del coro y el
mensajero de los trgicos acontecimientos al final de la historia.

en este sorprendente fin de siglo y en el marco de la profunda crisis de

poder en que vivimos, de asesinatos polticos (Colosio y Ruiz Massieu) e
incertidumbre social, Creacin Teatral con esta puesta en escena, hace una
propuesta de revisin de los sucesos histricos, para hacer una reflexin sobre
el hoy que acontece15.

15 Antgona 1995. Programa de mano, Grupo Creacin Teatral.

48
Antgona de J. Anouilh (1995), Antgona, Anglica Rodrguez; Nodriza, Alicia Valencia. Direccin Cristina
Flores.

49
Tercer Tiempo: conexin de la totalidad

El porte de Antgona, en la defensa de su verdad, cobra en la escena poblana

una singular actualidad. Surge un modelo de herona contempornea,
pensante, transgresora, que rinde honores fnebres a su hermano, fiel hasta
el ltimo momento a su ideal de justicia, ahuyenta los miedos por el castigo
anunciado. El rostro pleno de Antgona, al desafiar a Creonte, muestra
congruencia entre el pensar, hacer y decir, perfil de autodeterminacin y
libertad. Antgona volvera a morir muchas veces, en el reino actual de los
truculentos crculos de poder.

Rostro de Antgona 2002: libre pensadora.

Grupo del Colegio de Arte Dramtico, BUAP. Direccin: Cristina Flores.

Tebas en espera de grandes acontecimientos, expectacin que sugiere
presencias, ausencias y soledades de Tebas. Antgona, profunda en el pensar,
clara en el decir, congruente en el hacer, perfil extraviado en los tiempos.
Entra sudorosa, apresurada, sencilla, sus acciones revelan un profundo
segundo plano de convicciones y una emotividad a flor de piel. Escena muy
cercana al pblico, lgrimas apreciables al ojo rodando por la mejilla, lectura
del proceso de pensamiento, sensaciones fsicas, textura de las emociones,
detallada percepcin sonora. Tonalidades de sol envolviendo a los presentes
en una remembranza prehispnica, sonajas, silbatos, guajes, calabazos, ollas,
palo de lluvia, teponaztli, conchas, caracolas de mar, que invitan a participar
del derrumbe de una sociedad que no piensa en el ser humano, que crea
modelos en serie, automatizados, exentos de voluntad, movidos por el dinero
o la ambicin, por la moda o las campaas publicitarias, promoviendo
modelos sin voz, como Eurdice o el paje.

Qu ilusiones regala Antgona? Sobre sus hombros lleva la experiencia

de vida que le otorga el peregrinaje el lado de su padre ciego, despus de
su destierro de Tebas. Dato clave, en la puesta en escena de 2002, el
conocimiento del mundo, elemento que fortaleci el carcter, la personalidad,
la individualidad y espiritualidad de nuestra herona. Imposible de someter
o amedrentar, smbolo de libertad, manifestacin de carcter definido,
decisin de lucha, clama justicia, razones que sientan la diferencia, entre ella
y su hermanos, entre ella e Ismena, entre Antgona y Creonte.

Conclusiones a partir de los fenmenos de recepcin:

tres rostros, el eco del mito de Antgona, la secuencia de

acontecimientos, la resonancia vital del tema, el momento histrico,
removieron fibras ntimas del ser colocado en el papel de espectador en
tres tiempos, impactando los sentidos del pblico presente.

50
Antgona de J. Anouilh (2002), Antgona, Rax de Castilla. Direccin Cristina Flores.

la correspondencia entre el material dramatrgico, la idea de direccin, el

trabajo con los actores y la propuesta escnica.
el equilibrio, armona e integracin de todos los elementos participantes
en la puesta en escena.
en esta nueva alternativa de vida teatral para los que hacemos investigacin
en la creacin, el Teatro Universitario en Puebla, nos sugiere ese posible
espacio convergente de reflexin de un teatro con rostro propio, su
pblico y su tiempo.

Quiero terminar con esta significativa cita: Me parece, que yo no hubiera

podido enamorarme por siempre de lo humano en el arte; si no hubiera
elegido, al teatro; en el gran escenario de las diferentes tendencias en lucha;
en donde, cada una de ellas era ingeniosa y original16.

16 M.O. Knbel, Toda mi vida. VTO 1967. pp.158.

51
Bibliografa

Anouilh, J. Antgona Jezabel. Buenos Aires: Losada, 1983.

Fuentes, C. Cantar de ciegos. Mxico: Joaqun Mortiz, 1964.

Gambaro, G. Teatro 3. Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 1997.

Huertas, J. Antgonas, linaje de hembras. CELCIT, Dramtica latinoamericana 198.

Buenos Aires, 2005.

Knbel, M.O. Toda mi vida. Mosc: VTO, 1967.

Marechal, L. Antgona Vlez. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Clsicas Literarias, 1998.

Nietzsche, F. El Nacimiento de la Tragedia. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2007.

Steiner, G. Antgonas. Barcelona: Gedisa, 1996.

52
53
 The art movement generated by Chilean university
theatres since its initiation during the 1940s
created some esthetic and social phenomena that
ended up being crucial to the Chilean theatre scene;
we want to recognize the importance of those
phenomena in the artistic, social and formative
scenarios, identifying some particularities expressed
as continuities and/or reformulations since their

initiations and continuing to the present day.

54
Teatros universitarios en Chile: continuidades y
reformulaciones

Pa Salvatori Maldonado

Debido al inters de estudiantes aficionados y ex estudiantes, en el contexto de

un fermento intelectual, econmico y poltico universitario, surgi durante los
aos cuarenta un movimiento teatral que, con el pasar de los aos, se propag
en diversos escenarios fuera y dentro del ambiente estudiantil hasta su radical
cambio producto del gobierno militar iniciado en 1973. En esta exposicin,
nuestro objetivo es examinar panormicamente algunas particularidades de
dicho movimiento motivaciones, potica y reformulaciones desde sus
inicios a algunas formas de continuidad en la actualidad.

La importancia de los teatros universitarios en el panorama teatral chileno

tiene relacin con las experiencias creativas y formativas que ampararon,
especialmente inspirados por un momento histrico y social preciso y por el
eco renovador de las vanguardias teatrales europeas encarnadas en algunas
personalidades. Esta generacin, sostenida por un espacio institucional
formal la universidad se constituy en un verdadero movimiento teatral
que activ y colectiviz todas las zonas implicadas en la creacin: dramaturgia,
direccin, actuacin, escenografa y vestuarios, tcnicos, etc. Su legado es
apreciable tanto en la dramaturgia como en las tcnicas de actuacin, as como
tambin en el asentamiento de instituciones que masificaron y promovieron
la profesionalizacin del teatro chileno.

Este fermento se entiende observando los antecedentes y las consecuencias

de diversos acontecimientos histricos a escala mundial: los efectos
sociopolticos derivados de la segunda guerra mundial y posteriormente la
guerra fra, la exigencia de las libertades individuales y el reconocimiento
de las minoras sociales, la revolucin artstica de renovadas corrientes
estticas, entre otros sucesos. Por otro lado, hacia la segunda mitad del siglo
XX el panorama social chileno albergaba fuertes contradicciones y asuntos
que resolver: la aplicacin de un sistema econmico que gener profundas
desigualdades sociales y el flujo de masas populares hacia la ciudad, la
inestabilidad de los gobiernos por conflictos de intereses y la ineficacia de la
legislacin en mbito del trabajo, el mercado, la salud y la instruccin.

55
En sincrona con este ambiente histrico, el movimiento teatral universitario
se empe en restituir el rol educativo y tico al teatro, cuestionando desde
dentro su funcin en la comunidad. Al respecto, Domingo Piga, director de
la escuela de Teatro de la Universidad de Chile, comenta:

Nuestra generacin del 41 fue la primera en proponerse la tarea del encuentro

con lo nacional: el hombre y el tema los intereses y las fuerzas que mueven
al hombre , los acontecimientos, las contradicciones, el problema social, lo
econmico, lo poltico: la mdula del tema. Desde el movimiento del ao trece
con la generacin de Acevedo Hernndez, Daz Meza, etc., no hubo ninguna
generacin con estas caractersticas1.

Desde sus inicios, la experiencia artstica y social de cada grupo estuvo ligada
al propio contexto institucional universitario; durante los primeros aos slo
contaron con el nombre o los espacios para los ensayos y despus de unos
aos recibieron apoyo financiero. El teatro universitario depende de la vida
universitaria; es la relacin que se establece entre uno y otra, lo que define su
crecimiento y sobrevivencia. Las universidades tienen su propia historia y ella
afecta en cada caso de manera diferente la historia de sus respectivos teatros2.
Estas instituciones se constituyeron en centros de participacin activa dentro
de las comunidades, favoreciendo la democratizacin e institucionalizacin
de los saberes y los avances de la modernidad. El mximo de su desarrollo
est marcado por la Reforma Universitaria durante 1967 y 1970, perodo en
el cual la actividad formativa fue replanteada a nivel escolstico, poltico y
social lo que, sin duda, dio un impulso a la escena teatral ya en florecimiento3.

Las universidades propiciaron espacios de confluencia en el ambiente urbano:

se constituyeron en centros de instruccin, de discusin y de desarrollo
intelectual. Bajo este alero, los grupos universitarios muestran una estrecha
conexin con las dinmicas operadas por las universidades en la ciudad. Como
lo han demostrado diversos estudios, debido a la importante influencia del la
actividad de los grupos en el panorama teatral nacional, es posible reconocer
ciudades teatrales ms que una tendencia nacional4 definida.

1 Domingo Piga, Dos generaciones de teatro chileno, Santiago: Bolvar, 1963, citado en Mara de la Luz
Hurtado, Dramaturgia chilena 1890-1990. Autoras, textualidades, historicidad (Santiago: Frontera Sur,
2011), 207.
2 Adolfo Albornoz, Marta Contreras, Patricia Henrquez, Historias del teatro de la Universidad de
Concepcin (Chile: Universidad de Concepcin, 2003), 19.
3 Como antecedentes a la Reforma universitaria en Chile vase la Reforma universitaria de Crdoba
de 1918.
4 Estudios al respecto han sido propuestos por Pradenas (2006) y Albornoz, Contreras y Henrquez
(2002) que citaremos en este estudio.

56
Debido a que el objetivo no es examinar cada caso, nos interesa reflexionar
en torno al valor artstico y formativo del movimiento desde una perspectiva
integradora. En este sentido, reconocemos como un primer elemento el
inters de los grupos por renovar la escena mediante la puesta en escena de
grandes clsicos o de nuevas y exitosas dramaturgias europeas.

Como ejemplo de lo anterior, ntese como la mayora de los grupos abrieron

sus actividades a la comunidad proponiendo obras extranjeras: en 1941, el
Teatro Experimental de la Universidad de Chile (formacin que en 1934
haba comenzado sus actividades como el Conjunto de Arte Dramtico del
Instituto Pedaggico, CADIP) estren textos de Ramn del Valle-Incln,
Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Rueda y Alejandro Casona; posteriormente,
en 1943, estudiantes de la Pontificia Universidad Catlica fundan el Teatro de
Ensayo llevando a escena un auto sacramental de Jos de Valdivieso; en 1945,
apareci el Teatro de la Universidad de Concepcin con un texto de Federico
Garca Lorca; algunos aos ms tarde, en 1962 y con estrecho contacto con
el Teatro Experimental, se crea el Teatro del Desierto de la Universidad de
Antofagasta con el estreno de una obra de Isidora Aguirre y un annimo de
siglo XV; finalmente en el 1968 con una obra de Ren de Obalda se fund
el Teatro Universitario de Valparaso como departamento de formacin que
dependi de dicha universidad el cual ya funcionaba desde el 1953 como la
Agrupacin Teatral de Valparaso (ATEVA).

No slo el ambiente universitario impuls la renovacin teatral chilena sino

tambin diversas agrupaciones independientes a ste, por ejemplo: la compaa
Ictus hasta hoy vigente , Mimos de Noisvander, Teknos, entre otros.

Otro aspecto que marc significativamente la diferencia con la tradicin fue

la formacin de los artistas5. Aspectos como el estudio del personaje y las
acciones fsicas de Konstantin Stanislavski, la bsqueda de un teatro tico y
la escena desnuda de Jacques Copeau y el teatro poltico de Edwin Piscator,
fueron experimentados por las agrupaciones universitarias como una forma
de romper con las tradiciones, de actualizar el arte teatral y, por consiguiente,
de investigar nuevas formas de practicar el teatro. Todo esto inspirado, entre
otras cosas, por el encuentro vivo con figuras como Margarita Xirg
especialmente durante las temporadas en 1937, 1939 y el 1944 y la compaa
de Louis Jouvet en el ao 1942 quienes estimularon la produccin local y la

5 Grinor Rojo, Muerte y resurreccin del teatro chileno 1973-1983 (Madrid: Ediciones Michay, 1984), cap.
1, http://www.blest.eu/biblio/rojo/index.html.

57
visin crtica de los artistas con respecto al propio trabajo6.

Sin el inters de absorber las poticas teatrales extranjeras a priori, el

movimiento orient su bsqueda crtica y creativa en torno a la definicin
de un teatro popular chileno7. Una de las primeras iniciativas con relacin
a esta bsqueda fue el rescate de gneros tradicionales de la dramaturgia
chilena, por ejemplo, la valoracin y reformulacin de algunas poticas,
entre stas, el teatro costumbrista. Dicha potica se caracteriza por ilustrar
las costumbres y usanzas de una comunidad o un grupo social, definiendo
los sectores sociales y sus dinmicas de comportamiento en relacin al
resto de las fracciones sociales. La seleccin de obras pas por renombrados
dramaturgos como: Blest Gana, Acevedo Hernndez, Armando Mook, Jos
Chesta, entre otros.

Las dramaturgias se estructuran en modo ms acabado, ms escrupuloso

y ms culto de sus predecesores, es decir, a travs de la identificacin de
una unidad de tiempo y espacio aristotlico donde la puesta en escena es el
resultado de un fino estudio de la unidad dramtica8; ello tambin obedece a
la ordenacin de las tareas, del estudio del personaje y de la escenografa, del
director, en suma, el inters por profesionalizar el trabajo teatral.

Otra forma de intervencin crtica en torno a la tradicin teatral chilena fue

su reinterpretacin a travs de nuevas poticas, por ejemplo: la dramaturgia
de Jorge Daz que incursiona en el teatro del absurdo junto al teatro Ictus o
tambin Jos Ricardo Morales radicado en Chile luego del exilio en Espaa;
o tambin la incursin en el teatro pico Bertolt Brecht en las obras de Luis
Hereimans, Isidora Aguirre y Mara Asuncin Requena preferentemente. El
contexto histrico y social en que florecen los grupos teatrales universitarios
mostr especial sintona con la potica brechtiana, debido a que sta ofreca
mecanismos coherentes con los objetivos que acompaaban el quehacer
teatral. Dicha influencia no se tradujo en una simple traslacin de cdigos
y procedimientos esttico-artsticos sino en una lectura, valoracin y

6 Para profundizar en los aspectos que aportaron estas figuras vase el detallado estudio de Pia, Juan
Andrs. Historia del teatro en Chile (1940-1990). Santiago: Taurus, 2014.
7 Como se ha sealado anteriormente, no es slo en el espacio de las universidades que se plantea
el asunto de un teatro nacional o hispanoamericano sino que es ms bien una cuestin que emerge
paralelamente tambin en otros teatros, por ejemplo el teatro de Enrique Buenaventura, de Gabriel
Martnez o de Augusto Boal (Albornoz, Contreras y Henrquez 2002), o tambin en espacios fuera de
los ambientes formativos como los circos populares, las fiestas clandestinas, las bienales underground, las
carpas y las giras (Opazo 2014).
8 Grinor Rojo, Muerte y resurreccin del teatro chileno (1973-1983), http://www.blest.eu/biblio/rojo/
index.html.

58
reapropiacin de procedimientos del teatro pico; lo que permiti desarrollar
nuevas formas de expresin y experimentacin en coherencia con las matrices
temticas que abordaban las escenas9.

El arte teatral, como instrumento de difusin cultural capaz de propagarse

hacia todos los espacios de la sociedad, es un medio concreto para aportar en
la concientizacin de las problemticas de la colectividad no necesariamente
compartidas o sabidas por todos. A mediados de los sesenta esta percepcin
pareca carecer de fundamento, debido a las crticas venidas desde dentro de
los grupos a los mismos dramaturgos tanto desde el Teatro de Ensayo como
desde el Teatro Experimental que apuntaban a la evidente decadencia del
teatro practicado hasta el momento, teatro que simplemente se haba vuelto
burgus. Al respecto, Teodosio Fernndez seala los autores intentaban
nuevas formas de expresin, pero obviamente sus limitaciones eran las
mismas de los teatros universitarios a cuya sombra haban surgido: las que
nacan de constituir la manifestacin cultural de la clase media ciudadana10.
Bajo la misma idea, Juan Villegas seala observando crticamente la
dramaturgia del perodo, y especialmente la actividad enmarcada en el teatro
universitario:

El discurso teatral chileno hegemnico el reconocido como representativo

ha sido generalmente el discurso de los sectores medios destinado a los mismos
sectores medios. Esta delimitacin del corpus teatral es significativa en cuanto
nuestras hiptesis son vlidas exclusivamente para los textos producidos y
representados para este sector social, aunque ello no involucra la inexistencia
de un discurso teatral marginal, destinado a otro tipo de pblico11.

Para el autor, se trata slo de una aparente pluralidad de las tramas sociales
representadas en los teatros universitarios. Cuestiones como, por ejemplo,
el registro lingstico de los personajes o la composicin de los caracteres
para ello cita textos de Luis Hereimans, Egon Wolff e Isidora Aguirre
son aspectos en los que se presume una preconcepcin de los personajes
del marginales y populares en sintona con los intereses ideolgicos de los
sectores medios. En otras palabras, el reconocimiento social de la clase media
estaba ligado a una determinada imagen proyectada a travs de la cultura, la
poltica y, en este caso, en las instancias formativas y de crtica vehiculadas

9 Vase al respecto Teodosio Fernndez, Apuntes para una historia del teatro chileno: Los teatros
universitarios (1941-1973), Anales de literatura hispanoamericana 5, no. 1 (1976): 341-342.
10 Ibd., 343.
11 Juan Villegas, Los marginados como personajes: teatro chileno de la dcada del sesenta, Latin
American Theater Review 19, no. 2 (1986): 85.

59
por el teatro. En este sentido, lo que estos teatros representan es ms bien una
proyeccin de las demandas culturales de una clase social en ascenso.

Tambin Ramn Griffero, uno de los ms importantes dramaturgos

postmodernos chilenos, reconoce: los teatros universitarios en Chile se
adscribieron a reproducir una forma local del modelo stanisvslaskiano de
representacin, centrndose a su vez en una dramaturgia psico-realista12.
Fue evidente entonces para el autor que poticas como Vsevolod Meyerhold,
Oskar Schlemmer o Edward Craig, estuvieran lejos de las incursiones de los
teatros universitarios debido a que ponan en crisis los discursos hegemnicos
que los articulaban.

A este anquilosamiento mostrado por algunos grupos universitarios, otras

actividades como la de algunas agrupaciones independientes y aficionadas
el Ictus o el teatro Cut de la Central nica de Trabajadores o tambin la
Asociacin Nacional de Teatro Aficionado Chileno (ANTACH) dieron un
respiro de creatividad a la escena chilena.

El formato de creacin de los grupos aficionados se inclin por la bsqueda de

instrumentos que donaran una mayor libertad expresiva, en ello el gnero del
caf-concert, a travs de pequeas representaciones ms bien improvisadas,
permiti aunar la crtica social con lo humorstico y lo popular. Tambin
otro gnero relevante de produccin fue la creacin colectiva, formato que
prioriza la expresin de una unidad creativa no jerrquica en las actividades
de la compaa. Las creaciones colectivas son reflejo de la relacin activa
mantenida por los creadores respecto al propio contexto e implican la
observacin y el reconocimiento de una posicin en la comunidad.

Existan nuevas necesidades de expresin y participacin que se resolvan

por esa va. Los actores queran que sus ideas y su creacin de lenguajes
en el escenario constituyeran la obra. Estaban motivados por el valor de la
participacin democrtica [] no slo la palabra hablada deba constituir
la escritura de la obra: ojal fuera un cdigo ms dentro de los trabajados
intentndose establecer una comunicacin sensorial con el espectador. El
mismo afn antiestablishment y tendiente a una cultura popular llev a la
bsqueda de espacios de representacin no tradicionales []13.

El Ictus ya vena trabajando en ello, se sum el Teatro Ensayo convertido en

12 Ramn Griffero, La esquizofrenia de la verdad escnica 1993, ltima modificacin noviembre 11,
2008, http://www.griffero.cl/ensayo.htm.
13 Mara de La Luz Hurtado, Dramaturgia chilena 1890-1990. Autoras, textualidades, historicidad
(Santiago: Frontera Sur, 2011), 287.

60
el Taller de investigacin teatral (TIT), el Aleph y el Teatro del Errante. La
creacin colectiva es una forma que persiste con fuerza an en la actualidad,
ya que comnmente nos referimos a momentos histricos del teatro chileno
a travs de las compaas y sus dramaturgos y/o directores14. Esto significa
que los discursos y los lenguajes pertenecen al grupo, lo que propicia con
el tiempo la maduracin de una potica comn y la circulacin de artistas
dentro de las agrupaciones.

Actualmente, la creacin colectiva est evolucionando al formato del

colectivo artstico como resultado de la contaminacin y alta hibridacin
de los lenguajes teatrales con otras disciplinas. Cada integrante, proveniente
de un rea diversa, aporta a travs de discursos autnomos al resultado
espectacular final, lo que permite experimentar con ms libertad diversos
lenguajes y cdigos para la escena.

Este aspecto, a nuestro juicio, responde y refleja coherentemente el estado

del objeto artstico actual, ya que presupone un sistema horizontal de trabajo
tendiente a exaltar la dimensin esttica y expresiva por sobre la temtica o
ideolgica; algunos ejemplos de compaas chilenas que se organizan con
este sistema pueden ser: la Patogallina, el Colectivo Teatral Mamut, el Grupo
El Orculo, La gran Reyneta, Teatro Cinema y otros.

Como fue sealado en la apertura, el movimiento de los teatros universitarios

surgido en los aos cuarenta, cambi drsticamente con la dictadura extendida
hasta 1989. El rgimen de represin y censura alcanz con fuerza los ambientes
universitarios; el arte y el teatro, se vieron seriamente afectados: desaparecieron
grupos universitarios (el caso del TUC, el Teatro de la Universidad de
Valparaso, el de la Universidad del Norte, la Austral y Teknos), algunos
detuvieron temporalmente sus actividades y otros se vieron obligados a
cambiar el repertorio segn las disposiciones de la junta de Gobierno. Tambin
cambiaron las reglas econmicas al abolir la ley de Promocin del Artista
vigente desde 1935, que exclua a los grupos del pago de impuestos si contaban

14 Hago un parntesis para poder extenderme en algunos ejemplos de compaas activas hasta hoy y
otras ms recientes que se inspiran en esta forma de creacin o que al menos son reconocidas por alguna
figura (dramaturgo o director) pero que no determinan en estricto rigor la personalidad absoluta de la
compaa Teatro Imagen (1974), luego escuela, fundada por el actor Gustavo Meza, Teatro Aparte (1985)
conformada por actores profesionales titulados en la Universidad Catlica, el Gran Circo teatro (1988)
fundada por el fallecido actor Andrs Prez, el Teatro Camino (1989) de Hctor Noguera convertida hoy
en una institucin ms amplia, La Puerta (1990) dirigida por Luis Ureta y el Teatro la Mara (1999) con
la dramaturgia de Alexis Moreno. Actualmente, nacidas durante el ao 2000, Teatro de Chile (2001) y
la dramaturgia de Manuela infante, Central de Inteligencia Teatral (2003) con la dramaturgia de Luis
Barrales, entre otras.

61
con el setenta y cinco por ciento de integrantes chilenos y si se representaba el
treinta y cinco por ciento de obras de autores locales; el nuevo decreto de 1974
aplic un impuesto tributario del 22% sobre el ingreso bruto.15

Durante los ochenta, otras miradas, otras bsquedas y representaciones

sociales impregnaron las prcticas teatrales nacionales. Frente a las necesidades
particulares de una poca que se pre-anunciaba como postmoderna y los
sucesos histricos nacionales que la acompaaron, el teatro se instaur como
una forma de resistencia social dndose como espacio de denuncia y de
discusin crtica.

Volviendo a la generacin de los grupos universitarios, es importante

tambin reconocer su aporte contra la centralizacin al llevar el teatro a zonas
apartadas del pas a travs de un repertorio de contenidos y de lenguajes
atractivos y de fcil acceso al espectador. Estas acciones se concretaron en
giras nacionales e internacionales de las compaas y en estadas de actores o
directores en diversas agrupaciones del pas, lo que tambin facilit instancias
de formacin entre los mismos artistas.

Actualmente, la centralizacin es un problema concreto en el desarrollo del

teatro en Chile; escasas son las escuelas de teatro en provincias y difcilmente
logran proponer un contra-dilogo tanto en mbito formativo como
productivo con las escuelas de las histricas universidades santiaguinas;
agrguese a esto que muy pocas compaas logran subsistir profesionalmente
fuera de la capital y/o dedicarse exclusivamente al teatro. Lo anterior
arrastra como consecuencia la casi inexistente actividad profesional teatral
en las provincias especialmente las ms lejanas a Santiago , la falta de
financiamiento para mantener las salas de teatro, la escasez de pblico y la
baja concurrencia de compaas profesionales en escenarios regionales.

Queremos finalizar reconociendo otro aspecto del legado de los teatros

universitarios en nuestros das: el aporte en el rea institucional concretizado en
la creacin de escuelas que cuentan hoy con reas de investigacin y extensin
en las mismas universidades. Hoy en da, dichos departamentos se destacan
por favorecer la circulacin de compaas y artistas de diversa procedencia,
ms que concentrar la actividad en grupos propios. Por ejemplo, el caso del
teatro de la Universidad Catlica que engloba tres formas de produccin
producciones propias, coproducciones y compaas invitadas o del Teatro

15 Grinor Rojo, Muerte y resurreccin del teatro chileno (1973-1983), http://www.blest.eu/biblio/rojo/

index.html.

62
Nacional Chileno proveniente del Teatro Experimental que alberga, bajo
dicho nombre, diversas compaas. Reconocemos tambin el aporte de las
instituciones y universidades en el mbito de la teora y la crtica teatrales,
contribuyendo desde la formacin de nuevos crticos y estudiosos del teatro,
as como tambin en la formacin del espectador, por ejemplo el proyecto
Escuela de Espectadores impulsado hace algunos aos por la Universidad
Catlica.

El teatro es una actividad discursiva que organiza ideolgicamente su contexto

cultural inmediato y que expresa una toma de posicin y una intensin social
concreta comunicada en la obra. Es un medio metafrico-expresivo de un
discurso en donde cada generacin interpreta, traduce y pone en escena una
particular visin de la realidad. En coherencia con lo anterior, los teatros
universitarios se destacaron por establecer un compromiso con su entorno
poltico, social y educativo a nivel nacional; el movimiento supo ser permeable
a la tradicin y a los cambios que se proponan desde el propio ambiente
local/nacional y extranjero, interrogando, promoviendo y consolidando de
esa manera un teatro rico, actual y en contacto con otros teatros. Algunas
de las inquietudes que guiaron la creacin y las formas experimentadas por
aquella generacin continan vigentes y forman parte de la identidad del
teatro chileno contemporneo, otras son emergencias que continan siendo
en cuestionadas en la actualidad.

Bibliografa

Albornoz, Adolfo, Contreras, Marta y Henrquez, Patricia. Historias del teatro de la

Universidad de Concepcin. Chile: Universidad de Concepcin, 2003.
Griffero, Ramn. La esquizofrenia de la verdad escnica 1993, ltima modificacin
noviembre 11. 2008. http://www.griffero.cl/ensayo.htm.
Fernndez, Teodosio. Apuntes para una historia del teatro chileno: Los teatros universitarios
(1941-1973), Anales de literatura hispanoamericana 5, no. 1 (1976): 331-47.
Hurtado, Mara de La Luz. Dramaturgia chilena 1890-1990. Autoras, textualidades,
historicidad. Santiago: Frontera Sur, 2011.
Opazo, Cristian. Pedagogas teatrales en el Chile posautoritario. Contracorriente
12, no. 1 (2014): 125-5. http://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/
acontracorriente/article/viewFile/1307/2230.
Pradenas, Luis. Teatro en Chile: huellas y trayectorias, siglos XVI-XX. Santiago: LOM 2006.
Rojo, Grinor. Muerte y resurreccin del teatro chileno 1973-1983. Madrid: Michay,
1984. http://www.blest.eu/biblio/rojo/index.html.
Villegas, Juan. Los marginados como personajes: teatro chileno de la dcada del
sesenta. Latin American Theater Review 19, no. 2 (1986): 85-5.

63
 At Urbino University, Aenigma Theatre, publisher
of the European magazine Teatri delle diversit
(Theatres of Diversities), experiments with a theatre
research model that has produced, for the last 20
years, a repertory of paradigmatic expressive paths
with disabled people, prisoners and people with psychic
disease.
Following the track of a phenomenon that is developing
more and more internationally, the author will try to
suggest a way to clarify the epistemological basis of
the new Inclusive Educational Theatre.
This kind of experience is contiguous and similar to
the research theatre, both in its development and
in methodological/creative diversifications, and for
this it takes part in the renewal of languages and
techniques: therefore, it is a cultural and artistic
capital in the area of theatre tout court, to which it
necessarily belongs.
These experiences have created contaminations and
nutriment, filtering from one side to the other, with
continuous assimilations between Art theatre and
Inclusive Educational Theatre: this helped to draw a
varied area, with many contacts between art, theatre

and sociality.

64
Escena e interaccin social: hacia un teatro educativo de
inclusin
Vito Minoia

Estudios e investigacin en la Universidad de Urbino a travs de la Revista

Europea Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit (Teatros de la diversidad)

Quiero dedicar este estudio al profesor Emilio Pozzi, fallecido en abril 2010 en
Miln, quien fuera mi mentor en la Universidad de Urbino. Juntos fundamos
la Revista Europea Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit, misma que contribuye al
desarrollo del estudio e investigacin de este tema, hoy entendido como
Teatro de Inclusin Social. Actualmente la revista alcanz el nmero sesenta
y siete, que coincide con el decimonoveno ao de vida de la Revista. Creo que
hemos respetado el compromiso asumido con el primer nmero de diciembre
de 1996: trabajar desde tres ngulos, que son informacin, investigacin y
reflexin crtica.

Informacin: obtener y difundir las noticias sobre actividades teatrales, en su

amplio significado, como medio de formacin y comunicacin en -y por- los
mundos definidos como diferentes.

Investigacin: difundir el trabajo cientfico, cuyo objetivo es identificar medios

para abrir el camino de la inclusin a travs de la cultura de convivencia en
igualdad y dignidad.

Reflexin crtica: promover debate constante entre las diferentes escuelas de

pensamiento, acerca de los derroteros etapas, errores y sesgos.

Una revista abierta pero no acrtica; mirando lo nuevo, pero con prudencia
cuando los estudios siguen cnicamente las modas. Una revista que manifiesta
una visin y pensamiento complejo, en el que muchos de los componentes
que entran en juego, como por ejemplo las relaciones del teatro activo con
los fenmenos culturales presentes en el periodo en que se desarrolla. Un
instrumento profundamente proyectado sobre el presente, sobre el devenir,
sobre la experiencia en la accin, sobre las alteraciones y cambios sociales en

65
curso1. Con estas palabras el profesor Daniele Seragnoli de la Universidad
de Ferrara coment el trabajo de su alumna Laura Renna quien se gradu, en
2002, con una tesina titulada Los talleres del pensamiento teatral, dedicada
a las Revistas de teatro del siglo XIX, siguiendo la idea de Marco Consolini
(Universit Sorbonne Nouvelle -Paris 3) y Roberta Gandolfi (Universidad de
Parma).

Teatri delle diversit se adhiere a un compromiso militante y habla de

la actualidad. Con esta visin se form un Comit Cientfico, siendo el
profesor Claudio Meldolesi de la Universidad Bolonia uno de sus principales
promotores, y se fue enriqueciendo con especialistas en los campos de la
psicologa, sociologa, antropologa, pedagoga, estudios culturales y, en
especial, el teatro o ms bien los teatros, tal como aparece en el ttulo de la
revista. En dicho Comit Cientfico participan al lado del profesor Seragnoli,
los acadmicos: Guido Sala (Miln), Sergio Piro (Npoles), Andrea Canevaro
(Bolonia), Piergiorgio Giacch (Perugia), Piero Ricci (Siena), John Schranz
(Malta), Gianni Tibaldi (Padova), Sisto Dalla Palma (Miln), Luigi Squarzina
(Roma), Gianfranco de Bosio (Miln). Posteriormente se sumaron: Laura
Mariani (Bolonia), Raimondo Guarino (Roma), Claudio Bernardi (Miln)
y, en el ambiente internacional, en colaboracin con la AITU Asociacin
Internacional de Teatro Universitario, se han incorporado los acadmicos
Maria S. Horne (Buffalo-New York, USA), Chiwoon Ahn (Sel, Corea),
Alejandro Finzi (Neuqun, Argentina), Elka Fediuk (Xalapa-Veracruz,
Mxico), Ouriel Zohar (Haifa, Israel).

La historia de la revista se puede contar siguiendo los temas en ella tratados

y tambin por la seleccin de las separatas que favorecieron investigaciones
sobre la relacin dinmica entre teatro y discapacidad, al igual que crcel,
depresin, toxicomana, etnias y mestizajes, nmadas gitanos, en suma
condiciones que se refieren al tema social y a los derechos humanos. Por esta
razn, en la revista se encuentran secciones especiales dedicadas a temas de
actualidad, tales como la tercera edad, centros de atencin social, escenarios
fronterizos, sin olvidar la vertiente historicista, y cientfica, y su relacin con
los temas bsicos y recurrentes como la guerra, la justicia, las luchas religiosas,
los genocidios, con una mirada hacia los mundos que parecen lejanos como
frica, Asia y Amrica del Sur.

Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit se publica cada tres meses en blanco y negro:

1 Daniele Seragnoli, Teatri delle diversit (1996-2002) analisi e indici di una rivista sul teatro di
interazione sociale, Rivista Europea Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit 8, no. 26/27 (2003): 35.

66
el blanco y el negro son la mejor manera de representar la dramaticidad
de muchas situaciones. Y aqu hemos de agradecer a los fotgrafos que
ofrecen material muy valioso: entre ellos, Maurizio Buscarino, persona muy
importante, no slo por su trabajo artstico sino tambin por su papel con
relacin a nuestra manera de contar. Es quien ha realizado diferentes portadas
y fotografas para los nmeros de nuestra revista.

Nuestra investigacin, partiendo de la base de el otro, a travs de situaciones

que parecen anmalas con respecto a la regla, nos pareci la manera cientfica
y pragmtica ms eficaz para entender quines somos y qu objetivo tenemos.
En el transcurso hemos ampliado los temas, conquistando, al mismo tiempo
y de manera natural, nuevos lectores que pertenecen a distintos sectores.
Nos referimos a personas del mundo teatral, directores y actores que llegan
a identificarse con esta realidad, pero tambin a personas que se acercan al
teatro por haber ledo a Moreno2 o los textos de psicodrama y tambin a
personas que se identifican con los mundos cerrados en que viven, como el
hospital o la crcel, temas estudiados por Foucault y otros maestros. Muchas
personas hallaron una nueva llave de lectura en los principios de la literatura
teatral. Un mundo de lectores, especialmente estudiantes universitarios,
que quizs no saban mucho de teatro o no lo consideraban atractivo, pero
que fueron conquistados por el hecho teatral en sus variadas formas, lo
que les ayud a descubrir realidades desconocidas, o conocidas de manera
superficial, errada o, peor an, con sentimiento de lstima.

Muchos estudiantes tomaron parte en actividades experimentales del Teatro

Aenigma en la crcel de Pesaro, con hombres y mujeres reclusas, o en los
centros socio-educativos de rehabilitacin para personas con discapacidad,
con estados depresivos o problemas de toxicomana. Sobre estas temticas,
personajes o problemas, se elaboraron varias tesinas de licenciatura tanto
en la Facultad de Sociologa donde Emilio Pozzi era profesor de Historia
de Teatro y Espectculo, como en la Facultad de Ciencias de la Educacin,
donde imparto Teatro de Animacin desde hace 12 aos.

Intentamos tambin representar escnicamente la relacin de algunos

directores con los temas de la diversidad: de Jerzy Grotowski a Jean Genet,
de Antonin Artaud a Eduardo de Filippo, de Ugo Betti a Carmelo Bene, de
Tadeusz Kantor a Samuel Beckett, son slo algunos ejemplos. La Revista se
convirti por eso en una referencia habitual y puntual acerca de los mundos
alejados de la normalidad, pero frecuentes en la cotidianidad.

2 Jacob Levy Moreno (1889-1974), creador de la teora del psicodrama y sociodrama.

67
Cartoceto / Urbino 2005, Sexta Conferencia Internacional sobre los teatros de la diversidad. Fotos de
Franco Deriu.

La vitalidad de este perodo se muestra tambin a travs de la capacidad

de crear eventos y conferencias cientficas. Una vez al ao, Catarsi-Teatri
delle diversit organiza un evento de reflexin sobre temas emergentes3.
Permanecimos en la provincia de Pesaro y Urbino en lugares ideales para
reflexionar y enfrentarse con serenidad (hasta el 2010 en Cartoceto, en un
sombro convento agustiniano, y desde el 2011 en Urbino, en la sala del
Palazzo Ducale que fue dedicada al escritor Paolo Volponi). El volumen
Teatros de las diversidad en Cartoceto fue realizado y publicado en 2010 en la
coleccin de Cuadernos del Consejo Regional de Marche, con una seleccin
de textos de las diez primeras conferencias.4

Adems, gracias a los encuentros de 2009 y 2010, con base en la publicacin

3 Hemos tratado acerca de: Teatro, espejo de las diversidades (2000); Teatro, terapia, esferas de inters
y las relaciones hipotticas (2001); Las calles de la formacin para el teatro de malestar (2002); El
identikit del espectador en los teatros de las diversidades (2003); Teatros de las diversidades y Media
(2004); Poesa, teatro, diversidad (2005 e 2006); Teatro y locura (2007); Franco Basaglia, Marco
Cavallo y la ley 180 (2008); Un teatro de masa que permaneci generativo (2009); Imaginacin contra
la marginacin (2010); Volverse loco se puede (2011); Inhabilidad, Crcel y Derechos en los teatros
de las diversidades (2012); La gracia del conocimiento es un viento que cambia de rumbo (de Profezia
de Pasolini) (2013).
4 Vito Minoia, I Teatri delle diversit a Cartoceto. Atti dei primi dieci convegni (2000-2009), (Ancona:
Regin Marcas, Cuadernos del Consejo Regional, Ao XV n. 97, junio 2010).

68
Recito, dunque so(g)no5 6 que fue el primer mapa terico y de documentacin
del teatro en la crcel en Italia, naci el organismo de Coordinacin Nacional
de Teatro en la Crcel, que hoy cuenta ya con 44 actividades en 14 regiones
distintas. En junio 2012, en Florencia, tuvo lugar el primer Festival Nacional
de Teatro en la Crcel Destini Incrociati (destinos cruzados), en presencia
de ms de 1500 espectadores que fueron testigos de 15 espectculos, en la
crcel y afuera, con la participacin de 106 reos.

En septiembre de 2013 la Coordinacin suscribi un Acuerdo con el

Departamento Central de Servicios Penitenciarios y el Instituto Superior
de Estudios Penitenciarios de Roma, para la evaluacin de las actividades
escnicas en la crcel a travs de estudios, investigaciones y eventos
educativos. Un logro histrico fue que el mismo Ministerio de Justicia
italiano expres la necesidad de capacitar al personal de las crceles para las
actividades escnicas, dado su alto valor educativo. Como primera iniciativa:
el 27 de marzo de 2014, las 50 prisiones italianas organizaron, de manera
simultnea, espectculos para celebrar el Primer Da Nacional de Teatro en la
Crcel, en ocasin del 52 Da Mundial del Teatro, promovido por el Instituto
Internacional de Teatro (ITI-UNESCO).

Un caballo azul en la crcel de Villa Fastiggi, un grupo de estudiantes de doce aos visitando a los detenidos,
Teatro Aenigma. Fotos de Franco Deriu.

5 Se trata de un juego de palabra-sentido entre Recito (acto) luego soy-sueo. Nota de editoras.
6 Vito Minoia y Emilio Pozzi, Recito dunque so(g)no (Urbino: Edizioni Nuove Catarsi, 2010).

69
El desarrollo y las peculiaridades del fenmeno

Intentamos definir las peculiaridades de un mtodo de investigacin del

teatro que, durante los ltimos 20 aos, ha producido una coleccin de
experiencias con personas discapacitadas, encarceladas, con depresin
y otras. Este fenmeno se est desarrollando cada vez ms en el mbito
mundial, y es definido como Teatro Educativo de Inclusin. Es una prctica
de interaccin social, con medios especficos que involucran a expertos en
teatro y en bienestar social, as tambin a personas que trabajan con grupos
y comunidades de ciudadanos, en muchos casos, desfavorecidos. Entre sus
acciones estn los talleres, espectculos y proyectos con objetivos culturales,
civiles, artsticos y de bienestar psico-social.

Como sabemos, el teatro tiene un lenguaje multi-cdigo, multi-disciplinario,

donde se cruzan palabras, msica, gestos y atmsferas, pensamiento y
emociones, pasado y presente, verdad y ficcin, entre otros. Es cercano a otras
formas expresivas (pintura, poesa, narracin, canto) y por eso tiene niveles
infinitos: de la experiencia ocasional a la buena artesana, de la actividad local
de oficina a la ms elevada y emocionante obra de arte. La difusin de estas
experiencias subraya la necesidad de este ejercicio creativo.

La bsqueda de la belleza tiende a afinar la mente, crear relaciones entre

sujetos y producir bienestar. La construccin potica de la experiencia hace
uso de todos los materiales y todas las posibilidades creativas que el teatro
ofrece. El teatro tiene caractersticas especiales, porque es plural. El resultado
adquiere aliento, valor y sentido gracias a la contribucin de cada individuo
y del grupo en su conjunto. Inevitablemente y las pruebas son ilimitadas y
muy variadas el teatro se ha difundido a todos los niveles y, en particular,
aunque no exclusivamente, donde se perciba la necesidad de una expresin
formalizada de intercambio y comunicacin de mutua experimentacin.

Este general conocimiento de base, con sus muchas facetas propias

del teatro de grupo (aun con un importante maestro como referencia),
contribuy al desarrollo del teatro ms all de los conjuntos polticos o los
grupos universitarios, desde los aos setenta en Italia. El lenguaje teatral
poda ser complejo, elegante, denso y, al mismo tiempo, popular, simple,
muy comprensible y utilizable. Adems, era muy benfico: los debates tenan
un objetivo comn, la persona se expona en su totalidad, mente y cuerpo,
pensamiento y accin. Y el resultado perteneca a todos.

La publicacin de ensayos sobre la metodologa teatral y la creacin de

70
Federico Garca Lorca Teatros de la diversidad n. 64/65.

compaas a lo largo del pas se complementaron en el hacer / ensear teatro,

en los espacios gestionados por las compaas. Adems, hay que mencionar
los movimientos significativos de las ciencias sociales, la medicina y las

71
acciones para el desarrollo comunitario mediante el arte como proceso de
construccin de identidad y las relaciones sociales. Todo eso ha conducido
de manera natural a la expansin de la experiencia teatral fuera de los teatros:
en las escuelas, en los barrios, en los hospitales psiquitricos, en las prisiones
y en los centros de rehabilitacin. Todo ello en favor de personas expuestas a
situaciones de vulnerabilidad al igual que sus familias, o grupos de reciente
inmigracin, y de otros, en contextos donde el malestar no era obvio, pero s
era urgente la necesidad de la participacin activa de la ciudadana y de una
formacin humana y organizacional.

En los ltimos aos la gama de experiencias se ampli an ms con la aparicin

gradual de nuevas formas de intervencin, tales como la cooperacin
internacional, la promocin de la salud y el medio ambiente y el desarrollo de
comunidades regionales. Adems hay un nmero creciente de ciudadanos y
comunidades que realizan proyectos de teatro de inclusin social con temas
de bienestar, participacin y ciudadana.

Sin considerar las definiciones tericas (gradualmente perfeccionadas tambin

a travs del trabajo de la Revista Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit), el Teatro
Educativo de Inclusin se caracteriza no slo por sus fines teraputicos o de
rehabilitacin, sino porque, combina el arte, la atencin a personas y el cambio
en las dinmicas sociales. Es decir, las finalidades estticas y ticas orientan
el trabajo hacia las reas en donde la sociedad tiene deberes especiales con
algunos sectores de ciudadanos en vulnerabilidad por los que debe asumir
la responsabilidad. Sabemos que en estos contextos el Teatro Educativo de
Inclusin puede aportar una valiosa contribucin al bienestar, al intercambio
dialgico y a la planificacin, porque estimula la comprensin del otro, el
contacto entre las diversidades, el desarrollo de recursos de ciudadana activa,
no como efectos adicionales y objetivos secundarios, sino como finalidades
perseguidas intencionalmente, al igual que las artsticas y culturales.

Este tipo de experiencia es contigua y similar al teatro de investigacin,

tanto en su desarrollo como en las diferencias metodolgico-creativas,
por eso participa en la renovacin de lenguajes y tcnicas; es un capital
cultural y artstico en el mbito de teatro tout court, grupo al que pertenece
inevitablemente.

Las experiencias de algunos artistas que trabajan en el campo de la

investigacin teatral y que han optado por trabajar con ciudadanos o
personas en condiciones de vulnerabilidad enfrentando las diferencias que
esta eleccin implica crearon las bases de su propagacin y tambin puentes

72
entre Teatro de Arte y Teatro Educativo de Inclusin. Con ello se traz un
rea amplia, con muchos puntos de encuentro entre arte, teatro y sociedad.

La investigacin ms reciente en mbito pedaggico

Nuestros estudios en la Universidad de Urbino se estn orientando cada vez

ms hacia la educacin: en este momento mi compromiso se centra en la
Pedagoga de la Cognicin en el Departamento de Ciencias Humanas ,
trabajando especficamente sobre la contribucin del lenguaje teatral en las
viejas y nuevas categoras de diversidad con una visin inclusiva.

La Pedagoga Especial como una ciencia de la complejidad y la diversidad

es muy atenta a las diversas condiciones sociales y culturales que provocan
fenmenos frecuentes de exclusin y discriminacin de los marginados7.
Como destaca Michel Foucault en sus estudios, todos los cambios alteran
las relaciones de poder con el riesgo de negar el derecho de ciudadana a las
personas ms expuestas a la desigualdad social. La Pedagoga Especial puede
asumir el papel de orientar un discurso que ayude en la superacin de todos
los lmites entre la normalidad y la anomala, para una nueva lectura de la
diversidad considerada como valor, conocimiento y riqueza.

El sentido de esta investigacin sigue, por tanto, el hilo de la Pedagoga

como ciencia de la educacin para todos, coincidente con las enseanzas
del profesor Andrea Canevaro que, en la Universidad de Bolonia, ha dado a
conocer la Pedagoga Institucional en Italia interpretndola como Pedagoga
de la Complejidad. Sus estudios fueron basados en la posibilidad de llevar
a cabo un proceso de integracin eficaz, a partir de la promocin de la
diversidad con un enfoque inclusivo. En la presentacin del texto La lgica
de la frontera y de la senda. Una pedagoga de la inclusin (para todos,
incluidas las personas con discapacidad)8 Canevaro sugiere:

La lgica de las fronteras tiene su utilidad, pero tambin varios riesgos:

cerrarse en una identidad forzada y de proteccin, considerando al otro como
una amenaza. La lgica de las sendas tambin tiene su utilidad y sus riesgos: la
invasin de la casa de otros, sin pedir permiso, sin respeto de la persona y sus
derechos. No debemos caer en la trampa de creer que es necesario elegir entre

7 Patrizia Gaspari, Pedagogia Speciale: questioni epistemologiche (Pedagoga Especial: cuestiones

epistemolgicas) (Roma: Edizioni Anicia, 2012), 7.
8 Andrea Canevaro, Le logiche del confine e del sentiero. Una pedagogia dellinclusione (per tutti, disabili
inclusi) (Trento: Edizioni Erickson, 2006), 12-13.

73
 las dos lgicas: en cambio, debemos comprometernos seriamente y hacer
una combinacin entre respeto de las fronteras y bsqueda de sendas, para
promover un cambio en la prctica de las instituciones, la base de una actitud
crtica para una sociedad diferente.9

Aqu se hace referencia a la bsqueda incesante de perspectivas de cambio y

la constante revisin de los enfoques tericos y prcticos, lenguajes, mtodos,
objetos de investigacin y contextos reales de afiliacin de viejas y nuevas
categoras de la diversidad10. El lenguaje teatral puede ser considerado como
una herramienta de intervencin pedaggica y formativa. Un teatro para todos,
como privilegio de la cultura en general, considerando su uso para devolver el
derecho a esas personas que quedaron privadas de ello, recuperando el derecho
a la igualdad de todos. Si alguien me preguntara cul es la contribucin ms
importante de los estudios e investigaciones llevados a cabo en este campo en
la Universidad de Urbino, en los ltimos 20 aos, slo podra hacer referencia
al papel activo que tiene la Revista Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit y el Teatro
Universitario Aenigma (que es su editor) en determinar, en las reas especficas
de referencia, una evolucin del concepto mismo de diversidad.

El concepto est asentndose en la cultura acadmica evadiendo poco

a poco las influencias ideolgicas y el radicalismo doctrinario que haban
predominado a principio de su propagacin, para ser identificado como
representante de una realidad humana observada y valorada en todos sus
aspectos: sociolgico, antropolgico, psicolgico. Se ha pasado de un des-
valor como objeto de control o, en el mejor de los casos, de la tolerancia, a un
valor cuya proteccin y cumplimiento dependen del compromiso de todos
en la vida civil, ms an a travs del teatro.

Para concluir, quiero destacar las fotos de Jessica Hauf, en el libro La grandeza
de vivir11 dedicado a la Compaa Non Teatro de Catania, recientemente
publicado, y al mismo tiempo el primer volumen de la coleccin Sentiero
di(f)forme (Ruta de formas y diferente) porque corroboran nuestro objetivo
de documentar estas experiencias de alto compromiso artstico y pedaggico,
significativo en el Teatro Educativo de inclusin. Estas imgenes de la
fotgrafa suiza no son el compendio habitual de lo que est sucediendo en
el escenario o en la sala de ensayo, sino que llegan a la profundidad de esa
empata especial que se crea entre los actores en el escenario, e investigan los

9Ibd.
10Gaspari, Pedagogia Speciale: questioni epistemologiche, 7.
11 Valeria Ottolenghi et alias, Non Teatro. La grandezza di vivere (Urbino, Edizioni Nuove Catarsi,
2014).

74
sentimientos ms hondos que a travs del teatro y haciendo teatro ellos
viven y nos devuelven la vitalidad12.

Non Teatro, Illusioni, Compagnia Bagnati di luna AIPD. Fotos de Jessica Hauf.

Bibliografa
Avanzo, Sandro .Lessere umano inteso come poesia (El ser humano entendido como
poesa), Rivista Europea Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit 19, no. 66/67 (2014):
96-97.
Canevaro, Andrea. Le logiche del confine e del sentiero. Una pedagogia dellinclusione
(per tutti, disabili inclusi). Trento: Edizioni Erickson, 2006.
Gaspari, Patrizia. Pedagogia Speciale: questioni epistemologiche (Pedagoga Especial:
cuestiones epistemolgicas). Roma: Edizioni Anicia, 2012.
Minoia, Vito. I Teatri delle diversit a Cartoceto. Atti dei primi dieci convegni (2000-2009).
Ancona: Regin Marcas, Cuadernos del Consejo Regional, 2010.
Minoia, Vito y Pozzi Emilio. Recito dunque so(g)no. Urbino: Edizioni Nuove Catarsi, 2010.
Ottolenghi, Valeria et al. Non Teatro. La grandezza di vivere. Urbino, Edizioni
Nuove Catarsi, 2014.
Seragnoli, Daniele. Teatri delle diversit (1996-2002) analisi e indici di una rivista
sul teatro di interazione sociale, Rivista Europea Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit
8, no. 26/27 (2003): 35.

12 Sandro Avanzo, Lessere umano inteso come poesia (El ser humano entendido como poesa), Rivista
Europea Catarsi-Teatri delle diversit XIX, no. 66/67 (2014): 96-97.

75
76
 Section 2

Sous la direction de Lucile Garbagnati et Franoise Odin

Le festival interuniversitaire de Lille 3 79

Sotiri Haviaras et Hlne Routier

Vingt cinq ans de thtre antique 91

Nathalie Duplain Michel et Anne-Sophie Meyer

Servir sur un plateau 109

Anne-Frdrique Bourget

77
 For thirty years, the Action Culture department of
the University of Lille 3 has been organizing an inter-
university festival, with a dozen student performences
every year. It is held within the University over a
period of two weeks and a professional jury award is
given for the best creation which is later played in
the major theatres of the area. The critical look taken
by both the former president of the festival and one
of the student participants allows thinking through
perspectives which are both distant and involved.
When wondering about the question of repertoire, we
will try to understand the issues of this festival, which
is meant to be a place of experimentation in constant
relationship with the evolution of the European

professional theatre.

78
Le festival interuniversitaire de Lille 3
Sotiri Haviaras et Hlne Routier

De nos jours, une grande partie de lactivit culturelle et artistique sorganise

autour des milliers de festivals qui ont lieu tous les ans en Europe. Un
important ouvrage, paru rcemment, traite de cette histoire des festivals
au XXme et XXIme sicle1. Ce phnomne est particulirement flagrant au
thtre, et le metteur en scne et universitaire, Jean Jourdheuil, affirme mme,
dans son tudeLe thtre, la culture, les festivals, lEurope et leuro2, que la
cration thtrale est de nos jours conditionne par lvnementiel, par sa
prsence aux diffrents festivals. Au cours de ces dcennies, de nombreuses
universits ont elles aussi adopt le festival comme forme privilgie pour la
prsentation de mises en scne dtudiants; le festival interuniversitaire de
Lille 3 est en ce sens un exemple rvlateur.

La mtropole lilloise, qui se compose de trois grandes villes (Lille-Tourcoing-

Roubaix, soit plus dun million dhabitants), est le chef-lieu de la rgion Nord-
Pas-de-Calais. Elle comporte en son sein trois universits dont luniversit
Charles-de-Gaulle Lille 3, spcialise en sciences humaines. Son campus se
situe Villeneuve dAscq, ville priphrique de Lille, accessible facilement et
rapidement en mtro,et il accueille prs de vingt mille tudiants3. Lille 3 a
un service spcifique pour la culture, nomm Action Culture, une structure
qui fonctionne avec six permanents: un directeur enseignant chercheur, un
responsable administratif, un assistant de gestion administrative, un assistant
de laction culturelle, un secrtaire gestionnaire et un ingnieur audiovisuel
multimdia. Il faut savoir que Lille 3 dispose de cinq lieux dvolus aux
ateliers et expositions: deux galeries, la galerie commune et les trois lacs4;
un cinma dart et dessai aux prix trs abordables, le Kino, qui se situe
lentre du btiment le plus frquent de luniversit et fait aussi office de

1 cf. Anas Flchet et al., Une histoire des festivals XXe-XXIe sicle (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013).
2 Jean Jourdheuil Le thtre, la culture, les festivals, lEurope et leuro, Friction, n17, (2011).
3 Huit cent quarante-six enseignants dont plus de cinq cents enseignants-chercheurs, cinq cent soixante-
treize doctorants et six cent deux personnels administratifs.
4 a) La galerie commune, pour le dveloppement culturel de Lille 3 mais celui-ci se trouve Tourcoing
(o se trouve le dpartement Arts Plastiques). Elle se positionne la fois comme un lieu de diffusion de
la cration plastique contemporaine et comme un outil pdagogique pour les enseignants et tudiants
et elle est partage avec lEcole Rgionale Suprieure dExpression Plastique. b) La galerie des trois lacs,
fonde en 1996 sur le campus de Villeneuve dAscq, est trs clectique; ses portes sont ouvertes diverses
thmatiques et modes dexpression.

79
salle polyvalente pour diffrentes manifestations dont le festival; le Thtre
des Passerelles, ancien amphithtre entirement quip en vritable thtre
depuis 1994. Cette scne professionnelle fait face une centaine de places
assises et accueille les ateliers de pratique artistique organiss donc par
Action Culture, mais elle sert galement de nombreuses confrences et
rencontres. Le thtre, qui est bien videmment utilis pendant le festival, lest
aussi tout au long de lanne par les tudiants en Arts de la scne, durant leurs
cours de pratique. Enfin, un studio de danse a t aussi conu rcemment (en
2012), pour permettre aux tudiants de danse davoir un lieu pour rpter,
se perfectionner et apprendre cet art dans de bonnes conditions. Ce bref
rcapitulatif permet de mieux comprendre limplantation dAction Culture au
cur de Lille 3. Bien quil ny ait pas de politique culturelle clairement dfinie
luniversit, lobjectif de cette structure est de proposer aux tudiants une offre
culturelle et artistique, la vie culturelle dans les universits est un lment
important de lexistence de luniversit par rapport lextrieur, par rapport
au territoire dimplantation, par rapport la ville. Cela permet une circulation
entre le dehors et le dedans5. Cette offre est, comme on le devine, en troite
collaboration avec les enseignements de la facult. Le principal vnement
dAction Culture est bien sr le festival interuniversitaire de Lille 3 qui ftera
cette anne sa trentime dition. Action Culture na pas de documents
qui puissent tmoigner du rpertoire du Festival sur toute son existence,
nanmoins, en mettant en commun nos fonds de documentation personnels
rciproques: en tant que prsident du jury du festival interuniversitaire sur
trois ans et membre du Jury durant une douzaine dannes, dune part, et en
tant que participante du festival, comdienne-metteur en scne et spectatrice
assidue durant une dizaine dannes, dautre part, nous avons pu brosser
un tableau du droulement du festival et de ses choix de rpertoire. La
confrontation de ces deux expriences nous a amens poser les questions
suivantes: comment les conditions de cration dterminent-elles les choix des
participants? Quels sont les participants et le public auxquels ils sadressent et
quelles en sont les consquences sur les choix des reprsentations? Peut-on
trouver des hypothses pour expliquer certains choix dramaturgiques? Voil
quelques interrogations dcoulant de la question du rpertoire, auxquelles
nous tcherons dapporter des rponses pour tenter de comprendre les enjeux
de ce festival.

5 Danielle Br, Vie tudiante et politiques culturelles universitaires: attendus de la journe et retour sur
les attendus, Lartiste et le comptable les politiques culturelles universitaires lheure de lvaluation, (Nantes
et Reims, Actes des journes nationales, 2007), 58.

80
Le festival est produit par le service culture de luniversit et se droule au sein
de celle-ci, le public vis est donc estudiantin, tout comme les participants.
Vu le nombre dtudiants inscrits Lille 3, on pourrait sattendre brasser des
tudiants venus des divers UFR pourtant ce sont principalement les tudiants
de lUFR Humanits (le plus important de lUniversit), et plus encore ceux
du parcours thtre qui sont lorigine des reprsentations et qui constituent
le public. Les tudiants de danse sont galement impliqus, mais ils ont depuis
peu leur propre vnement qui se droule chaque semestre au Kino et leur
permet dexprimenter face un public.

Le droulement du festival

Lune des conditions indispensables pour participer au festival est bien

sr que la majorit de la troupe soit compose dtudiants. Il sagit de
slectionner des troupes de thtre, cest dire que les participants doivent
tre regroups et reconnus de manire officielle comme faisant partie
intgrante dune association loi 1901. La plupart du temps ces associations
sont cres pour le festival, les dmarches administratives tant assez simples
et rapides et les conditions trs larges. Cette dmarche donne la possibilit
ces associations qui prennent alors le nom de compagnie, de demander
des subventions. Ces subventions ne sont pas donnes par Action Culture,
il revient lassociation de faire ces demandes, notamment sur un plan
rgional. La subvention la plus demande et la plus accessible aux dossiers
pour lorganisation des reprsentations du festival est celle du CROUS (centre
rgional des uvres universitaires et scolaires). Il faut laborer un budget
prvisionnel principalement pour la scnographie et les costumes (pas de
rmunration pour les comdiens, metteur en scnes, clairagistes ou encore
pour le prsident de lassociation). Cette demande, mme si elle est effectue
avant les reprsentations, est le plus souvent reue aprs coup, ce qui oblige
les participants avancer largent ncessaire la cration du spectacle, ce qui,
comme on peut facilement le deviner, a un impact direct sur le rsultat final.
Les participants du festival tant des tudiants, nont que peu de moyens.
Notons que le CROUS alloue un budget de cinq cent mille euros par troupe.
Le montant de cette bourse et le laps de temps entre la cration et la rception
de cette dernire oblige souvent crer, inventer et faire appel des systmes
D et aussi revoir un peu la baisse quelques ambitions, scnographiques
par exemple. Les mises en scne ne sont pas pour autant toutes sobres et
dpouilles, mais on sent la ncessit pour les tudiants de devoir faire appel
leur ingniosit et leur dbrouillardise. Il sen ressent un petit ct parfois
artisanal qui peut tre des plus surprenants et agir sur divers aspects comme

81
la cration de marionnettes. Partant de ce constat, il est bien vident quil
est rare de voir des dcors luxueux, baroques, excessifs. Les tudiants font
galement appel de plus en plus souvent aux projections vido, mais assez peu
comme simple dcor. Ces projections sont souvent un moyen supplmentaire
pour sapprocher de formes hybrides. Toutefois, le jury, lors de la slection,
nautorisant pas installer ces vidos, le projet artistique des compagnies ne
peut pas reposer uniquement sur elles. Ce fonctionnement (qui se retrouve
pour de nombreuses troupes, au-del mme des festivals universitaires)
a aussi un impact sur les effets scniques possibles, les diffrents groupes
devant laborer leur cration en fonction des moyens mis leur disposition
et ne pouvant pas se permettre de dpenses extras, comme lachat de certains
types de projecteurs. Toutefois, les conditions de rptitions et les moyens
offerts aux troupes sont quasi-professionnels: aide dun technicien lumire
et son, qualit et quantit du matriel. Certaines troupes ont leur propre
technicien et crateur son et lumire, mais il est possible que la technique soit
assure par le technicien dAction Culture. Llaboration dun spectacle nest
presque jamais une affaire individuelle, lune des raisons est que la troupe
repose sur une association, donc est le fait dau moins deux personnes. De
plus, celle-ci est gnralement forme dtudiants, principalement venus du
parcours thtre et de la mme promotion; toutefois ceux de la premire
anne de Licence ne sont que rarement slectionns, et plus on avance dans
le parcours, plus le nombre dtudiants tenter leur chance est lev; ainsi y
a-t-il gnralement au moins la moiti des candidats issue du niveau Master.

Une dizaine de spectacles se joue gnralement durant le festival. Le nombre
de personnes pour chaque troupe excde rarement dix, le plus souvent il
tourne autour de cinq. Si ce nest pas une mise en scne collective, le metteur
en scne est alors bien souvent aussi comdien. Tous les tudiants ne sont pas
de Lille 3, certains peuvent venir dautres universits de Lille et dArras. En
effet, luniversit dArtois Arras comporte onze mille quatre cents tudiants
et a un dpartement Thtre, un service Culture qui organise aussi un festival
durant la mme priode, mais plus restreint puisque luniversit est beaucoup
plus petite.

Lors du festival de Lille 3, les spectacles se jouent dans deux salles diffrentes:
le Kino et le Thtre des Passerelles, ce dernier tant le plus demand par
les compagnies, car sa configuration est plus classique et que les tudiants
y ont leur marque; comme il a t dit, le public est majoritairement issu du
dpartement Arts de la scne et le Thtre des Passerelles se situe au cur de
leurs salles de cours. Ce lieu, donc familier pour eux, est aussi plus intimiste
que le Kino qui, lui, comporte trois cent cinquante places aux dossiers trs

82
hauts, surplombant de faon abrupte une scne large et peu profonde, o
un rideau noir cache lcran. De plus, il est difficile de remplir cette salle,
contrairement au Thtre des Passerelles, dont les proportions sont plus
adaptes ce type de reprsentations.

Depuis deux ans, lentre est gratuite, mais auparavant le prix allait de trois
un euro cinquante, ce qui naidait pas les tudiants pousser la porte de ces
salles. Cette anne, les tudiants de premire anne de Licence ont t invits
participer au festival en crant pour chaque spectacle un petit stand pour
le promouvoir et accueillir le public. On note galement des changements
dans lorganisation des reprsentations: aujourdhui, chaque spectacle se joue
deux fois dans la mme journe et deux spectacles senchanent dans la mme
journe(lun 14h, au Thtre des Passerelles, lautre 15h30, au Kino; puis,
le premier 17h30, toujours au thtre, et le second 19h, au Kino). Cette
organisation sest modifie au cours des annes: il y a encore cinq ans, les
spectacles se jouaient sur deux jours, en trois reprsentations, toujours avec
un autre spectacle qui se jouait en dcalage.

Avant de pouvoir prsenter leur spectacle, les troupes doivent passer deux
tapes. La premire est un examen sur dossier, il sagit de prsenter son projet
artistique. Il est demand aux compagnies de fournir une note dintention de
mise en scne, le descriptif scnographique et un rsum de la pice, ainsi que
le texte lui-mme (sil y en a). Le temps de la reprsentation ne devant pas
excder soixante minutes, cela oblige dans la majorit des cas, les tudiants
adapter le texte ces contraintes. Un jury examine les propositions des
candidats et dcide de ceux qui passeront ltape suivante. Les critres de
slection sont principalement la faisabilit du projet, le srieux des candidats,
loriginalit et lintrt du projet, linvestissement des tudiants... Une fois
les dossiers tudis par le jury professionnel, une audition est organise o
les deux membres les plus actifs de chaque troupe sont reus, gnralement
par trois quatre membres du jury. Les troupes ayant russi passer ces
deux tapes sont convies sur le plateau du Thtre des Passerelles o elles
prsentent dix quinze minutes de leur reprsentation et rpondent aux
nouvelles interrogations du jury (tape qui est parfois saute). Le jury reoit
chaque anne entre vingt et trente dossiers et au fur et mesure de ces
trois tapes, seule une dizaine de troupe fera partie du festival. Cest lors de
lexamen des dossiers que le nombre de candidats limins est le plus lev.
Il est demand ds cette tape aux troupes dtre en rgle, cest--dire que
les questions administratives soient rsolues et notamment celles en relation
avec la DRAC (direction rgionale des affaires culturelles). En effet, il faut
avoir obtenu, ou tre en cours dobtention, lautorisation pour les troupes qui

83
souhaitent monter des uvres non libres de droit (les compagnies montant
des pices dauteurs contemporains sont donc dans lobligation deffectuer ces
dmarches en amont). Les tudiants doivent donc faire attention au dlai et
se prparer pour ce festival assez tt dans lanne universitaire. Bien quil se
droule en avril, les dossiers sont examins ds dcembre. Le temps assez
long des prparatifs du festival mobilise beaucoup les tudiants retenus, ainsi
quAction Culture, durant tout le second semestre. Le festival se droule
donc vers la fin de lanne universitaire, environ deux semaines avant les
vacances de printemps, lesquelles sont suivies par la priode des examens.
Pendant les trois quatre mois de prparation du festival, Action Culture
et lUFR Humanits et le dpartement Art, sont tourns vers llaboration
et lachvement de ce festival. Les troupes choisies sont aides par le service
Action Culture, qui met leur disposition des salles de rptition et qui gre
le planning, donne accs au secrtariat et peut prvoir des rendez-vous avec
lclairagiste. Il revient Action Culture de crer la mdiatisation autour du
festival; les troupes, qui font fonctionner leurs propres rseaux pour amener
du public, sont assez peu mises contribution dans la diffusion du festival.
Elles doivent fournir une affiche de leur spectacle, la distribution et un rsum
qui seront publis dans un programme regroupant toutes les compagnies. De
nombreuses affiches de diffrentes tailles sont placardes dans ltablissement
et il arrive que les compagnies aient des affiches ainsi que des flyers pour
leur spectacles et quils les distribuent dans diffrents lieux: cole de thtre,
thtre, caf, bar etc. La meilleure stratgie tant de cibler mme en dehors de
ltablissement, les tudiants de Lille 3. Les horaires des reprsentations ayant
t penss principalement pour les gens sur place, les spectacles sont lheure
de la pause djeuner. Le but de lalternance des spectacles est aussi, bien sr,
de permettre tous les participants de voir lensemble du festival.

Lintrt pour ces jeunes compagnies de participer un tel festival est

videmment multiple. Ils profitent dune exprience de la scne devant un
large public et dans des conditions professionnelles. Cest aussi lopportunit
pour les laurats de se produire sur les scnes de la rgion et dentamer une
tourne lchelle nationale. Ils bnficient enfin de laccompagnement de
professionnels pour leur projet et se mesurent un jury tout en partageant
lexprience avec dautres troupes. Limplication de professionnels dans les
diffrentes tapes du festival motive encore davantage les tudiants dans
leur projet; Patrick Houque, fondateur de ce festival, dclareque le Festival
a trouv sa dimension lorsque nous avons dcid dintgrer le regard de
professionnels sur les travaux raliss par le biais dun jury qui, en dsignant
un laurat du Festival, venait reconnatre ou distinguer un travail plus

84
abouti quun autre6. Ce festival est souvent loccasion pour les compagnies
de dbuter, de tester et de se lancer dans la cration, dans un espace assez
protg, sans obligation de rentabilit ou de problme de production, de
diffusion, etc., dtre davantage concentres sur la cration elle-mme. Cela
est possible car le festival est bien encadr et a le soutien de luniversit et des
professionnels de la mtropole lilloise.

Si lon regarde dun peu plus prs, on remarque que la question de ladaptation
est quasi permanente. La dure maximale du spectacle et le nombre (restreint)
de personnes dans chaque compagnie oblige le metteur en scne rduire
le texte, couper des parties entires, supprimer parfois des personnages.
Cette contrainte contribue aussi fortement au choix du texte reprsent, bien
sr. Les spectacles slectionns sont en trs grande majorit du thtre, ce
nest que rcemment que lon commence inclure des spectacles uniquement
de danse. De plus, souvent, ces spectacles inscrits dans la catgorie danse
peuvent tre considrs davantage comme des spectacles hybrides7. Il est
intressant de remarquer que ces informations ne sont pas prsentes dans
le programme dit par Action Culture. Une autre impression est que les
tudiants ne sappuient plus autant sur les textes, mais ralisent des critures
de plateau ou crivent eux-mmes en amont une pice, ou encore choisissent
de sappuyer sur des objets, des thmes. Les spectacles du festival sont souvent
trs clectiques et sans cohrence les uns par rapport aux autres; lide qui
avait t mise par lun des membres du jury de donner une thmatique pour
chaque festival na jamais vu le jour. Les compagnies tant libres de monter
ce qui leur plat, les pices choisies sont trs diffrentes: on peut trouver des
classiques (Shakespeare en premier), et du thtre contemporain (Marius
von Mayenbourg, Sarah Kane, etc.), la littrature thtrale est si vaste et si
diversifie, une si petite et si troite partie est reprsente, que la libert de
choix est infinie [] lamateur peut prendre tous les risques, il peut jouer
nimporte quoi8. Toutefois, les choix dramaturgiques des tudiants peuvent
trouver diffrentes explications: la plus vidente est leur intrt personnel.
Mais ces gots sont aussi fortement forms par lenvironnement dans lequel
ils voluent et pratiquent le thtre. Il faut savoir que la mtropole lilloise
a plusieurs thtres dont deux trs importants: le Thtre du Nord qui est

6 Patrick Houque (ed), Avant-propos, Thtre Universitaire... Phnix ou Arlsienne?, Universit de

Lille 3, France, mars 29, 2001 (France, Villeneuve dAscq, 2001), 10.
7 Il y a parfois une confusion de la part des tudiants vouloir trop catgoriser leur cration sous un
terme un peu fig comme performance, danse etc. alors quil sagit plus simplement de spectacles hybrides
faisant appel diffrentes formes artistiques.
8 Grard Loubinoux, Le thtre amateur, nouvel underground? Janine Chne (ed.), Penser(z) les
politiques culturelles universitaires, INSA, Lyon, janvier 13-14, 2005 (France, Villeneuve dAscq, 2005), 183.

85
le centre dramatique national et La Rose des Vents qui, elle, est une scne
Nationale. Ces deux grands thtres ont des partenariats avec lUniversit
de Lille 3 et sont donc des lieux de rendez-vous incontournables pour les
tudiants. Le premier, le Thtre du Nord, se situe en plein centre de Lille,
aux abords du mtro: il offre aux tudiants un pass qui leur permet de payer
les spectacles trois euros. Longtemps dirig par Stuart Seide, il vient de
passer, cette anne, dans les mains de Christoph Rauck. Ses programmations
proposent une deux crations et une quinzaine de grandes productions
franaises (par exemple celles de Stphane Braunschweig, de Patrice Chreau,
des reprsentations issues du festival dAvignon, etc.). Ce sont souvent des
pices tires dun rpertoire plutt classique. linverse, la Rose des
Vents, qui est Villeneuve dAscq et dix minutes pied de luniversit
Lille 3, est plus sensible aux croisements, aux mtissages des formes, aux
dcloisonnements. Elle nhsite pas inviter de jeunes metteurs en scne
europens, aux esthtiques diverses. Son directeur, Didier Thibault, a t le
premier, par exemple, prsenter luvre de Romeo Castellucci. Le projet
artistique dfendu par ce thtre met laccent sur la recherche de nouvelles
critures dramatiques et scniques, sur lmergence des formes nouvelles,
et le thtre-danse y occupe une place prpondrante. Une cinquantaine
de spectacles y sont proposes toute lanne, dont une dizaine pendant un
festival, et des spectacles pour enfants (comme certains de Jol Pommerat).
La ville de Lille a une place stratgique puisquelle est frontalire avec la
Belgique, trente minutes en train de Bruxelles et une heure en TGV de
Paris. Cette situation est un atout majeur pour les tudiants qui ont ainsi la
possibilit et limpression dtre prs des grands centres europens culturels
et de se maintenir au courant des actualits thtrales plus facilement. Les
tudiants en thtre de Lille 3 vont facilement dans ces deux grandes structures
nationales. Ils sont tenus de voir au moins cinq spectacles la Rose des Vents
des uvres qui sont tudies en cours et les spcialits de chaque professeur
du dpartement Art influent certainement sur leurs choix. On a pu voir ainsi
se dessiner au cours des annes une attirance particulire pour les auteurs
dramatiques contemporains allemands et, plus largement, pour lesthtique
du thtre allemand (par exemple de celui de Thomas Ostermeier), ou encore
pour lutilisation de la marionnette (des ateliers spcifiques sur la marionnette
ont t organiss par luniversit et Action Culture), lexprimentation de
formes de thtre tranger, comme le But et le thtre N; ltude de la
performance a galement pouss les tudiants exprimenter des formes
plus libres de reprsentation et les a loigns des supports textuels ou des
textes plus classiques. Le festival est donc pour les tudiants un moyen de
sapproprier, de semparer des diffrentes formes de thtre auxquelles ils
sont confronts, le thtre luniversit est la fois tmoin et acteur de la

86
culture contemporaine, [... car] il constitue un organisme vivace, irrigu par
les courants du temps9.

Le rpertoire

On remarque depuis une dizaine dannes dans le rpertoire du festival, une

volont de diversifier les matriaux dramaturgiques; ainsi retrouve-t-on des
critures tires de romans, de pomes, de la presse crite... Mais on note
tout de mme quil y a au moins un grand auteur dit classique au cur
du festival chaque anne. En 2014, ctait Shakespeare, mais auparavant, ce
furent plutt des classiques du XXme sicle, comme Brecht ou Genet. Des
grands auteurs contemporains sont galement prsents, tels Olivier Py ou
Marius von Mayenbourg. Enfin, il faut noter une prfrence pour les textes
franais, mme si, comme on la dj dit, lune des tendances est daller vers
des textes dorigine trangre assez rpandus (les tudiants se basant sur des
traductions existantes). Pour tayer ces affirmations, procdons quelques
chantillonnages des reprsentations de ce festival interuniversitaire: dans
le programme de 2001 (la 16me dition du festival), sur huit spectacles, un
seul relve de la danse, cinq sont des pices dauteurs contemporains, pas
ncessairement trs connus du grand public, et deux de grands auteurs
modernes reconnus: Cocteau et Genet. En 2004, on a vu se jouer deux
collages de textes dramaturgiques divers et un de pomes, trois grands auteurs
modernes (Copi, Sarraute, Dario Fo), une libre adaptation du mythe de Dom
Juan sans revendication dauteur (collective ou personnelle) et sans prcision
sur la nature du spectacle (danse) et une pice crite par un tudiant. On
aperoit que les matriaux dramaturgiques des tudiants slargissent de
plus en plus, en 2006 (21me dition) on remarque une ouverture vers des
auteurs trangers: un allemand (Schneider) et un auteur dorigine africaine,
Efoui. On retrouve de plus en plus de pices crites par les tudiants (au
moins une chaque anne); en 2009, il y en eut mme quatre. Cette volont
chez les tudiants dtre aussi dramaturges se ralentit lheure actuelle. Il est
intressant de remarquer que lune de ces pices, en 2011, fut crite et joue
en espagnol et surtitre en franais. Cette reprsentation a mis en avant la
volont du jury et des organisateurs douvrir le festival au monde pour sortir
du contexte exclusivement franais, voire lillois.

Pour conclure, il est vident que le rpertoire du festival universitaire

suit les grandes volutions du thtre professionnel europen. Les choix

9 Lucile Garbagnati, Luniversit: le monde de tous les possibles, Thtre Universitaire... Phnix ou
Arlsienne?, op. cit., 110.

87
dramaturgiques des tudiants voluent trs rapidement, notamment grce
leur propre exprience de spectateur. Lattrait pour des auteurs trangers est
un bon exemple de cette ouverture du festival. Ainsi, deux pices anglaises de
Sarah Kane et dEdward Bond, furent joues en 2010, alors que leurs auteurs
avaient dj t proposs et refuss par le jury en 2007. Cette volont de
faire du festival de Lille 3 un miroir du thtre contemporain est frappante,
comme le montre cet extrait du discours douverture du festival 2011 par lun
de ses prsidents: Il sagit de mettre notre festival au diapason des dernires
tendances du spectacle vivant contemporain, qui mlent les genres et les
pratiques, et de prtendre par consquent, modestement peut-tre, contribuer
au dbat dcoulant dun autre (faux) conflit entre thtre de texte et thtre
dimages. Le Festival se doit donc dtre un lieu dexprimentation, un lieu
ouvert, un lieu dcoute, de rencontres, de dcouvertes et un laboratoire
dides; ce qui ne doit pas tre compris comme un renoncement au plaisir
thtral, bien au contraire!.

88
Bibliographie

Flchet, Anas, Goetschel, Pascale, Hidiroglou, Patricia, Jacotot, Sophie, Moine

Caroline et Verlaine, Jule (eds). Une histoire des festivals XXe-XXIe sicles.
Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013.

Jourdheuil, Jean. Le thtre, la culture, les festivals, lEurope et leuro, Friction.

n17, 2011.

Actes des colloques ART + UNIVERSITE + CULTURE

Chne, Janine (ed.). La Mission culturelle de lUniversit au XXIe sicle. France,

Universit Paris Sorbonne, mai, 2003. France, Villeneuve dAscq, 2003.

Penser(z) les politiques culturelles universitaires. INSA, Lyon, janvier 13-14, 2005.
France, Villeneuve dAscq, 2005.

Sarrade, Philippe (eds.). Lartiste et le comptable les politiques culturelles

universitaires lheure de lvaluation. Nantes, fvrier 7, 2007, Reims, dcembre,
9, 2007. France, Villeneuve dAscq, 2009.

Houque, Patrick (ed). Thtre Universitaire... Phnix ou Arlsienne? Universit de

Lille 3, France, mars 29, 2001. France, Villeneuve dAscq, 2001.

Tout au long de la vie: Education? Formation? Culture?.. France, Lille, avril, 2004.
France, Villeneuve dAscq, 2004.

Publications de lAITU (Association Internationale du Thtre lUniversit) -IUTA.

aitu-iuta.org

AITU PRESS:
Pdagogie thtrale (2013)
Les acteurs des thtres universitaires (2010)
Enseigner / tudier le thtre luniversit: pour quoi? (2006)
Thtre sans frontires (2002)
tudier le thtre (2001)
Le Thtre lUniversit: Un Thtre Spcifique (1996)

89
 For some of its features, the ancient theater presents
a mix of distance and proximity to our time. When
it comes to its translation and performance, one has
to be aware of this distance. The peculiarity of the
dramatic repertoire of Antiquity and the Middle Ages
is its fragmentary aspect. Only a small number of
complete plays have survived. Since the Greek and
Latin cultures have always attributed great importance
to oral performance, their literature offers a huge
potential for a company that has decided to limit itself
to Antiquity, but not to theater texts.
Since 1989, the Groupe de Thtre Antique of the
Universit de Neuchtel (Switzerland) has brought
eighteen original creations into being, ten of them
based on dramatic works. The troupe has mainly
performed comedies, tragi-comedies of Euripides
and some selections of texts from the vast ancient
literature. Alongside its mission of revitalizing the
ancient texts through the theater stage, the GTA
pursues a didactic purpose of transmitting the

knowledge of antiquity.

90
Vingt cinq ans de thtre antique

Nathalie Duplain Michel et Anne-Sophie Meyer

Prsentation de la troupe

Le Groupe de Thtre Antique de lUniversit de Neuchtel (GTA) est une

compagnie forme dtudiants et dassistants de lUniversit de Neuchtel et
plus particulirement de la Facult des Lettres et sciences humaines. Il a pour
but de mieux faire connatre lAntiquit et le Moyen-ge au grand public
dune manire attractive et vivante. Il dpoussire les textes anciens, ravive le
mordant de leur humour ou lauthenticit de leurs motions.
Le GTA a un statut dassociation but non lucratif, tel quil est dfini dans le
code civil suisse. Il nest rattach lUniversit de Neuchtel qu travers des
collaborations. Depuis quelques annes cependant, lAlma Mater a intgr un
cours dart dramatique li aux activits du GTA. Pendant un semestre, les
tudiants suivent un cours consacr la pratique ainsi qu la prsentation de
certains thoriciens du thtre. Moyennant des lectures et un examen oral,
les tudiants peuvent engranger cinq crdits ECTS. Au cours du semestre
suivant, ils ont la possibilit, sils le souhaitent, de faire lexprience de la scne
en devenant membre du GTA et en participant soit la cration dun nouveau
spectacle soit la tourne dun spectacle dj cr.

Le thtre antique

Lhistoire du thtre antique stend sur plusieurs sicles et concerne deux

civilisations distinctes. Il nest pas possible, dans le cadre de cet article, de
prsenter de manire complte son dveloppement et ses particularits.
Nanmoins dans le cadre dune analyse du rpertoire dune troupe qui sest
donn le nom de Groupe de thtre antique, il est essentiel den dcrire
certaines caractristiques afin de mieux comprendre sa dmarche ainsi que
lvolution de son rpertoire au cours de ses vingt-cinq annes dexistence.
Nous prsenterons donc le thtre grec, en nous limitant sa pratique en
Attique au Vme avant notre re, avant de proposer un bref survol du thtre
romain.

91
Le thtre attique

N vers la fin du VIme sicle av. J.-C., dans des conditions aujourdhui mal
connues, le thtre attique a connu son apoge vers le milieu du Vme sicle
avant dvoluer vers des formes sensiblement diffrentes jusqu lpoque
impriale romaine1. Il est indissociable du culte de Dionysos, un dieu
la personnalit complexe2, qui prside la vigne, au vin, livresse, mais
galement la fertilit en gnral, comme en tmoignent les reprsentations
de phallus associes ses rites. Fils de Zeus et dune mortelle, Sml, il est
un dieu des extrmes: il est lev dans le monde sauvage, do il revient pour
imposer un culte caractris par la possession et lextase, la limite de la
folie. Dionysos reprsente en quelque sorte la part de dsordre ncessaire
lquilibre, humain ou social, car un ordre trop touffant est aussi nfaste que
le chaos lui-mme. Cest ce que Tirsias tente dexpliquer Penthe dans les
Bacchantes dEuripide:

Ce dieu, ce nouveau dieu que tu ridiculises, je ne pourrais te dire lampleur que

prendra sa puissance travers toute la Grce. En effet, mon garon, il est deux
valeurs essentielles pour les hommes. Tout dabord la desse Dmter, qui est la
Terre- appelle-la comme tu veux. Elle nourrit les hommes de pain. Aprs elle,
mais au mme rang, vient le fils de Sml. Il a invent le liquide tir de la vigne
et a apport aux mortels cette boisson qui met fin leurs chagrins. Lorsquon
en boit, le vin apporte le sommeil et loubli des tracas quotidiens. A cela, il ny
a point dautre remde. Dionysos, tout dieu quil soit, est offert en libation aux
autres dieux: cest grce lui que les hommes obtiennent la flicit 3.

A Athnes, cest justement lors des festivals ddis Dionysos que les pices
de thtre taient reprsentes: les Lnennes, la fin du mois de janvier, et les
Grandes Dionysies, fin mars. Ce placement dans le calendrier nest dailleurs
pas sans rappeler nos clbrations carnavalesques.
Les reprsentations avaient lieu en plein air. La situation du thtre de
Dionysos sur le versant sud-est de lAcropole, laire la plus sacre de la cit
attique, donne une ide du rle central et du culte dionysiaque et du thtre
pour les institutions athniennes. Le thtre construit en pierre, que lon peut
encore admirer de nos jours, date du IVme sicle avant notre re et reprsente

1 Pour un survol sur le thtre grec, voir Harold C. Baldry, Le Thtre tragique des Grecs (Paris: Franois
Maspero, 1975); Paul Demont et Anne Lebeau, Introduction au thtre grec antique (Paris: Librairie
gnrale franaise, 1996).
2 Sur Dionysos, voir Henri Jeanmaire, Dionysos. Histoire du culte de Bacchus (Paris: Payot, 1951);
Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 1985), 161.
3Euripide, Les Bacchantes. Traduction nouvelle adapte au thtre, trad. Nathalie Duplain, dir.
(Neuchtel: Groupe de Thtre antique, 1995), v. 270-285.

92
la dernire phase dans lvolution architecturale du thtre grec4. Le dispositif
dorigine consistait en un terre-plein amnag pour les volutions du chur,
lorchestra, et en une cabane, appele skn, abritant les acteurs pendant les
changements de costume ou de masque. Les spectateurs sinstallaient tout
autour ou sur les pentes avoisinantes. Par la suite, on construisit des gradins
de bois en demi-cercle, formant le thtron, le lieu do lon voit.
La manire dont se droulaient les pices antiques, tragiques ou comiques,
diffre notablement du thtre classique et contemporain. Tout dabord, tous
les personnages taient interprts par des acteurs masculins, y compris
des figures fminines de premier plan comme Antigone, Electre, Mde ou
Phdre5. Les acteurs taient compltement couverts par des vtements et des
accessoires: ils portaient des masques complets sur le visage, des costumes
richement dcors et des bottines de cuir. Leur nombre tant limit trois,
ils interprtaient plusieurs rles dans une mme pice. En marge des acteurs
principaux, le chur jouait un rle important dans les pices attiques,
incarnant une sorte dintermdiaire entre les acteurs et le public. De fait, les
acteurs voluaient sur une surface surleve devant la skn, le proskenion,
qui tait spare du public par lorchestra, lespace rserv au chur.
Le thtre antique tait intgralement compos en vers, les parties chorales
tant de plus mises en musique. Certaines notations musicales nous sont
parvenues, mais leur interprtation reste sujette caution.

Dans lAttique de lpoque classique, les reprsentations thtrales se faisaient

sous la forme de concours dans le cadre des festivals mentionns plus haut, o
trois potes taient invits concourir. Dans les concours de tragdie, chaque
pote devrait crire trois pices tragiques et un drame satyrique6, alors que
dans les concours de comdie, une seule uvre par auteur tait en lice.
Le thtre attique est indissociable de la vie politique de lAthnes
dmocratique. Ctait en effet la cit qui veillait lorganisation des concours
dramatiques. Pour les financer, elle avait institu un impt particulier, la
chorgie, frappant des citoyens aiss et les chargeant de couvrir les frais du
chur et des costumes. Le contenu des pices de thtre se faisait lcho de la
vie de la cit. La comdie ancienne, qui nous est connue surtout par luvre
dAristophane, constituait une revue satirique de la vie politique. On y trouve
de nombreuses allusions comiques des personnages contemporains dont les

4 Pour lhistoire du thtre de Dionysos Athnes voir Baldry, Le Thtre tragique des Grecs, 57 sqq.
5 Pour les reprsentations, Baldry, Le Thtre tragique des Grecs, 82-90.
6 Le drame satyrique est un genre spcifique au thtre grec antique. Son chur est form de satyres, des
tres mythologiques ithyphalliques pourvus de pattes et dune queue de bouc, associs troitement au culte
de Dionysos. Bien que traitant des thmes analogues ceux de la tragdie sur un ton volontiers moqueur,
ce genre na aucun lien avec la satire. Un drame satyrique forme, avec trois tragdies, une ttralogie.

93
plus connus sont Euripide et Socrate. Les tragdies grecques refltent le climat
politique de manire moins directe, car elles ont une porte plus gnrale.
Nanmoins des thmes essentiels au fonctionnement de la dmocratie
athnienne y sont traits. Cest ainsi que lOrestie se termine lAropage
dAthnes o la justice des hommes prend le relais de la vengeance, tandis
que Les Perses dEschyle narrent un pisode des guerres mdiques. Mais le
rle de la tragdie est encore plus profond. Dans sa Potique, Aristote avait
relev son action cathartique sur lindividu, lui permettant de se dbarrasser
de lexcs des passions.

La tragdie est limitation dune action grave et complte, ayant une certaine
tendue, prsente dans un langage rendu agrable et de telle sorte que chacune
des parties qui la composent subsiste sparment, se dveloppant avec des
personnages qui agissent, et non au moyen dune narration, et oprant par la
piti et la terreur la purgation des passions de la mme nature 7.

Ainsi comme le souligne J.-P. Vernant8, parce que la tragdie met en scne
une fiction, les vnements douloureux, terrifiants quelle donne voir sur
la scne produisent un tout autre effet que sils taient rels. (...) Arraches
lopacit du particulier et de laccidentel par la logique dun scnario qui
pure en simplifiant, condensant, systmatisant, les souffrances humaines,
dordinaires dplores ou subies, deviennent dans le miroir de la fiction
tragique objets dune comprhension. Cette dimension cathartique na pas
disparu du thtre contemporain. Il est intressant cependant de noter quelle
tait releve dans lune des premires thories sur les effets du thtre. Il en va
de mme du rle de critique de la vie sociale et politique attribu au thtre.
On peut en revenir au point par lequel nous avons dmarr ce bref survol:
cest justement le rle de Dionysos de maintenir dans la cit un rle suffisant
de dsordre pour prserver lordre, telle une soupape.

Le thtre romain

La situation du thtre dans le monde romain prsente de nombreuses

similitudes avec le monde grec, ce dautant plus quil en a t fortement
influenc. Les premires pices de thtre connues se dveloppent Rome
dans le courant du IIIme sicle avant J.-C. principalement sous linfluence
des contacts avec le monde hellnistique, mais intgrent galement ds leurs

7Aristote, Potique, trad. Ch. Emile Ruelle, (Paris: Librairie Garnier Frres, 1922), 1449b 24-28.
8 Jean-Pierre Vernant et Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Mythe et tragdie, Volume 2 (Paris: ditions la dcouverte
ditions la dcouverte, 1986), 88-89.

94
dbuts des lments issus des traditions locales osques et trusques9. Tout
comme en Grce, il sagit de reprsentations publiques dans un contexte la
fois politique et religieux, les cots tant supports par des mcnes dsireux
de sattirer les faveurs du peuple10. Ainsi il ntait pas rare quun auteur soit
charg de glorifier les faits darmes de certains hommes politiques. Nanmoins,
de mme que pour le thtre grec, la plus grande partie des pices crites
cette poque na pas survcu. Dans le cas du thtre romain, cest toute la
production tragique de lpoque rpublicaine qui est largement inconnue, la
comdie tant mieux reprsente par les productions de Plaute et de Trence.
Paralllement au dclin de la Rpublique romaine se produit une baisse de
la vitalit de la production thtrale dont les causes sont encore largement
mconnues. Lcriture thtrale semble dsormais cantonne au cercle plus
restreint dune lite cultive, comme cest le cas pour les tragdies composes
par Snque, les seules tragdies en langue latine qui nous soient intgralement
parvenues. Leur contexte diffre largement de celui de lpoque rpublicaine:
non seulement le systme politique sest transform avec le passage lempire,
mais leur rsonnance ntait certainement plus si large. Alors que le thtre
rpublicain tait jou pour un large public, tout laisse penser que le thtre
dpoque impriale tait soit mis en scne lors de reprsentations prives de
llite, soit seulement rcit en petit comit. Ainsi les dimensions sociales et
religieuses que possdaient les pices rpublicaines disparaissent en grande
partie; il est cependant intressant de noter que, si les reprsentations de
tragdies et comdies se font rare sous lempire, elles sont supplantes
auprs du grand public par dautres genres apparents tels que le mime ou la
pantomime, dans lesquels limportance de la parole diminue au profit de la
musique et de la danse.

En rsum, par certaines de ses caractristiques religieuses et politiques,

cause des particularits du droulement de ses reprsentations et puisquil a
t compos dans une langue et dans une culture vieilles de 2500 ans, le thtre
attique est trs loign de nous, alors que dautres de ses aspects nous sont
proches et nous semblent trs actuels. Le thtre romain prsente galement
ce mlange de distance et de proximit par rapport notre poque. Quand
il sagit de traduire et de monter des pices antiques, il ne faut pas ngliger
cette distance, voire cette tranget. Il faut, de plus, sarmer des connaissances
et des comptences ncessaires pour saisir le sens des textes, tant au niveau

9 Pour un survol de lhistoire du thtre latin, voir Florence Dupont, Le thtre latin (Paris: Armand
Colin, 1988), 30-42.
10 Pour le lien entre thtre et socit lpoque rpublicaine, voir Matthew Leigh, Comedy and the Rise
of Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

95
linguistique quau niveau de la comprhension historique et culturelle, afin de
mieux sapproprier ces uvres anciennes.

Le rpertoire dramatique antique

Le thtre tait un genre majeur dans lAntiquit et de nombreuses pices

dramatiques, tragiques ou comiques, ont t composes durant cette priode.
Cependant moins dune centaine de pices compltes nous sont parvenues.
Si lon songe la production littraire dans le seul cadre des concours
dramatiques dAthnes, on mesure lampleur de ce naufrage. Le principal
facteur de la disparition de la majorit des uvres anciennes, qui ne concerne
du reste pas que les genres thtraux, rside dans labsence de procds de
reproduction des textes autres que la copie manuelle et dans la fragilit des
supports, le papyrus tout dabord, auquel sajouta plus tard le parchemin.
Ce nest pas le lieu ici dexpliquer lhistoire complexe de la transmission des
textes antiques jusqu la Renaissance, priode laquelle on a pu tablir les
premires ditions imprimes. On peut cependant relever que les uvres qui
ont survcu diverses catastrophes telles que les incendies ou les guerres, ne
doivent pas leur prennit au seul hasard. Des choix avaient dj t effectus
au cours de lAntiquit. Ainsi certains auteurs attiques avaient acquis une
renomme qui allait au-del des frontires de lempire athnien. Eschyle
aurait effectu un ou deux voyages en Sicile, o il est dcd en 456 av. J.-
C. Quant Euripide, il sest retir la cour des rois de Macdoine o il est
mort en 406 av. J.-C., aprs avoir compos les Bacchantes. Les pices les plus
apprcies du public furent rejoues ds lAntiquit. A lpoque hellnistique,
on sest proccup de la prservation du savoir. Cest de cette priode que
date la premire tentative de runion des textes essentiels de la littrature
grecque, travers le projet de la bibliothque dAlexandrie11. Bien que cette
bibliothque ait t dtruite par les flammes, elle a jou un rle norme dans
la prservation et dans la slection des textes. De plus, au cours de lAntiquit
dj, des choix dauteurs et duvres ont t faits lattention des coliers et
des tudiants12.
Une des particularits du rpertoire thtral de lAntiquit rside donc dans son
aspect fragmentaire. Et lon est bien forc de se poser la question de la qualit
des textes conservs. A travers lhistoire de la transmission des textes, on peut

11 Pour une histoire de la Bibliothque dAlexandrie, voir Luciano Canfora, La Vritable Histoire de la
Bibliothque dAlexandrie (Paris: Desjonqures, 1988).
12 Henri-Irne Marrou, Histoire de lducation dans lAntiquit. 1. Le monde grec (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1981), 247.

96
considrer que ce qui nous est parvenu constituait sans doute le pinacle de la
cration dramatique aux yeux des Anciens. Il faut toutefois garder lesprit
que les critres des savants dAlexandrie ntaient pas les mmes que les ntres
et que si nous avions pu slectionner cent pices antiques nous-mmes, nous
aurions certainement un rpertoire sensiblement diffrent. Cette dperdition
constitue une nouvelle difficult pour une troupe se consacrant au thtre
antique. Non seulement le nombre de pices est faible, mais il faut aussi
bien avouer que si certaines uvres conserves comme lOrestie dEschyle,
lAntigone de Sophocle ou la Mde dEuripide, ont t riges au statut
dlments de la culture universelle, dautres nont plus gure de rsonnance
de nos jours. La traduction et la reprsentation de ces dernires reprsentent
alors un vritable dfi, comme en tmoigne le projet du GTA autour de
lOreste dEuripide.

Les pices entirement conserves se partagent entre deux genres principaux:

la tragdie et la comdie. Nous avons conserv un seul exemplaire de drame
satyrique. Sans tenir compte des problmes dattribution tel ou tel auteur,
nous avons conserv des tragdies de trois potes athniens: sept dEschyle
(526-456 av. J.-C.), huit de Sophocle (495-406 av. J.-C.) et dix-huit dEuripide
(vers 480-406 av. J.-C). La comdie ancienne nous est connue par les onze
pices conserves dAristophane (vers 445, entre 385 et 375 av. J.-C.). Les
sables dEgypte ont miraculeusement rendu, au milieu du XXme sicle,
environ six textes plus ou moins complets de Mnandre (343-292 av. J.-C.),
reprsentant de la comdie nouvelle.

Le thtre latin a aussi vu trs peu de ses uvres survivre. Nous avons encore
vingt et une comdies de Plaute (254-184 av. J.-C.) et six de Trence (190-159
av. J.-C.). Quant la tragdie latine, elle ne nous est connue que par dix pices
datant de lpoque impriale, composes par Snque (entre lan 4 av. J.-C. et
lan 1 ap. J.-C. - 65 ap. J.-C)13.
Ainsi nous avons rpertori moins de quatre-vingt-dix pices auxquelles
sajoutent de trs nombreux fragments difficilement exploitables sur une
scne. Il est lgitime de se demander sil est possible quune troupe de thtre
se limite un rpertoire aussi petit. Le fait que ces uvres soient crites dans
deux langues complique encore la donne, car pour avoir le choix, il faut que
le groupe ait des comptences dans lune et lautre langue.

13 Des doutes subsistent quant lattribution de deux dentre elles lOctavie et lHercule sur lOeta
Snque; il parat fort probable quen tous cas lOctavie ait t compose en ralit quelques annes aprs
la mort de Snque.

97
Tableau 1: pices antiques conserves selon le genre et la langue

Grec Latin
Tragdie + Drame satyrique 34 10
Comdie 17 27

Le potentiel dramatique de la littrature antique

Dans la pratique actuelle du thtre, on ne se cantonne plus aux textes crits

spcifiquement pour la scne. La littrature antique est riche et varie, stend
sur plus de mille ans et comprend des uvres composes dans deux langues
principales, le grec et le latin, ces langues elles-mmes ayant subi chacune de
profondes transformations au cours du temps.
Les dbuts de la littrature grecque illustrent bien le passage de loralit
lcriture. Un dbat ancien et nourri de nombreux arguments spare les
philologues entre ceux qui considrent que lpope homrique est le fruit
dune composition orale et ceux qui considrent quelle est dj une uvre
crite, issue de la tradition des ades. Ce nest pas le lieu ici de prsenter les
arguments des uns et des autres ou de se faire une opinion sur la question. Il
suffit de considrer que les dbuts de la littrature grecque sont profondment
empreints de loralit et notamment de la tradition performative des ades.
Lpope homrique, riche en dialogues, est de nature tre dite devant un
public. Outre la posie pique, les littratures grecque et latine connaissent
de nombreuses autres formes potiques, toutes lies des musiques et des
situations performatives propres.
Lun des principaux genres littraires de lAntiquit est celui du discours. La
parole, notamment la parole prononce en public, tait constitutive de la
civilisation antique et elle se dveloppe travers les institutions politiques
et judiciaires, bases sur le dbat et largumentation. La rhtorique est
rapidement devenue un enseignement essentiel lducation du citoyen.
Nous avons conserv de nombreux discours soit en tant que tel, comme ceux
Dmosthne ou de Cicron, soit insrs dans dautres uvres.
Si les premiers philosophes avaient choisi la posie et les aphorismes pour
exprimer leur pense, en passant la prose, leurs successeurs ont privilgi
la forme du dialogue. Cest par ce biais que nous est connue la philosophie de
Platon. Les dialogues correspondent lenseignement exotrique du penseur,
par opposition aux traits spcialiss, perdus, bass sur les notes de cours,
et rservs ses lves. Par la suite, la forme du dialogue se dtache de la
philosophie pour constituer un genre littraire tabli. A partir de lpoque
hellnistique, il faut galement noter linvention du genre pistolaire, qui met
en scne une correspondance relle ou fictive, ainsi que le dveloppement du

98
roman. En particulier dans le cas du Satyricon, le roman possde un aspect
thtral non ngligeable; on considre en effet quil sinspire entre autres de
genres scniques mconnus, comme la farce, le mime et la pantomime14.
De manire plus globale, la littrature grco-latine couvre les principaux
aspects de lexistence. Elle a galement trait de thmes qui sont devenus,
sinon des universaux, du moins des rfrences incontournables dans la
culture occidentale: que lon songe seulement la mythologie, dipe,
Narcisse, Icare. Cette littrature est de surcrot issue dune culture qui a
toujours accord la parole prononce et la performance en public une
importance de premier ordre. Elle offre donc un norme potentiel pour une
troupe qui aurait choisi de se limiter lAntiquit, mais sans se cantonner aux
textes de thtre.

Aprs cette introduction au thtre antique, ce quil en reste, et aux buts

poursuivis par le GTA, il sagit de voir comment son rpertoire a volu
au cours de son existence. Il faut demble tre conscient quil sagit dune
exprience denviron vingt-cinq annes.

La dmarche du GTA
Un thtre contemporain

Ds sa cration, le GTA a fait plusieurs choix fondamentaux auxquels il

sest tenu. Tout dabord il a opt pour une mise en scne contemporaine de
textes antiques. Il na jamais eu lintention de reconstituer les reprsentations
thtrales telles quelles se droulaient dans lAntiquit, mais au contraire
il a voulu les ancrer dans le prsent. Il faut souligner quune approche
archologique est une entreprise trs complexe, puisquelle aurait suppos
une reconstitution des lieux, des costumes, des masques, mais aussi de la
musique, des dplacements, de la prononciation du grec ancien et du latin
ainsi que de la scansion. Or chacune de ces questions fait lobjet de dbats
scientifiques encore assez vifs. Des choix arbitraires auraient t ncessaires.
Mais comme les buts du GTA taient la mise en valeur des textes antiques
pour un public contemporain, il na jamais t question dune telle dmarche.
Il a donc opt pour une voie qui admet lexistence de deux cultures et qui
va jouer sur le passage de lune lautre, par un enrichissement rciproque15.

14 Pour une tude de la thtralit du Satyricon, voir Costas Panayotakis, Theatrum arbitri: theatrical
elements in the Satyrica of Petronius, (Leiden, New York, Kln: Brill, 1995).
15 Nathalie Duplain, Jouer le thtre antique, in Sring, Jrgen et al. (d.), Le Thtre antique et sa
rception. Hommage Walter Spoerri (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris, Wien: 1994), 180.

99
Limportance de la traduction

Le GTA, compos en partie dtudiants et dassistants en philologie classique,

a produit des traductions de textes antiques ou mdivaux. Ces traductions
sont bases sur des comptences scientifiques avres et sur ltat actuel des
connaissances sur le thtre. Les textes traduits sont ensuite soumis un
lectorat plus large, regroupant philologues, acteurs et metteur en scne. Cette
pratique permet dassurer que les textes soient la fois adapts la scne et
accessibles un large public. Les traducteurs du GTA nhsitent donc pas
tre infidles au texte original en toute connaissance de cause, pour mieux
rendre lide de lauteur sur lequel ils travaillent.

Il faut aussi reconnatre que les traductions disponibles dans le commerce

ou dans les bibliothques sont avant tout destines la lecture. Enfin une
traduction, surtout en ce qui concerne les textes comiques, peut vieillir assez
rapidement. De fait, une cration dune comdie dAristophane implique
presque obligatoirement un travail de traduction ou dadaptation.
Dans lintroduction de la publication du texte jou de Lysistrata, le GTA
relevait dj les principaux cueils de toute entreprise de traduction dune
uvre dramatique antique16:

Rsister la tentation de la note philologique lorsquil y a des allusions

des vnements historiques ou des personnages obscurs. Le texte doit
tre immdiatement comprhensible.
Mettre en vidence les citations dautres auteurs. Ainsi quelques vers
repris ou imits dEuripide sont rendus en alexandrins se rapprochant
du style racinien.
Transformer les noms des personnages de certaines comdies pour que
leur sens transparaisse. Ainsi dans Lysistrata, Kalonice, dont le nom
signifie Belle victoire devient Vickie, alors que Cinsias devient Pinot.
Rendre la prsence de diffrents dialectes (voir un exemple ci-dessous,
dans le chapitre La couleur locale).
Donner leur juste mesure aux allusions grivoises. Dans lAntiquit, la
sexualit tait un aspect naturel de lexistence et elle ne prtait pas des
discours moralisateurs ou scandaleux. Sa symbolique tait avant tout
celle de la fertilit. Lhomosexualit antique tait aussi trs diffrente de
celle que nous connaissons aujourdhui. Mme la scatologie apparat dans
certains textes. Dans ces passages, il faut viter autant la pruderie que la

16Aristophane, Lysistrata. Traduction nouvelle adapte au thtre, trad. Nathalie Duplain, dir., Anne-
Sidonie Aubert et Nathalie Duplain d. (Neuchtel: Groupe de Thtre antique, 1990), Introduction.

100
 vulgarit et essayer de trouver une ligne plutt rabelaisienne. La langue
truculente dveloppe par Frdric Dard pour sa srie San Antonio avait,
par exemple, servi dinspiration pour la traduction de Lysistrata.

La finalit de ces traductions est le jeu et non pas la lecture. En fait, comme
nous lexpliquions dj en 199217, le travail du philologue et celui du metteur
en scne sont la fois diffrents et complmentaires. Le philologue doit
expliciter une uvre antique dans et par rapport son contexte historico-
culturel; un metteur en scne doit prsenter doit prsenter cette uvre
un public dont la mentalit est notablement distante et diffrente de celle
de lAntiquit. Il faut donc travailler partir de deux rfrentiels diffrents
dont lun est une conjecture faite partir dlments pars (textes, images,
monuments, etc. ...) et lautre nest pas, tant sen faut, compltement explor.

La couleur locale

Bien quil parte rgulirement en tourne, le GTA assume compltement son

ancrage dans le terroir suisse, y compris dans ses traductions. Cest surtout
le cas avec les pices dAristophane qui avaient pour but avr la critique de
la vie politique et sociale. Ainsi dans son spectacle Lysistrata, on avait fait le
choix de rendre le dialecte dorique dans lequel sexprimait les Spartiates par
un accent et des dformations des mots et des phrases typique des personnes
dont la langue maternelle est le dialecte almanique, un sabir appel chez
nous le franais fdral. Ainsi la Spartiate Lampito, devenue Brunnhilde,
regrettait ainsi labsence de son poux, retenu au loin par la guerre:

Et Wilfrid das isch myne Mann quand il rentre, cest seulement pour laver le
linge et raccommoder les habits. Et aprs tchss18.

Quand le GTA monte une seconde pice dAristophane, Les Acharniens19, il

a lide de la transposer (...) dans le monde helvtique contemporain afin
de donner une chance aux Helvtes contemporains de retrouver lambiance
dune comdie dAristophane. Ainsi la traduction du GTA est gonfle
darbitraire, de rgionalismes, de rfrences lactualit.

17 Nathalie Duplain, Jouer le thtre antique, in Jrgen Sring, Orlando Poltera, Nathalie Duplain d.,
Le Thtre antique et sa rception, Francfort, 1994, p. 180.
18Aristophane, Lysistrata, Traduction GTA, Neuchtel, 1990, p. 7.
19 Matteo Capponi, Les Acharniens, Traduction GTA, Neuchtel, 2007, Un mot sur la traduction,
(non publie).

101
Une approche professionnelle

Le GTA a aussi dcid, ds sa cration, que le montage des spectacles

proprement dit serait encadr par des professionnels: metteur en scne,
scnographe, rgisseur, musiciens. Ce choix simposait pour mettre en valeur
les travaux de traduction. Il sest du reste avr heureux pour une autre raison:
actuellement la professionnalisation du thtre, et de toute autre dmarche
artistique du reste, est devenu un critre dans lobtention de subvention, ce
qui ne va pas sans poser de problmes une troupe universitaire. Le fait de
travailler avec des professionnels permet de lui assurer le soutien de certaines
institutions extrieures au monde acadmique.
Les travaux du GTA sont organiss dune manire rigoureuse. Les projets
se droulent sur des cycles de deux ans: une premire anne est consacre
la traduction et la seconde au montage du spectacle. Paralllement
ltablissement dune traduction en vue dun nouveau spectacle, le GTA
organise une tourne pour la pice prcdente. En marge de ses spectacles
principaux, il cre des interventions plus brves quil produit dans divers
lieux, pour des animations dans des muses par exemple. En cela, le GTA
est devenu, en Suisse romande et en France voisine, un acteur majeur dans
le domaine de la mdiation culturelle et du transfert des connaissances
scientifiques vers le grand public, ce qui correspond ses buts statutaires.

Une institutionnalisation en cours

Le GTA est une association, mais il reste troitement associ lUniversit

de Neuchtel qui a dcid, depuis quelques annes, de crer en collaboration
avec lui, un cours dart dramatique. Ainsi les tudiants de lUniversit peuvent
sinitier la pratique thtrale. Ils ont ensuite la possibilit de mettre leurs
connaissances en pratique dans une cration ou une reprise du GTA.

Le rpertoire du GTA

Depuis 1989, le GTA a produit des traductions de textes antiques ou

mdivaux adaptes la scne avant de les produire. Cette analyse porte sur
les dix-huit crations de la compagnie. Le tableau ci-dessous donne une vue
densemble de ces crations.

Voir Tableau 2 la page 97

102
Les langues

Sil dmarre avec la comdie dAristophane, Lyistrata, le GTA envisage

de reprsenter des uvres crites aussi bien en grec ancien quen latin.
Sur lensemble de son rpertoire, le grec ancien est reprsent dans treize
crations, soit plus de la moiti. Sur ces treize spectacles, cinq associent le
grec et le latin. Aprs vingt annes dexistence, le GTA dcide dtendre son
rpertoire au Moyen-ge, sans se limiter une langue mdivale prcise. Ce
choix nest toutefois reprsent, pour linstant, que par une seule cration,
Le Jeu de la Feuille dAdam de la Halle, traduit de lancien franais. Au
cours de ces dernires annes, le latin prend une place prpondrante.
Cette volution sexplique dune part par la suppression de la chaire de grec
ancien lUniversit de Neuchtel, dautre part par le profil des tudiants
et assistants actifs dans la troupe De moins en moins dhellnistes y sont
prsents et lintgration de textes grecs anciens dans son rpertoire ne sera
possible lavenir qu travers la collaboration avec dautres universits.

Les genres

En ce qui concerne le genre, on peut affirmer que le rpertoire du GTA est

rsolument orient vers la comdie. Sur dix-huit spectacles, dix sont bass
sur des uvres dramatiques. Six dentre elles sont des comdies: on compte
trois comdies dAristophane, une de Mnandre et deux de Plaute. Les huit
spectacles bass sur des textes non spcifiquement crits pour le thtre sont
traits plutt sur un mode comique. La tragdie est reprsente par trois
textes dEuripide.

Les auteurs

Pour ce qui est des auteurs, il faut distinguer entre tragdie et comdie. Dans
le domaine de la comdie, le rpertoire disposition est plus exploit puisque
seul Trence na jamais t reprsent. La tragdie est prsente seulement
avec Euripide. Eschyle et Snque font une entre discrte en 2015 dans un
spectacle consacr la divination dans lAntiquit. Sophocle est totalement
absent. La tragdie est un genre qui peut causer des apprhensions du fait de
sa dimension iconique encore notre poque. Lintrt pour Euripide peut
sexpliquer par le fait que ses intrigues se rapprochent souvent de celles de la
comdie.

103
Les spectacles bass sur des textes non dramatiques

Nous avons vu que moins dune centaine de pices compltes antiques ont
t conserves. Une troupe de thtre qui sest donn le nom de Groupe de
Thtre Antique peut-elle se cantonner ce seul corpus, quand on sait que
mme la Royal Shakespeare Company ne se limite pas aux uvres de son
dramaturge ponyme, mais quelle ouvre son rpertoire dautres auteurs de
lpoque lisabthaine ou mme des crivains contemporains20? La littrature
de lAntiquit est suffisamment riche pour permettre la cration de spectacles
partir de textes non crits pour la scne. Le GTA a aisment franchi ce cap,
puisque huit de ses spectacles ont t crs partir de textes non dramatiques.
On peut distinguer trois approches diffrentes. Plusieurs crations sont
bases sur un thme comme le mythe du Minotaure, la vie quotidienne,
lhistoire des Helvtes, la tempte et le naufrage, la divination. Dautres sont
bases sur un genre. Ce fut le cas des pigrammes, crites aussi bien en grec
ancien quen latin, qui constituent la trame dminc dpigrammes sur son lit
de crudits (avec du miel). Enfin le GTA a prsent des spectacles construits
partir duvres non thtrales: ce fut le cas des Mtamorphoses dOvide, un
spectacle du reste trs mtamorphique puisquil a connu lui-mme plusieurs
moutures.

Conclusion

Le Groupe de thtre antique, cr lorigine pour monter Lysistrata

dAristophane, a maintenu ses activits sur plus de vingt-cinq ans. On lui doit
dix-huit crations originales dont dix bases sur des uvres dramatiques, ce
qui reprsente, soit dit en passant, plus de 10% du corpus complet des pices
de thtre antique. La troupe sest rsolument cantonne un rpertoire
lger fait de comdies, de tragdies dEuripide traites la manire de tragi-
comdies et de choix de textes puiss dans limmense rpertoire antique,
mais na jamais vraiment abord les monstres sacrs de la tragdie grecque,
lexception peut-tre des Bacchantes. Ce choix nest pas tonnant car lun
des buts poursuivis par le GTA est de faire connatre lAntiquit sous un jour
rsolument diffrent et de sloigner de limage dEpinal de marbre blanc sur
fond de ciel bleu. Cela est corrobor par le fait que le GTA sort rgulirement
des thtres pour se produire dans les muses, lieux par excellence de la
transmission du savoir. Il veut montrer que lAntiquit a encore des messages

20 Royal Shakespeare Company, le 29 fvrier 2016, https://www.rsc.org.uk/about-us/new-plays-and-

writers/?from=mdd-au.

104
 nous dlivrer et quelle peut nous permettre de nous penser nous-mmes,
par un jeu de miroirs. Le rire rend cette mdiation culturelle plus efficace.
Si le GTA ose aborder cette voie dangereuse du rire, alors que les grands
thtres institutionnels ont tendance privilgier les classiques tragiques,
cest essentiellement grce sa capacit comprendre les textes antiques et
les transposer dans un rfrentiel actuel. La prservation du rire, lhumour
sont et resteront probablement son cheval de bataille, car le savoir et la
connaissance passent beaucoup mieux travers eux.
Quand on voit la richesse de la littrature antique, on peut tre certain que le
GTA est loin davoir puis ses possibilits. La matire, ne dans une culture
de loralit, est particulirement adapte la scne et semble inpuisable. En
revanche, se cantonner au montage des uvres dramatiques uniquement
aboutirait la mise en uvre de procds et de recettes toutes faites.
Si le GTA pratique un thtre contemporain et ne tente en aucune manire
des reconstitutions des pices telles quelles taient reprsentes lorigine,
il vise avant tout une mdiation culturelle portant sur la connaissance de
lAntiquit. Il reste ouvert toutes les formes thtrales et performatives ainsi
qu louverture de son rpertoire des uvres non thtrales. Paralllement
sa mission de revitalisation des textes antiques par le thtre, le GTA
poursuit un but didactique de transmission de connaissance sur lAntiquit.
Pour cette raison, il est ouvert des expriences rsolument nouvelles. Cest
ainsi quil a particip rcemment un projet visant mise en valeur dun
ancien camp militaire romain dans la ville suisse dYverdon-les-Bains grce
la technologie de la ralit augmente, en concevant et interprtant des
sayntes illustrant la vie quotidienne de lpoque, sayntes que des touristes
pourront prochainement dcouvrir sur leurs tlphones portables.

Bibliographie

Ouvrages sur le thtre dans lAntiquit

Aristote, Potique, trad. Ruelle, Ch. Emile. Paris: Librairie Garnier Frres, 1922.

Baldry, Harold C. Le Thtre tragique des Grecs Paris: Franois Maspero, 1975.
Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University
Press, 1985.

Canfora, Luciano. La Vritable Histoire de la Bibliothque dAlexandrie. Paris:

Desjonqures, 1988.

Demont, Paul et Anne Lebeau. Introduction au thtre grec antique. Paris: Librairie
gnrale franaise, 1996.

105
Duplain, Nathalie. Jouer le thtre antique, in Sring, Jrgen et al. (d.), Le Thtre
antique et sa rception. Hommage Walter Spoerri. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin,
Bern, New York, Paris, Wien: 1994.

Dupont, Florence. Le thtre latin. Paris: Armand Colin, 1988.

Jeanmaire, Henri. Dionysos. Histoire du culte de Bacchus. Paris: Payot, 1951.

Leigh, Matthew. Comedy and the Rise of Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Marrou, Henri-Irne. Histoire de lducation dans lAntiquit. 1. Le monde grec. Paris:

Editions du Seuil, 1981.

Panayotakis, Costas. Theatrum arbitri: theatrical elements in the Satyrica of

Petronius. Leiden, New York, Kln: Brill, 1995.

Vernant, Jean-Pierre et Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Mythe et tragdie, Volume 2. Paris:

ditions la dcouverte ditions la dcouverte, 1986.

Royal Shakespeare Company, consult le 29 fvrier 2016, https://www.rsc.org.uk/

about-us/new-plays-and-writers/?from=mdd-au.

Traductions du Groupe de Thtre antique

a) Traductions publies

Aristophane. Lysistrata. Traduction nouvelle adapte au thtre, trad. Duplain,

Nathalie dir., Aubert, Anne-Sidonie et Nathalie Duplain d. (Neuchtel:
Groupe de Thtre antique, 1990).

Plaute. Les Germains. Traduction nouvelle adapte au thtre des Mnechmes, trad.
Aubert, Anne-Sidonie dir., Aubert, Anne-Sidonie d. Neuchtel: Groupe de
Thtre antique, 1993.

Plaute. Rudens. Les Naufrags. Traduction nouvelle pour la scne, trad. Siegenthaler,
Pierre dir. Neuchtel: Groupe de Thtre antique, 2013.

Aristophane. Lysistrata. Traduction nouvelle adapte au thtre, 2me d., trad. Duplain,
Nathalie dir., Duplain, Nathalie d. Neuchtel: Groupe de Thtre antique, 2011.

Oracles. Lavenir, ctait mieux avant. Choix de textes autour du thme de la divination
dans lAntiquit slectionns et adapts pour le thtre, trad. Meyer Anne-
Sophie dir., Duplain, Nathalie d. Neuchtel: Groupe de Thtre antique, 2015.

b) Traductions cites et non publies

Euripide. Les Bacchantes. Traduction nouvelle adapte au thtre, trad. Duplain,

Nathalie dir. Neuchtel: Groupe de Thtre antique, 1995.

Aristophane. Les Acharniens. Traduction nouvelle adapte au thtre, trad. Capponi,

Matteo dir. Neuchtel: Groupe de Thtre antique, 2007.

106
Tableau 2: Cration du GTA (1990-2015)

Anne Titre Texte(s) Genre Langue(s)

littraire
1990 Lysistrata Aristophane, Lysistrata Comdie Grec ancien
1991 Alceste Euripide, Alceste Tragdie Interprt en
grec ancien
1993 Les Germains Plaute, Les Mnechems Comdie Latin
1995 Les Bacchantes Euripide, Bacchantes Tragdie Grec ancien
2000 Les Grenouilles Grenouilles dAristophane Comdie Grec ancien
2002 Les Mtamorphoses Mtamorphoses dOvide Epope Latin
2003 Ddale Choix de textes autour du Varis Grec ancien,
mythe du Minotaure latin
2004 Thse ou les jeunes Bacchylide Dithyrambe Grec ancien
gens
2005 La Samienne La Samienne de Mnandre Comdie Grec ancien,
latin
2006 Scnes de la vie textes de Hrondas, Plaute, Varis Grec ancien,
quotidienne antique Horace, Lucien latin
2007 Les Acharniens... ou Aristophane, Les Acharniens Comdie Grec ancien
les Helvtes
2008 Sketches celtiques Csar, Lucain, Tite-Live, autres Varis Grec ancien,
latin
2009 Terroreste Euripide, Oreste Tragdie Grec ancien
2011 minc dpigrammes criture et assemblage de Epigrammes Crec ancien,
sur son lit de crudits traductions Latin
(avec le miel)
2011 Jeu de la feuille Adam de la Halle, Jeu de la Farce Ancien
feuille franais
2012 La Tempte Plaute, Rudens, Ovide, Les Varis Latin
Mtamorphoses Virgile,
LEnide
2013 Rudens, Les Plaute, Rudens (Le Cordage) Comdie Latin
Naufrags
2015 Oracles. Lavenir Eschyle, Euripede, Esope, Varis Grec ancien,
ctait mieux avant Hrodote, Juvnal, Horace latin

107
 Everything on stage plays itself hic et nunc, here
and now, in the strength and vivacity of the present
moment. The universities stages do not escape this
necessity of the live presence, although they fill it in
a rather peculiar way.
The creativity found in a University is unique in its
sense of time, culture and production; the idea is
to experiment with what research and art have in
common which one could call non-tranquility.
The project Serving stage means to use live texts,
to serve as playing potential for the students and
discovering potential for the audiences and, finally, to
be a gateway between the University and the City.
How fertile would it be to search and doubt together

under real conditions?

108
Servir sur un plateau
Anne-Frdrique Bourget

En 2011, Yoshi Oida est venu donner une masterclass aux tudiants que
jencadrais et il ne comprenait pas bien ce que je faisais luniversit. Tu fais
des crations ou des ateliers? tu fabriques des spectacles ou tu transmets des
connaissances et de lexprience?. Jai pu lclairer en lui dcrivant ma place:
au bord du plateau. Cest le lieu de la mise en scne comme de la transmission,
de la direction dacteurs et de la pdagogie datelier, de lexprimentation
cratrice et de la recherche.

En tant que metteure en scne dune compagnie de thtre contemporain

pour tous, je soumets le plateau aux exigences de la posie et ny admets
aucun compromis. Dans le mme temps, le bord du plateau est le lieu de
toutes les inventions de mdiation pour rendre accessibles tous la forme et
le langage que le plateau gnre.

En tant quenseignante en Arts de la scne, je me situe au bord du plateau

pour faire goter aux tudiants la spcificit de ses outils que sont les mots,
les corps, lespace et le temps. De ce mme bord de plateau, je leurs transmets
une culture des enjeux du thtre quils sapproprient par la pratique du jeu
et celle du spectateur.

Cette hybridit du statut de praticien pdagogue semble donc fertile en ce

quelle facilite la transmission et la cration par la pratique permanente et
sans cesse renouvele de la maeutique.

Cest avec plaisir et humilit que je vais partager ici lexprience vcue
Lille en analysant tout dabord la triple spcificit de la crativit luvre
luniversit. Elle entretient en effet un rapport particulier au temps, la
culture, la cration. Dans un second temps, nous tcherons de dfinir
lintranquillit fertile qui est le moteur de notre action. Enfin, nous
voquerons le projet Servir sur un plateau mis en uvre cette anne pour
les tudiants en Arts de la scne.

109
Une crativit particulire

Un rapport complexe au temps

Au thtre tout se joue hic et nunc, ici et maintenant dans la vigueur et la

fugacit de linstant. Les plateaux des universits nchappent pas cette
ncessit de la prsence live. Mais ils la nourrissent dune manire
particulire. En effet, les conditions de rptition et de reprsentation nont
rien voir avec les ralits professionnelles. En France, un spectacle dispose
en moyenne de quatre semaines de rptitions et joue sept dates. Il nen est
pas de mme pour les tudiants qui peuvent rpter, dans des conditions plus
ou moins agrables, plusieurs mois, mais ont rarement plus de trois dates
avec le public.

De plus, le temps de luniversit est aussi celui de la mmoire et les projets

tudiants sont souvent nourris de spectacles vus ou tudis, spectacles
disparus dont il reste des traces. Cest le paradoxe des tudes thtrales:
nourrir le spectacle vivant de moments de plateau disparus.

Lartiste en universit mesure, peut-tre plus quun autre, quel point le

thtre est palimpseste.

Un rapport paradoxal la culture

Je me souviens de Georges Banu snervant quun tudiant nait pas vu La

Confrence des oiseaux de Peter Brook. Je ntais pas n, Monsieur bafouilla
le jeune cervel. Il avait oubli quil tait dans le temple de la culture et
que ntre pas contemporain dune uvre ne constitue en aucun cas une
justification de lignorance!

Luniversit en ce quelle est lieu de transmission de patrimoine et de

fabrication doutils de pense forme ainsi lacuit du regard. On nen sort pas
indemne, que ce soit en tant quartiste, mdiateur de la culture, chercheur
ou spectacteur. On y reoit en effet des savoirs particuliers que ce soit la
dcouverte de rpertoires de tous temps et de toutes contres, la transmission
de savoir-faire spcifiques au plateau et ses abords, ou encore doutils pour
penser les enjeux du spectacle vivant et enfin doutils pour affiner et exercer
sa crativit.

110
Un rapport particulier la cration

Sexercer la mise en scne dans le cadre de luniversit suppose donc

une dmarche particulire. Si comme le dit Braque lart est une blessure
transforme en lumire alors ce quil reste explorer pour les artistes du
XXIme sicle rside dans transformer cest--dire mettre en forme(s) le
monde en creusant sa propre ncessit, inscrite dans un rapport de continuit
/ distorsion avec un hritage connu et maitris.

Lartiste en universit est de facto plus taraud quailleurs par la question de

la lgitimit de son uvre, eu gard au poids du patrimoine tudi et la
richesse de lactualit de la recherche qui a pour objet lart quil pratique.

Dans son rapport au temps, la culture et la cration, la crativit fconde

par luniversit est donc particulire. Il sagit peut-tre de dfinir ce que la
recherche et lart ont en commun et que lon pourrait appeler, avec Fernando
Pessoa, lintranquillit.

Une intranquillit fertile

Fuir pour crer

La grande erreur, la seule erreur, serait de croire quune ligne de fuite consiste
fuir la vie, la fuite dans limaginaire ou dans lart. Mais fuir, au contraire, cest
produire du rel, crer la vie, trouver une arme1, affirme Gilles Deleuze.

Il dsigne ici la ligne de crte sur laquelle se tient le crateur qui nest jamais
tranquille, repos, arriv, de mme que le chercheur na jamais vraiment
trouv et continue dinventer des concepts pour penser son sujet. Luniversit
est donc toujours lendroit o lon doute, lon interroge, lon upgrade ses
connaissances, lon explore de nouveaux territoires.

Le plateau y est alors un lieu la fois protg et expos, labri des

contingences du rel de la production artistique de son temps mais
pleinement conscient des questionnements de ses contemporains. Le thtre
produit du rel.

Il sagit de suivre et de crer des lignes de fuite qui permettent la fois de

1 Gilles Deleuze, Carmelo Bene, Superpositions (Paris: ditions de minuit, 1979).

111
crer du savoir, dagir au prsent et de faire uvre pour lavenir. Lartiste se fait
artisan et le penseur devient explorateur. Trouver une forme pour crer la vie
revient donc trouver une arme car, Crer cest rsister, rsister cest crer
comme laffirme Stphane Hessel.

Trouver une langue

Ce quil sagit dinventer au plateau cest un langage car le thtre est par nature
une langue trangre. Que le texte soit crit dans la langue maternelle des
acteurs et du public ou quil soit fait de mots inconnus, la langue du thtre en
ce quelle est pleinement conscientise et sur signifiante demeure une langue
trangre. La question du langage de plateau devient alors: Comment des
corps, des intelligences et des motions en jeu dans un espace-temps dfini
parviennent-ils produire du sens pour des corps, des intelligences et des
motions en veil sur les fauteuils?

Servir sur un plateau

Le projet

Cette anne Lille 3, jai donc initi le projet Servir sur un plateau afin de
mettre en service des textes vivants, de servir de la matire jeu aux tudiants
et de la matire dcouverte au public, de servir de passerelle entre luniversit
et la cit, de servir les rencontres entre penseurs et praticiens, entre tudiants
et lieux de crations, entre amateurs et professionnels, entre crations et
diffusion, de nourrir enfin les devenirs individuels des tudiants par une
exprience en milieu ouvert.

Il sagissait ainsi de mettre en lien luniversit, un thtre de la mtropole et

des professionnels du thtre et de la recherche. Faire rsonner un plateau
pro de la vigueur des propositions tudiantes. Inventer une occasion pour
exprimenter, chercher ensemble, douter ensemble dans des conditions
relles. Raliser une exprience in vivo, expose un vrai public avec des
contraintes de timing et de rgie professionnelles.

Matriau et processus

Le matriau choisi tait de nature double, une pice de thtre: Haute

Surveillance de Jean Genet et un recueil de nouvelles En labsence de classement
final de Tristan Garcia: deux genres, deux langues, un mort et un vivant.

112
Cette matire posait plusieurs questions dordre dramaturgique: comment
slectionner un extrait dans une pice en huis clos sans scnes?

Comment crer une scne avec une histoire dathltes? Quest-ce quun
personnage, une situation, un langage?
Chaque groupe dtudiants a dfini son objet de travail et a construit de
sances en sances une forme au plateau.

Nous avons ensuite cr une forme collective avec tous les tudiants sur le
plateau.

Il sagissait de trouver les moyens de faire rsonner les mots des auteurs travers
les corps, faire vibrer les sens de leur langue, rendre vivants personnages et
proccupations. Mettre enfin en uvre au plateau les diffrentes esthtiques
de jeu dcouvertes pendant le semestre pour servir au plus juste le projet des
textes.

Il sagit, sur ce plateau tmoin darticuler la dialectique de maitriser vs

contrler cest--dire de trouver une forme pour partager lmotion plutt
que de la nier ou de la fabriquer et surtout de jouir lchelle de lindividu
comme lchelle du groupe de la complexit de ce qui est en jeu au thtre
car l, comme ailleurs, lessentiel consiste tre subtilement plus lger et plus
confus que soi selon les mots de Marguerite Yourcenar dans Les Mmoires
dHadrien.

Je laisse les derniers mots Valre Novarina, non pas en guise de conclusion
mais en forme dappel, inquiet et joyeux:

Que tous ceux qui savent, qui croient savoir reviennent au thtre non pour
encore et toujours regarder mais pour boire la pnombre, souffrir du monde et
hurler de rire2.

Bibliographie

Deleuze, Gilles et Bene, Carmelo. Superpositions. Paris: ditions de minuit, 1979.

Novarina, Valre. Le Thtre des paroles. Paris: P.O.L. 1994.

2 Valre Novarina, Le Thtre des Paroles (Paris: P.O.L, 1994).

113
114
 Section 3
Edited by Dennis Beck and Aubrey Mellor

Freeing the Ugly Voice 117

David Hugo

Shakespeares Hamlet on the Russian scene:

Classic and Contemporary 129
Nadezda Ruzaeva

The Influence of Spanish and Latin-American

Theatre on University Theatre in Portugal 145
Margarida Torres

Interactive Theatre for Social Change:

Who Are We and What Do We Do? 159
Anne Fliotsos

Moscow University Theatres Repertoire

since Foundation to the Present Day 169
Anatoly Safronikhin and Elena Illarionova

On the Subject of Repertoire at Graduate Theatre

Programs in the United States 189
Maria S. Horne and Chelsea L. Horne

Exploring Family, Expanding Repertoire: A Model for Devising 205

Angela Konrad

Student Experimental Theatre as

Experiential Learning Environment 219
Dennis Beck

Student Performances at the Arts Centre 235

Karin Freymeyer

The Themes of the International University Theatres Forum in

Vilnius as the Litmus of Lithuania Student Theatres Repertoire 253
Dalia Kiaupaite

Theatre as a Site of Pedagogical Tension:

A New Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns 269
Cara Gargano

115
 Aux Etats-Unis on peut constater une prolifration
considrable de programmes universitaires dits
musical theatre, due en partie la popularit
croissante du genre. Par consquent on a cherch
rpondre cette demande sans dvelopper une
pdagogie cohrente et rflchie. Or, le succs dun
tel programme dpend de sa capacit intgrer les
techniques du jeu, du chant, et de la danse dune faon
holistique, ce qui doit conduire un sens aigu de la
ralit toujours authentique. Malheureusement ce
nest pas le cas pour la plupart des programmes. Dans
cet essai je vise documenter ce que jai constat dans
le cadre de mes recherches sur la mthode Suzuki et
travers mes propres crations afin de dcouvrir une
mthodologie susceptible doffrir nos participants

une carrire couronne de succs.

116
Freeing the Ugly Voice
David Hugo

The National Center for Education Statistics revealed that between the
years of 2009 and 2013 the number of Musical Theatre degrees conferred by
post secondary programs in the USA grew from 155 to 312, revealing the
growing demand for musical theatre training in the United States.1 As more
universities are hastily creating new conservatory style programs in response
to the increased demand for this kind of training, very few are developing
a coherent pedagogy, relying instead on a mix and match approach that
selects offerings from existing but separate departments with eclectic and
sometimes contradictory methodologies and missions.

In the recent Acting In Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Guide, Joe Deer and
Rocco Dal Vera state that Training for this existing and challenging field has
traditionally been piecemeal, leading students to study singing, dance and
acting independently with the hope that they will somehow figure out how
to pull them all together when the time comes.2 Musical theatre curricula
in BFA programs across the USA reflect Deer and Dal Veras assessment,
as evidenced by the following sample description of the curriculum (worth
quoting in full for what it reveals) at one of the influential musical theatre
programs in the USA:

Twenty hours of Musical Theatre coursework, including two terms

of Introduction to Musical Theatre, two terms of Musical Theatre
Performance and two terms of History of the American Musical Theatre.
Twenty-five hours of Theatre coursework, including twelve hours of
acting, six hours of theatre history/analysis; one course in either stage
management or performing arts management; and two courses in
technical theatre.
A minimum of twelve hours in Dance, including two terms of ballet, two
terms of musical theatre styles and a proficiency in tap equivalent to two

1 Digest of Education Statistics, Institute for Education Sciences, National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES) a Part of the U.S. Department of Education. Web. 10 Mar. 2016, Table 290 & 318.30.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/index.asp.
2 Joe Deer and Rocco Dal Vera, Acting in Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course (London: Routledge,
2008), 1.

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 terms. Dance coursework may include Theatre movement, choreography
or Musical Theatre production courses.
Music coursework to include a minimum of twenty-four hours of private
voice instruction; one year of piano or its equivalent by proficiency
examination; and six hours of music theory. Music coursework may
include voice for the theatre, dialect training or Musical Theatre
production courses.
Thirty hours of non-music electives, including the Universitys two
semester English writing requirement; one course in American or world
history; and two semesters of a foreign language.
Electives to complete a total of 124 hours.

One might argue that the musical theatre courses themselves should provide
the actual moment of integration; a closer look at the descriptions of such
courses, however, reveals the following:

DRA 260 - Musical Theater Practicum

Drama
1 credit(s) Every semester
Introduction to Musical Theater through analysis, sight-reading, vocal
technique and practice of the repertoire. Required of all first year students
majoring in Musical Theater. Must be taken twice.

Significantly, acting and movement are not mentioned in this course

description, once again taken from a well-known and highly considered
musical theatre program. A curriculum of this sort does little to integrate all
aspects of the training, and suggests the urgency of seeking a more holistic
methodology.

As a performer in musical theatre for over 30 years, touring nationally and

internationally, regionally and on Broadway, I have worked with major
players in the musical theatre world such as Sutton Foster, Kelli OHara and
Terrence Mann. During my many years of studying and performing, like
them, I took many classes in musical theatre. Our memory of such classes
is of standing to the side of the piano, feet planted, and singing; musical
theatre artists call this Park and Bark.

While many of the classes we participated in attempted to integrate the

Stanislavsky system of acting, they only used Stanislavskys system as a
psychological means of understanding the text without engaging the actors
body. Since musicals demand that performers be triple threats, a musical

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theater artists success depends on his or her ability to integrate acting,
singing, and dancing in a holistic manner, combining a heightened sense of
reality with a profound honesty.

Tony nominated and Academy Award winning Broadway director/

choreographer Rob Marshall has said that:

I always look for individuality and people who dance, sing and act with
character. Its always about the acting. Always. Im not impressed by empty
triple turns, by empty high Es. Im not impressed by technique. Im just not.
I will hire somebody with less technique and more emotional connection, or
more individual acting sensibility in their dance or in their song.3

In response to what I saw as growing need to address Marshalls concerns, I

sought to develop a different kind of training that would not only integrate
the various disciplines, but also potentially alter the aesthetics of musical
theater in the wider arena of commercial theater. This paper discusses my
personal journey in the development of a new methodology, sourced in the
Suzuki Method, and my experiments both in the classroom and in creating
new works that lead to the integration of the various disciplines that comprise
this style of performance. As is clear from my title, I am playing on Kristin
Linklaters idea of freeing the natural voice. Linklater believes that To Free
the voice you free the person.4 Her process is intended not only to free the
voice, but to free the body, and in doing so also to free the actors voice to
be more dynamic, allowing the voice to find expression in vocal timbre and
tone that can be both beautiful and ugly. In playing on her title, I reference
the problems inherent in the lack of a holistic musical theatre pedagogy,
namely, that in not engaging the performing body fully, teachers and artists
sacrifice meaningful and impactful performance to pretty but empty vocal
presentation. The musical theatre actor needs the ability to play action,
emotion, and objective fully and completely through body and voice.

Although I didnt know it at the time, my journey to reform the pedagogy

began in March of 2005, when I decided to leave a lucrative but unsatisfying
position in a long-running national tour of a Broadway musical. I was eager
to begin a search for new outlets for my creativity and had begun teaching
musical theatre workshops while on tour. These workshops were a liberating

3 David Brunetti, Acting Songs (North Charleston, SC: urge, 2006), 5.

4 Kristen Linklater and Andre Slob. Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the Practice of Voice
and Language, (1976 repr., London: Nick Hern, 2006), 8.

119
experience. I realized how much I loved to teach and decided to search for a
school where I could pursue a graduate degree and further develop my skills
of teaching acting and musical theater together.

I had begun to realize that the musicals currently being produced seemed to
rely on everything but the talents of their actors. Instead they relied on old
structures, spectacle, and music that manipulated the spectators emotions
through the use of catchy melodies and melodic key changes. I agreed with
Stephen Sondheim who said in a 2000 interview with Frank Rich in the New
York Times Magazine:

You have two kinds of shows on Broadway, revivals and the same musical over
and over again, all spectacles. You get your tickets for the Lion King a year in
advance, and essentially a family comes as if to a picnic, and they pass on to
their children the idea that thats what theatre is a spectacular musical you
see once a year, a stage version of a movie. It has nothing to do with theatre at
all. It has to do with seeing something familiar. We live in a recycled culture...
I dont think the theatre will die per se, but its never going to be what it was.
You cant bring it back. Its gone. Its a tourist attraction.5

I was looking for something different.

Upon visiting the LIU/ Post theater program, I found a method of training
that freed actors physically and psychologically, so that they could perform in
an extra daily manner on stage. Observing classes on the day that I visited,
I noticed that the student actors were creating physical scores based on Greek
text, not musical theater texts. Professor Maria Porters method of generating
physical scores for these Greek texts created a set of physical actions that
were derived from images based on personal sources, given circumstances,
text, and subtext. They were not common gestures, but a set of extra daily
movements that resonate with intentionality and articulate the actors
thoughts, actions, and emotions in a fluent language.

My undergraduate musical theatre BFA degree was from a prestigious

university where I had studied extensively the methods of Konstantin
Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg as well as taken classical voice lessons. The
drama program focused on one type of acting, naturalism, while the classical
voice lessons were based in Bel Canto singing. However, I have come to believe
that this style of acting does not best serve the demands that heightened

5 Frank Rich, Conversations with Stephen Sondheim, New York Times Historical (1923-Current File)
March 12, 2000, 44, 88. Mar. 10, 2016.

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language and situation place on the musical theater actor; nor does that kind
of singing lend itself to the musical theatre genre.

When the students were asked to do something larger than life, or what
Eugenio Barba would call extra daily, they had no tools or technique to
meet this challenge. Eugenio Barba defines extra daily in contrast to what
has become habitual:

Daily behavior refers to the largely unconscious process through which our
bodies and voices absorb and reflect the culture in which we live. We slowly
learn how to stand, walk, talk, and behave through parental guidance, role
models, and by mirroring those around us. Through this process we gradually
acquire a body technique that reflects both the society we come from and our
role in it. Extra Daily behavior, on the other hand, refers to a body technique
that is other than daily. Performance such as ballet, corporal mime, Kathakali,
or Noh requires actors to master movements, ways of holding the body, and/
or vocal techniques, which are very different from daily behavior.6

This idea of extra daily behavior left the musical theater students at my
undergraduate university confused as to how to develop a technique for
pursuing our chosen style of theater. How might a performer act in a way
that is larger than life and have it resonate from a place of truth and real
spontaneity? One professors response was start from a place of truth and
realism and then make it larger. I found that I could work to find a sense of
truth in the actions of my character, but then it would be virtually impossible
to expand these actions, and make them larger than life without feeling
ridiculous and losing my connection to the script and play. I found myself
frustrated, and this did nothing to free and release my work.

In Porters class, the actors bodies moved in ways I had never seen before,
and from a place of connection to their intention and desire. I wondered how
these young actors were creating these larger than life movements that were so
deeply connected to intentionality. After viewing this class, I decided to apply
to the LIU Post graduate program where I could then begin to experiment
with these techniques and apply them to musical theater.

Porters training is sourced in the Suzuki method. She uses Suzukis physically
based training method to train her actors to be able to accomplish specific
physical movements which she calls rules of the body. She then combines

6 Ian Watson, Towards a Third Theatre: Eugenio Barba and the Odin Teatret. (London: Routledge, 1993),
32-33.

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these rules with what she calls rules of composition, rules taken from the
work of post-modern practitioners and developed by her during many years
of research. Porter describes this technique she has developed to produce
physical scores:

In the third year of our program, the actors abandon the Stanislavsky system
temporarily and embark on a pedagogy sourced in the Suzuki Method but
enhanced with other physical training techniques I borrowed during my years
as an actress and director: specifically work developed by the Odin Teatret,
Cristina Castrillo of Teatro delle Radici, and Anne Bogart. The actors learn
how to create physical narratives that eventually turn into specific physical
scores. These scores are created through different sources. During the latter
half of the course, we re-introduce methods sourced in the Stanislavsky
system, such as personal sourcing and psychological scoring, and marry them
with the physical methodologies.7

During the time I worked towards my graduate degree learning everything I

could about this method, I devoted my spare time to imagining how to apply
it specifically to musical theater. At first I worked alone playing with songs
I had already used as audition material. I found that the most difficult task
was allowing my voice to be affected by my body because my classical singing
training made it difficult to let the voice stray from what most voice teachers
consider the perfect sound. However, as I trained, I began to find nuances in
the voice that I had never used before. I found that the voice could articulate
action much better if I let go of a Bel Canto style and allowed myself to free
the voice by engaging the body. Later I would define this idea as freeing the
ugly voice.

The culmination of my work in the graduate program was a production,

and this was the first time I was able to try my newfound methods on actors
other than myself. I used Porters techniques to explore eight Brecht and Weill
songs in an experimental production to see if I could create a new aesthetic
for musical theater performance as well as develop a form of training for the
musical theater actor. I chose Brecht and Weill songs because their music was
actor driven and composed for the actor-singer; most are relatively easy to
sing, enabling us to focus on the physical scores. This choice would allow the
actor to have a greater chance of playing action while singing.

Initially I asked the actors to create physical scores based strictly on the lyrics

7 Maria Porter, Advanced Suzuki Class, Advanced Suzuki. Long Island University, Brookville NY. 1
Sept. 2003. Lecture.

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of their songs. I found that these scores resembled the lyrics too closely,
making the work one dimensional; the physical scores looked like pedestrian,
mimetic gestures, and did very little to articulate action. Porter suggested that
the actors create completely different scores that were not directly connected
to the meaning of the song. For example, the song Lonely House from the
Brecht/Weill musical Street Scene, is about someone reaching out for a friend.
In our next approach, the actress first found images based in personal source
via the text. The actress took the first phrase of the text, At night when
everything is quiet this old house seems to breathe a sigh. From this phrase
she identified the keywords (night, quiet house, breathe, sigh). From these
words she developed personal source images from her own life, perhaps of
being in her own house back home when she was feeling alone. These images
are what she used to create the first physical action for the song. After the
actress had found a physical action for every phrase of the song she then
stepped away from the text and created scores based on these images. This
allowed for the physical scores not to be one-dimensional and sometimes
these scores worked in opposition to the meaning of the song. As a result,
when the text, music, and physical scores were layered together, the work
had much more depth. I learned from this experiment why Porters scores
are derived from images based in Stanislavsky terms such as personal source,
objective, and obstacle, and why she takes specific steps in the process of
creating these scores. By analyzing the text first using tools in the Stanislavsky
system, and then finding images uncovered by the analysis (depending on the
type of text the actor is approaching these images could be based in personal
source, obstacle, character labels, etc.), and finally stepping away from the
text to create the physical scores based on personal images, the actors were
able to get away from the literal translations of the text, which helped them
to begin to find objectives and psychological actions via the body that were
not one-dimensional gestures. It also enabled the actors to find subconscious
choices via the body that would not necessarily have been found with an
analytical process alone.8

I continued the experimented with two more cabaret productions. This time I
had the actor/singers score their songs in order to articulate action, but I also
began to use physical scores to create ensemble dance numbers. From these
two cabarets two more valuable lessons were learned.

The first lesson was that we needed to embrace the process and not anticipate

8 Konstantin Stanislavsky and Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood, An Actors Handbook: An Alphabetical

Arrangement of Concise Statements on Aspects of Acting (New York: Theatre Arts, 1963), 7-10, 55, 67, 103.

123
the conclusion, so often a problem when actors and directors think
presentationally. We needed to take the specific steps, described later in
this paper, to gain the greatest results and that the physical scores and text
needed to be worked first before adding the music. We also learned that it
was essential that the last step be to add the music, so that the rhythm and
melody of the music did not affect the active choices found via the body. If
we started with the music and singing first the music would get in the way,
thereby limiting the ability of the physical score to enable the actor to make
active choices and get away from the desire for beautiful singing.

The second lesson learned was how this training method could help dancers
make choreography active. While creating a dance number based on physical
actions taken from many of the ensembles physical scores, we found that the
choreography based on the dancers physical scores was much more active than
the dance numbers that were created by our choreographer alone. Our theory
was that, since the dancers had created physical action based on images taken
from personal sources, this dance was inherently active, and the performers
not only physically but emotionally engaged. The choreography was alive
in the dancer and the movement expressed the action of the song. We then
decided to attempt to work a dance number by reverse scoring each physical
action within the choreography. We had our choreographer create a set of
movements just as any musical theater dance might be created. The dancers
then connected each of the choreographers physical actions to an image. This
allowed the dancer to find the essential psychological action or verb for each
physical action. The result was that the dancers bodies immediately began
to be more than pretty shapes as they started to articulate the action dictated
by the image. This was the beginning of my understanding of what Porter
defines as reverse scoring, a method of taking already established physical
actions and specifying and defining them with psychological actions or verbs,
in other words, taking her process and doing it in reverse.

These experiments have led us to develop this process for our musical
theater majors in their third year of training at LIU. I have developed Porters
methods so that the students can learn three different ways of scoring a song.
The following are three methods we teach:

Obstacle Score: A score built on images based on the characters obstacles.

Personal Source: A score built on personal source.
Character Dance: A score built on words defining a character (Porter).

The following is an example of how I teach the obstacle composition, which

124
my students tell me is one of the most effective acting/singing tools taught in
the advanced musical theatre class. Please be aware that the Suzuki training is
the foundation of this work and is essential for teaching the actors a specific
set of rules of the body in order for the students body to become articulate
and to create scores. Porter defines the rules of the body as physical qualities
of movement that the Suzuki technique instills in the body during the
training process.9 These rules include sensitivity to acceleration and break,
foot to floor relationship, use of resistance, low center of gravity, etc. Without
the Suzuki training as the foundation I have found that the students cannot
score properly. Their scores will be general and lack the articulation of body
and voice needed to find the truth in action.

Obstacle Composition

The actor first must find the objective of the song.

The actor then breaks the song down into phrases.
The actor then finds an image based in the obstacle related to the objective
referring to the text of the phrase.
The actor then physically works with that image, looking for a physical
action that connects him/her to that image.
The actor does not use the text at this moment and only creates
physical actions based on the image.
Each physical action must have a beginning middle and end. We
call this real action.
The actor adds text to each physical action, speaking the text as a
monologue and allowing the voice to be conducted by the body. This
should not seem natural or feel like something that the actor could use in
psychological realism on stage.
Once the physical actions that the actor has created are affecting the
text, they then begin to add the music. The actor goes back and forth
from speaking to singing until the she/he finds that all physical and vocal
choices have been integrated.
The last step is to psychologically score each physical action. The actor
finds a simple verb for each physical action. Porter would call this reverse
scoring. This helps to define the quality of movement of each physical
action found in the score. The actor integrates the psychological with the
physical, enabling the actor to be more specific in their choices.

At the end of the class, I always ask that the students write their opinion of

9 Maria Porter, Advanced Suzuki Class.

125
what they have learned. While it is somewhat lengthy, I think it is important
to quote one of my more advanced students in its entirety:

As an over-thinker and over-analyzer by nature, the technique of physical

scoring has brought about an entirely different way of playing action for me
as an actor and even more specifically acting through song. The physical
approach has enabled me to work in a way that a psychological approach alone
cannot always achieve; that is a consistent connection, a true vulnerability and
a freedom and openness to my voice that did not always exist. To put it simply,
I have found that my body is far smarter than my head especially through
song... Physically scoring has been a tremendous door into an honesty in
action for me that is often expected and or desired of a Musical Theatre actor
and realistically not always easy to achieve.

We hope that the training method we are developing will bring a new
aesthetic to the musical theater performance and a new way of developing
a stronger, more persuasive musical theatre performer. We have developed
a relationship with our voice faculty that connects healthy singing with our
training method.As musical theatre artists themselves they have embraced
a training method in which the singer is active in sustaining the narrative by
integrating the body/mind and voice and that enables the actor/singer to find
a wealth of choices and dynamics within the voice and body that can then be
brought out in the text. The actors performance becomes active.

In this style of theater, many of the physical scores are quite visible; we do
not reduce the scores and many are at 100% and fully visible. We do this
in order to produce strong physical narratives that help to support and
strengthen the performances. I have been told by audience members that this
style of musical theatre performance takes on a postmodern view of theatre
and looks more like something one would see Anne Bogart, Pina Bausch,
Grotowski, or Artaud create. It moves an audience through physical, vocal,
and emotional means and is accepted easily because Porter has combined
Suzuki and Stanislavsky so that all movements are developed from images
that help to create and articulate action.

In conclusion, I must mention that these techniques used in conjunction with

musical theater are still in the developmental stages. While I find that they help
the singer to find a strong physical presence while singing, and perhaps more
importantly help to free the ugly voice, we are still refining the pedagogy.
The actor/singer highly trained in singing makes is an impressive technician;
however, perfect vocal production does not necessarily serve great acting. We

126
must work to develop musical theater performers who do not only listen to
the voice but allow the sound to come from the fully integrated instrument. I
believe that this method is not only a new way to train musical theater actors,
but hopefully is also the beginning of a new aesthetic for the musical theater
world, in which singing and dancing beautifully is not the primary means
of moving an audience. Instead, we seek an art form where the performer
becomes a strong storyteller through the integrated articulation of action
through voice and body. Given Deer and Dal Veras commentary on the
piecemeal nature of todays musical theatre training, the development of a
more holistic and integrated training must be a priority.

References

Brunetti, David. Acting Songs. North Charleston, SC: BookSurge, 2006.

Deer, Joe, and Rocco Dal Vera. Acting in Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course.
London: Routledge, 2016.

Digest of Education Statistics. Institute for Education Sciences, National Center for
Education Statistics (NCES) Home Page, a Part of the U.S. Department of
Education. Web. 10 Mar. 2016. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/index.asp.

Linklater, Kristin, and Andre Slob. Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the
Practice of Voice and Language. London: Nick Hern, 2006.

Porter, Maria. Advanced Suzuki Class. Advanced Suzuki. Long Island University,
Brookville NY. 1 Sept. 2003. Lecture.

Rich, Frank. Conversations with Stephen Sondheim, New York Times, March 12,
2000. New York Times Historical (1923-Current File).

Stanislavsky, Konstantin, and Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. An Actors Handbook:

An Alphabetical Arrangement of Concise Statements on Aspects of Acting. New
York: Theatre Arts, 1963.

Watson, Ian. Towards a Third Theatre: Eugenio Barba and the Odin Teatret. London:
Routledge, 1993.

127
 La tragdie dHamlet, Prince du Danemark est une
tragdie bien connue de William Shakespeare et lune
des plus clbres pices de thtre du monde.
Dans la culture russe, le Hamlet de Shakespeare,
a toujours jou un rle particulier. Considrons
la chronologie des mises en scne de Hamlet sur
la scne russe (1837-1971). Cette pice ternelle
est intemporelle. Elle a survcu au changement de
got du public, aux rformes conomiques et la
situation politique. Hamlet continue de susciter un
intrt constant chez le public russe, il est toujours
jou par des metteurs en scne dans des thtres
professionnels, aussi bien que par des amateurs.
Les productions modernes de Hamlet sont en gnral
le fait des compagnies de thtre bien connues, avec
un soutien financier important du gouvernement, de
sponsors et des medias. Cependant nous observons des
expriences non moins intressantes, et souvent plus
audacieuses de productions shakespeariennes dans
des thtres amateurs et tudiants ou des ateliers de
thtre. Nous analyserons le Hamlet de lUniversit
dEtat des Arts et de la Culture de Moscou.

(Atelier M. Makharadze, MS)

128
Shakespeares Hamlet on the Russian Stage: Classic and
Contemporary
Nadezda Ruzaeva

Nothing could be more foolish than to stage Shakespeare in a way that

is clear. He is by nature unclear. He is the absolute substance.
Bertolt Brecht. Theater.1

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet,

Prince of Denmarke) is the famous tragedy by William Shakespeare and one
of the most famous plays of world drama. The longest of Shakespeares plays
(4042 lines), it was written around 1600. In Russian culture, Shakespeares
Hamlet has always played a special role. Since the mid-18th century,
Shakespeares tragedy has especially caught on with writers, and later readers
and theatre-goers.

The history of Hamlet on the Russian stage started in 1748. Russian audiences
were first introduced to Hamlet in the version by A. P. Sumarokov, based on
the French translation/paraphrase by Pierre Antoine de La Place. Since then,
Hamlet has hardly left the Russian stage, becoming the property of Russian
culture.

The history of performances can be studied with a variety of methodologies.

The aim of this article is to examine the productions of Hamlet on the Russian
stage from various angles of genre interpretation, scenography, and the
understanding of Hamlets image by various directors. This goal determines
the objectives of the work: to briefly explore key historical productions of
Hamlet on the Russian professional stage from 1837 until 2010 and then
analyze the play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark after W. Shakespeares Tragedy,
delivered by director and teacher M. Maharadze in 2013 with students of
the Moscow State University of Culture. A video and consideration of this
production was presented by the author of this article at the 10th World
Congress of the International University Theatre Association in the city of
Liege in July 2014.

1 Bertolt Brecht, Theater. Plays. Articles. Statements. The five volumes. T. 5/1 Translation E. Etkind.
(Moscow: Art Publisher, 1965).

129
Historical Productions of Hamlet on the Russian Stage

1837 Maly Theatre (trans. N. A. Polevoy, Hamlet P. S. Mochalov) and

Alexandrinsky Theatre (Hamlet V. A. Karatygin). The St. Petersburg
audience wildly applauded every phrase uttered by Karatygin, the
Alexandrinskys leading artist; Moscow audiences, however, having seen
in this role an inspiring suffering artist, the rebellious Mochalov, received
Karatygins version of Hamlet hostilely. His was the prince dressed in a rich
costume and hat with fluffy feathers. Karatygin grotesquely relied on the hilt
of the dagger, as if posing for a picture. His main goal was to fight for the
throne, illegally usurped by Claudius. This Hamlet died very gracefully and
grotesquely. It was tragicomic version of Hamlet.

Mochalov always played an action-oriented Hamlet who hated the era of Czar
Nicholas. He played a Hamlet who expressed his attitude to modern reality.
He always failed in the monologue To be or not to be since he did not
need it. He already knew: to be!. He had to act, to take revenge. He began
to read the famous monologue near the backdrop of the large theater, and
went forward to the last lines during his speech, reaching the proscenium.
Each performance was more mature than the previous one and the last
performance was his best performance of Hamlet. V. G. Belinsky wrote that
it was Mochalovs Hamlet. How could it be any other way? The role is the
representation of an actor who plays him.

1911 Moscow Art Theatre (trans. A. I. Kroneberg, design and prod. E. G.

Craig, dir. K. S. Stanislavsky and L. A. Sulerzhitskii, Hamlet V. I. Kachalov).
The most important concept of Hamlet in the 20th century became the five-
hour production of Gordon Craig and Konstantin Stanislavsky, which was
intended as a symbolist monodrama, representing Hamlet as a warrior of
light or warlike Christ. Craig wanted Stanislavsky to perform his version
of Shakespeares Hamlet. However, the theater troupe voted for Kachalov, an
actor who strictly following MAT intonations in the play. It was a brilliant
Hamlet, but not mine later noted Craig.2 As a result, two theatrical traditions
faced against each other in the play: Russian, with true life and psychological
justification for every action; and European, with a clear idea, plasticity
of form, and purity of style. Audiences remembered this production by its
scenography, shocking performance, and general convention of history.
Craigs play was one of the first attempts to return Hamlet to its mythology,
relevant in the context of spiritual movements of the beginning of 20th century.

2 Nicholas Chushkin, Hamlet - Katchalov (Moscow: Isskustvo, 1966), 14.

130
Of course, various sides of Hamlets nature demanded different types of
directorial interpretations on the stage. Meyerhold wanted to stage a play
in which Hamlet would be played by two actors, a man and a woman, so
that one would read the tragic Hamlet monologues, and the other provide
mimetically the physical aspect of the character.3 However, he lived in the
1930 s, during the development of the administrative government and Stalins
personality cult. At this time, politicization of the theater and cinema resulted
in regulatory restrictions on the content and form of works. Stalin outlined
his attitude to the productions of the tragedy by asking: is it really necessary
to stage Hamlet at the Art Theater?4 Thus, the directorial idea for Hamlet by
Meyerhold remained unfulfilled.

1932 Vakhtangov Theatre (design and dir. N. P. Akimov, Hamlet A. I.

Gorunov). Under N. Akimovs direction of Hamlet in the Vakhtangov
Theatre, the play acquired some vulgar and social undertones. It was criticized
by the public for its chubby doughy Hamlet and drunk Ophelia, and sixty
years later it was described as in the style of a political detective novel and
called one of the most outstanding productions performed on Moscow stages
of the 1930 s . 5 Probably director Akimov staged Hamlet in the genre of a
political detective work because he could not express his idea in a different
way during rising Totalitarianism. Despite its great popularity, this madcap
and grotesque production that seemed to comment on the Kremlin power
struggles that followed Lenins death was soon removed from the repertoire.

1938 Leningrad Theater (dir. S. E. Radlov, design V. V. Dmitriev, comp. S. S.

Prokofiev; Hamlet D. M. Dudnikov, B. A. Smirnov). The directors main goal
was to find a clearer and more significant way of conveying the central idea.
On the one hand, he needed to show court life overflowing with lies, crimes,
scheming, and cheap politics suffocating the young, honorable, and frank
Hamlet. On the other hand, the director had to show Hamlets unbending
refusal to compromise, his great yearning to change the world for the better,
to communicate the power of his passion that, just like dynamite, blows away
all the flattery and cunning trying to engulf him. All the performing team,
designer, composer, and director put effort into reaching this objective.

3 Rebecca Magomedov, Hamlet, Stalin, Meyerhold, Akimov and Shostakovich, from Testimony: The
Memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovitch by Solomon Volkov, Komi Republic, last modified Oct. 1, 2011, http: //
7x7-journal.ru/post/15213.
4Ibid.
5 Hamlet (1932), Cyclowiki.org, accessed April 9, 2016, http://cyclowiki.org/wiki/_(,_1932).

131
1954 Leningrad Academic Drama Theater named after A. S. Pushkin
(dir. G. M. Kozintsev, art. N. I. Altman, comp. D. D. Shostakovich, Hamlet
B. A. Freundlich). In 1964, Kozintsev shot a film called Hamlet. Starring
I. Smoktunovsky and based on the Pasternaks translation of the work, the
film received recognition and numerous awards at Russian film festivals. A
great amount of work went into creating this play and, subsequently, the film.
Hundreds of books were consulted on various aspects of the Shakespearean
era and philosophy, style of the Elizabethan theatre, Hamlets personality,
the nature of melancholy, history of staging tragedies, creation of tragic
characters on a theatre stage, music, visual art, and their development in
the dynamic twentieth century. The 1954 Hamlet brought onto the stage the
spirit of fighting for the truth, for the human right to be spiritually complex,
to contemplate and to have doubts, to have a subjective opinion on events
happening around one. Director G. Kozintsev truly accomplished the
impossible in the context of this unfavorable time with his hard-won version
of the Hamlet.

In the film version of the play, the main character seems to be more mature
and decisive than in the stage production. No longer is he shattered by the
sight of moral monstrosities; he is aware of them and ready to fight them. Still,
Kozintsev stayed true to the main idea of his interpretation of Shakespeare
fighting for human values. Hamlets story, said the director, seems to be
incredibly complex: it discusses fates of whole countries, historical events,
and, at the same time, it is very simple: it studies one person, it studies people.
Fighting for human dignity. Not compromising with inhumanity. It studies
the notion of conscience.6 The film version of Hamlet not only received
the sympathies of people in its home country, but also won prizes in the
international film festivals.7

1954 Moscow Academic Theatre named after Maykovsky (dir. N. P.

Okhlopkov, trans. M. L. Lozinski, design V. F. Ryndin, musical arrangement
fragments of P. I. Tchaikovsky, Hamlet E. V. Samoilov, later M. M. Kozakov,
E. E. Martsevich). The N. P. Okhlopkovs version of Hamlet is an epic tragedy.
The pathos of the piece was expressed by the moral victory of Hamlets mutiny
over the inertia of the suppressive world. Okhlopkov saw Hamlet as a highly
cultivated and moral person, stricken by the world of evilness, lawlessness,
hypocrisy, and treachery reigning in his home town of Elsinore. The news

6 Gregory Kozintsev, Stone, Iron and Fire, Soviet Cinema, April 25, 1964, 2.
7 Hamlet (1964), Awards, Internet Movie Database (IMDB), accessed April 7, 2016, http://www.imdb.
com/title/tt0058126/awards?ref_=tt_awd.

132
Torture in the prison cells of Elsinore, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark after W. Shakespeares Tragedy, dir. M.
Makharadze, Moscow State University of Culture and Arts, 2013.

about the malicious murder of his father shatters his understanding of the
world. The visual representation of the play, shown on stage partially or fully,
was a colossal, embossed wrought metal gate. Elsinore castle: it represented a
prison, one that only the monstrous and hideous find fit for living within. In
the direction of N. Okhlopkov, this was a tragic Hamlet.

133
1971 Taganka Theatre (dir. Y. P. Lyubimov, trans. Boris Pasternak, design
D. L. Borovsky; Hamlet V. S. Vysotsky & others.) Y. Lyubimovs Hamlet in
the Taganka Theatre belongs to a different theatre system, a system isolated
by the director himself. As for the visual aspects of Lyubimovs Hamlet, it is
a street theatre in its structure, in its substance a poets theatre.8 This play
could not be part of a chronological continuation of the theatre productions
of Shakespeares tragedies from the 50s through 60s to the 70s. Lyubimovs
version of Hamlet put an end to the principle of continuing the tradition. No
aspect of it can be compared, be it the morality, ideology, esthetics, or artistry.
The director developed his own expressive and figurative language. The critics
compared N. Okhlopkovs and G. Kozintsevs Hamlet productions to each
other, but even though there are only a few years between the Lyubimovs
production and Bergmanesque director A. Tarkovskys production at the
Lenkom Theatre (1976), their conceptual models and criteria for evaluating
the protagonist are completely different.

Montage of images including Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius, and the added Elektra, Hamlet, Prince of Den-
mark, Moscow State University of Culture and Arts, 2013.

8 Vladimir Vysotsky, Vysotsky at Taganka, a collection of articles prepared by S. Nikulin, (Moscow:

Souzteatr, 1988), 80.

134
In respect to the tragedy of Hamlet, Y. Lyubimov used Boris Pasternaks
translation. He thought it maintained the mystery of Shakespeares original
style. Pasternaks translation of Hamlet challenges the reader to think. In this
respect, Mikhail Chekhov was the first to note that the monologue to be or
not to be is more than Hamlets thought only. In everyday life every person
almost every day asks himself or herself this question, as the very condition
of human life poses the questionto be or not to be. For the first time, Yuri
Lyubimov expressed this idea in his Hamlet in the Taganka Theatre. At first
this line is spoken by Hamlet, and then all the characters repeat it in their
parts: Claudius, Polonius, etc.

Why is Hamlet still so popular? Because to be or not to be is the eternal

question of our existence? Y. Lyubimovs production was one of the bravest
productions of Shakespeare during the Soviet period. Rather than wearing
historical costumes, the actors wore jeans and sweaters. Hamlet, with a guitar
in hand, was played by Vysotsky.9 Later it would be noted in the press that in
spite of the whole novelty of Lyubimovs production, it had a lot to do with the
recent trends of Shakespeare performance. The world theatre has turned from
romance-oriented interpretations of Shakespeare to a more realistic, artful
Shakespeare. Relieving Hamlet of its romantic veil, Lyubimovs production
presented the very blood and flesh of a tragedy to our eyes.10 This eternal
play is timeless; it has endured changes in public taste, economic reform, and
political situations. Hamlet continues to be a constant interest to the Russian
audience; it is continuously staged by directors at professional theaters as well
as amateur ones. The famous Russian theater critic A. Bartosiewicz wrote on
the post-Soviet contemporary productions of Shakespeares tragedies: This is
a history of attempts to turn a tragedy into an ironic tragicomedy.11 Without
a doubt, that applied to most of the productions of Hamlet in the 1990s-2000s.

The opening night of a new production of Hamlet by the famous German

theater director Peter Stein took place on October 10, 1998, at the Russian
Army Theatre featuring Russian actors (Hamlet Yevgeny Mironov, Claudius
Alexander Feklistov, Gertrude Irina Kupchenko, Polonius Mikhail
Filippov, Horatio Alexey Zuev, Ophelia Elena Zakharova). The locale was
a boxing ring. Hamlet pursues the plays action and simultaneously enters

9 Vladimir Vysotsky was an actor, poet, and singer-songwriter whose unique singing style and
courageous commentary on society and politics made him an icon for the Russian people despite his
unpopularity with the Soviet political establishment. Ed.
10 Alexey V. Bartosiewicz., Live Flesh Tragedy, Soviet Culture. Dec. 14, 1971, 3.
11 Alexey V. Bartosiewicz, Hamlets Today, Shakespeare. Sci. Council of RAS History of World Culture,
Ed. A.V. Bartosiewicz (Moscow: Publishing House of Moscow University for the Humanities, 2010), 210.

135
into a boxing match. In the Moscow production of Hamlet, director Stein
combines the experience of Brecht and cabaret; this production has a boxing
ring, dances, a saxophone solo by Hamlet, Beatles music, and the First Player
in ladies makeup.

The production of Hamlet in the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre (2005),

directed by Yuri Butusov also bears the elements of burlesque, but the
combination of the grand style and lower depths of life makes the show
more down-to-earth: the characters recite Shakespeares text with modern
intonations. There is no Horatio, which stresses the complete solitude of
the Prince. Director Butusov and stage designer Alexander Shishkin set the
action of the play in a Nordic landscape with an icy sea and frozen Elsinore.
The sea was made of metallic trash, wire and empty cans and served as the
camp fence and a garbage dump at the same time.12 An ironic Hamlet in the
Butusovs version makes fun of death and the beyond. He remains relaxed
as he chats in front of the campfire near the boat with his old father, while
Shakespeares Prince traditionally stiffens at the horror of the infernal Ghost.
In the same manner, the actor Michael Truhin, who played Hamlet with
mocking despair, shouts The rest is silence. His last shout indicated that
the rest is emptiness. The statement gives evidence of fragmentation, the
incoherence of the world: the time is out of joint.

In his time Vsevolod Meyerhold imagined his Hamlet in the midst of a sea
of lead and sandy shores.13 According to the director, the Ghost clad in the
silver armor had to go out towards the viewer from the depths of the sea,
barely stretching his legs out of the quicksand. With his back to the audience,
Hamlet, dressed in a black cloak, was to cover his chilled-to-the bone father
and reveal his glittering armor to the viewer. The Black Prince and the Silver
King traded places that was a highly romantic picture. We can understand
how Meyerhold wanted to stage Hamlet in a new way, without changing the
script by reading his report Pushkin and Tchaikovsky, which he read in
Moscow at the club of art masters on November 17, 1934.14

Despair was the focus of the production of Hamlet staged by V. Fokin in

the Alexandrinsky Theatre (2010). Scenography by A. Borovsky was grand

12 Ibid., 209.
13 Vsevolod Meyerhold, V. E. Meyerhold, The Queen of Spades: Conception, Embodiment, Destiny;
Documents and Matierals. Ed. G. V. Koptova, (Collection of documents and materials for the production
of the opera The Queen of Spades at the State Academic Maly Opera Theatre, Leningrad, 1935), (Saint
Petersburg: Russian Institute of Art History, 1994), 123.
14Ibid.

136
and elemental, resembling a flight of steps to a tribune at a football stadium,
which is sometimes used for the most solemn public ceremonies. An iron
scaffold was built on stage. Two black pit-graves were dug on the sides of the
stage they absorbed scraps from the festive table, gravediggers, drowning
Ophelia, the skull of Yorick and slaughtered corpse of Polonius.

Montage of images including Hamlets father, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Moscow State University of
Culture and Arts, 2013.

The main antagonist was Gertrude, who hid the king under her skirt from
the wicked prince and disdainfully tricked Hamlet. The director, Fokin, made
Gertrude, rather than Claudius, the main villain, and she became a cold-
blooded killer, the organizer and inspirer of violence against the old Hamlet.
The prince, in his turn, becomes enraged and not only murders Polonius,
but does so in a frenzy of rage. He literally guts the old mans body with a
kitchen knife and savagely drags his corpse (a puppet) across the stage.15

15 Nikita Vladimirovich Zaharov, Productions of Hamlet on the Post-Soviet Stage, Knowledge.

Understanding. Skill. 4 (July-Aug 2011), July 17, 2011, http: // www. zpu-journal.ru/e-zpu/2011/4/Zakharov.

137
An adaptation by Vadim Levanov was used for this production, wherein
he united several translations of Shakespeare (Lozinsky, Field, Pasternak and
others), removed part of the Shakespeares text and substituted modern
jargon, thereby dramatically breaking the linguistic structure of classical
tragedy. Hamlet as directed by Fokin was characterized by irony, parody,
a blurring of authors intention, and persistent attention to the ugly. These
specific features characterize the postmodern style, which appeared in film
and theater at the beginning of twenty-first century. Famous theater critic
Bartosiewicz wrote about this production: The Hamlet of each epoch
resembles the essence of the epoch itself, shaped by the rebellious youth of
every generation... On the Alexandrinsky stage we saw and mourned the
Hamlet time within a non-Hamlet time.16

Generally, the above-mentioned trends of the modern productions of Hamlet

are characteristic for performances of the well-known theater companies,
those with substantial financial support from the government, sponsors, and
the media. Meanwhile, there are some very interesting and daring experiments
of Shakespearean productions performed by the amateur student theaters and
theater workshops. One of these is the play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark after W.
Shakespeares Tragedy, staged by assistant professor and course art director M.
Makharadze and performed by Moscow State University of Culture and Arts
students in the year 2013. Examining the production in detail reveals in part
the influence of the stage history of Hamlet in Russia through its interpretive
freedom, use of symbolism, and topical and temperamental relationship to
its era of production.

The figural world of the play Hamlet has emerged as a synthesis of the Globe
Theatre conventions of the Shakespearean era and the big Globe, the Earth.
Shakespeares Earth is an image of the homeland of humankind, the field
of an endless battle, the planet of lovers and gravediggers, and, finally, the
place that is on stage. Its a two-tier platform, divided into sectors, resembling
cells. It is the architecture of Elsinore castle, where everything is unstable,
unsteady, and overfilled with unresolved collisions and contradictions. It is
also a picture of life on two different levels of theater; Hamlet, the Prince of
Denmark and his environment represented the realistic layer, but the Ghost
and all scenes involving it were transcendental.

The lights in the hall were dimmed, the silence complete. And suddenly a

16 Alexey V. Bartosiewicz, Commentary on the Hamlet of Valery Fokin, OpenSpace.ru, May 14, 2010,
http://os.colta.ru/theatre/projects/149/details/17503/?expand=yes#expand.

138
fiery Irish music breaks in, and a merry, spry jig, a dance of Celtic origin,
brings to the stage a festive atmosphere of the carnival, as though to
reaffirm that Shakespeares era is not only one of tragedy but of vicissitudes,
metamorphosis, transformation and a carnival perception of the world. Yes,
it was the great Shakespeare who acknowledged the buffoon character of the
jig. At the carnival everything is tied into one grotesque knot: life, death,
birth, masks (M. Bakhtin). Carnival is a grotesque concept of the body and
earthly life.

There is another twist in the performance. A moment passes and the voice of
Ancient Hellas can be heard, as well as the texts from the trilogy Oresteia by
Aeschylus, tragedies Elektra and Antigone by Sophocles. His soul bursts onto
stage the voice of Elektra. He is brimming with disappointment, suffering
and tears. What insolence? To live with the killer of your husband as if
he was your husband!, says Elektra of her mother Clytemnestra. But it is
the inner monologue of Hamlet, his archetypal Anima that sums up all
statements subconsciously. In the opinion of Karl G. Jung, Anima is the
ideal image of a man, the way he should be.

This is why in the key scenes of the play, Hamlet is accompanied by the
heroine of the classical tragedies. It is his soul, his double, nurturing his male
strength. And these scenes are always accompanied by a particular symbol
a mirror, as if to reflect the developments in Elsinore castle, making them
distinctly mysterious and tragic. But the mirror is placed before nature not
only to show virtue but to present and reflect a persons most sacred secrets
and thoughts.

Lifes course is laid before me. And into this hell Im thrown, utter almost
simultaneously Hamlet and his soul Elektra. The world is very sick. Evil has
appeared into the world. Therefore, the famous line of the play To be or not to
be? That is the question, is not only the introspection of prince Hamlet how
to act when the people dearest to you bring you pain, when his mother not
having taken off her shoes is immediately getting married to her husbands
murderer! but a message, a promise to our 21st century from myth to the
modern day!

That is why the texts of classical literature Aeschylus, Sophocles, Vladimir

Mayakovsky are drawn together and interwoven with lyrics and top hits of
popular modern mass culture. Play acting and active mixing of genres, styles,
and languages of different cultures predominate in the directorial concept
of this version of Hamlet. For example, Laertes bends and laments over his

139
Use of puppets and the sense of carnival and cabaret, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Moscow State University
of Culture and Arts, 2013.

drowned sister Ophelia, as is customary in ancient burial rituals, using the

Georgian language. The scene with the gravediggers is played in the vein of
the absurd and grotesque. The play is packed with signs and symbols.

Elsinore castle is as cloaked in red color as it is bogged down in conspiracies

and murder. During the final scene, the dying but matured Hamlet tears
the curtains from the windows and covers himself with them, like a cloak.
Long and red, they stretch behind him through the whole stage, resembling
spilled blood, evil, and crime... and a new scenic metaphor is born. The red
color symbolizes blood, anger, war, and danger, but at the same time the
masculinity and maturity of Hamlet. And then again the heady music comes
on, accompanied by the jig, and the actors come out to bow.

Despite these directors differences in interpretations of Shakespeares

Hamlet, the main goal of this tragedy was and remains to relieve the soul
by reproducing a mythological piece, its catharsis, the dissolution of the
individual in the universal. The play about Prince Hamlet is an attempt to
treat, to heal, and to cleanse a soul by theatre.17 A set of scenic methods was

17 Natalia E. Mikeladze, Transformation of the Revenge Plot in Hamlet, Mediaskop 2010, no. 4: 11.
Posted Nov. 26, 2010, http://mediascope.ru/?q=node/676.

140
traditionally used for these purposes. These methods varied from one epoch
to another and included genre interpretation, scenography, and perception
of Hamlets image.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the history of these directors

interpretations on the Russian stage in the late 19th, early 20th and beginning of
21st centuries could be classified in several styles. The first one is to portray the
work as nominally tragicomical, where laughter and insanity are intertwined.
The second one is to portray the work as nominally tragical. There is no
room for laughter, and Hamlet is an elevated genius. In this regard, A. Anikst,
a specialist in the study of literature and a doctor of Art Studies, wrote:
The novelty elements of 20th century drama that express tragedy with such
literary devices as grotesque are perceived as something foreign to classical
literature, and to Shakespeare.18 The third approach is that of the Hamlet of
the postmodern era. The main peculiarity is a combination of various artistic
languages, styles, and genres. The viewer is given the opportunity to choose
the interpretation, the authors opinion is vague, and there is a prevailing
element of a game. The directors are prepared to create content that would
have a maximal effect on the society it is comprehensible, engrossing,
aimed at people with different interests. All the directors, however, have, in
ways they believe most needed in their respective eras, taken Shakespeares
advice to suit to action to the word, the word to the action.

18 Aleksandr Abramovich, Anikst. Shakespeare: The Craft of the Playwright (Moscow: Soviet writer,
1974), 60.

141
References

Akimov, Nikolai, and Mark G. Etkind. Set Design, Graphics. Moscow: Soviet Artist, 1980.

Anikst, Aleksandr Abramovich. Shakespeare: The Craft of the Playwright. Moscow:

Soviet Writer, 1974.

Bartosiewicz, Alexey V. Commentary on the Hamlet of Valery Fokin,

OpenSpace.ru, May 14, 2010, http://os.colta.ru/theatre/projects/149/details/
17503/?expand=yes#expand

------. Hamlets Today. Shakespeare. Sci. Council of RAS, History of World Culture.
Ed. A.V. Bartosiewicz. Moscow: Publishing House of Moscow University for
the Humanities, 2010. 209-216.

------. Live Flesh Tragedy. Soviet Culture, Dec. 14, 1971, 3.

Brecht. Bertolt. Theater. Plays. Articles. Statements. Five volumes. Vol. 1. Trans. E.
Etkind. Moscow: Art Publisher, 1965.

Chushkin, Nicholas. Hamlet Katchalov. Moscow: Isskustvo, 1966.

Hamlet (1964), Awards. Internet Movie Database (IMDB), accessed April 7, 2016.
http:// www.imdb.com/title/tt0058126/awards?ref_=tt_awd

Kozintsev, Gregory. Stone, Iron, and Fire. Soviet Cinema, April 25, 1964, 4.

Mikeladze, Natalia E. Transformation of the Revenge Plot in Hamlet. Mediaskop

2010, no. 4. http://mediascope.ru/?q=node/676

Magomedov, Rebecca. Hamlet, Stalin, Meyerhold, Akimov and Shostakovich.

From Testimony: The Memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovitch by Solomon Volkov.
Komi Republic. Last modified Oct. 1, 2011. http: // 7x7-journal.ru/post/15213

Meyerhold, Vsevolod. V. E. Meyerhold, The Queen of Spades: Conception,

Embodiment, Destiny; Documents and Materials. Ed. G. V. Koptova. Saint
Petersburg: Russian Institute of Art History, 1994.

Zaharov, Nikita Vladimirovich. Productions of Hamlet on the Post-Soviet Stage.

Knowledge. Understanding. Skill 4 (July-Aug. 2011). Last modified July 17,
2011. http: // www. zpu- journal.ru/e-zpu/2011/4/Zakharov_

142
143
 Este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar la
influencia del teatro espaol y latinoamericano en
el teatro universitario en Portugal a travs de dos
elementos particulares directores y repertorio. Y,
por eso, percibir las implicaciones detrs de esta
relacin, a la diversificacin de las prcticas y, como
consecuencia, la evolucin y el ejercicio de nuevos

lenguajes artsticos en la escena teatral portugus.

144
The Influence of Spanish and Latin-American Theatre
on University Theatre in Portugal
Margarida Adnis Torres

The paths taken by university theatre groups in Portugal were created

following particular historical, political and social moments, and were
clearly linked to the urges and restlessness faced throughout their existence.
Their trajectory was marked by contact with different cultural realities,
which contributed to the acknowledgement and assimilation of other social,
political and cultural realities over time. Such was achieved through festivals,
directors, texts and publications. Consequently, the development of different
aesthetical languages and the experimentation of various work processes
became possible, converting university theatre into a significant point of
reference in Portugals cultural scene.

One of the most significant contributions in the evolution of Portuguese

university theatre results from the great influence of some foreign directors,
namely Juan Carlos Uviedo, Adolf Gutkin, Victor Garca and Ricart Salvat
which, in diverse ways, artistically marked the university collectives.

This paper aims at analysing the influence of Spanish and Latin-American

theatre on the university theatre in Portugal through two particular elements
directors and repertoire. Further, the paper explores the implications
behind this relationship, towards the diversification of practices and the
resultant evolution and assertion of new artistic languages in the Portuguese
theatrical scene during the last years of the 1933-74 dictatorship.

Beginning

The relation between university teaching and theatrical expression is deeply

rooted in the history of Portugals universities, both as college theatre and
as festive celebrations. For centuries, university teaching in Portugal was
dominated by religious orders. Therefore, the most performed theatrical
genres were biblical tragedies and allegorical fantasies.1

1 Jos de Oliveira Barata, Mscaras da Utopia: Histria do Teatro Universitrio em Portugal. 1938/74
(Lisboa: Fundao Calouste Gulbenkian: 2009), 27-29.

145
In the 16th Century, religious orders were expelled from Portugal and
university teaching came under royal control. College theatre incorporated
Enlightenment ideas as soon as they arrived in Portugal, brought by teachers
from European institutions such as universities of Paris (France), Bologna
(Italy), and Salamanca (Spain). With time, the evolution of university
teaching changed practices, contexts and paradigms. But in spite of all these
changes, dramatic activities still marked several occasions of academic life,
even though models and intentions had deeply changed.

Apart from the theatrical experiences created over the long history of the
Portuguese University, founded in 1290, activities of the groups that emerged
in the 20th century come within the wide field of the binomial theatre/
university, which avoided the establishment of a linear model, or a blueprint
characterization, due to the diversity of forms incorporated.

Indeed, the articulation between theatre and university institutions allows

for different associations, resulting in the need for distinguishing possible
variables whose configurations are located in either theatrical studies
namely the ones with a more theoretical character, when inscribed in the
study of dramatic literature or in aesthetics and theatre history. In addition,
there are other institutions with a more practical and technical character
when it comes to studies leading to the artistic training of actors, designers,
and technicians, among others. Further, there are the activities with unique
characteristics relating to the practices of theatre groups that are connected
to the university institutions, mostly composed by students.2

The history of theatre and performance in twentieth-century Portugal is not

possible to unfold without reference to the theatre created by university groups.
Such theatre has converted itself into a bastion of resistance, experimentalism,
and modernity. University theatre embodied characteristics of mobilization
and intervention that would mark the cultural, social and, political pulse of
Portugal throughout the century and the beginning of the Millennium.

Framework

Modern Portuguese university theatre was born out of a stratified and grey
society under an authoritarian regime that was reluctant toward democracy

2 Patrice Pavis, Dicionrio de Teatro (So Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1996), 150 - 152.

146
and uninterested in culture. Hence, the activities that emerged were
hampered by surveillance and censorship mechanisms of the Estado Novo
characterized by an authoritarian regime, a single party, high hierarchy,
corporatism, conservativism and nationalism which controlled freedom of
thought and expression, between 1933 and 1974.3 The Carnation Revolution
of April 25th, 1974, established democracy in Portugal.

The first university theatre group of the twentieth century was created during
the dictatorship and at University of Coimbra in 1938 Teatro dos Estudantes
da Universidade de Coimbra TEUC (Student Theatre of the University of
Coimbra). In the following ten years, new theatre groups came to life at the
University of Lisbon4 and University of Oporto.5 These were composed of
students from various study areas and were mostly directed and guided by
university teachers. Their repertoire included classical authors such as the
Portuguese Gil Vicente, the Spanish Tirso de Molina and Caldern de La
Barca, as well as Euripides and Sophocles.

Between 1938 and 1974, university theatre gained considerable cultural and
social prestige, allowing interventions of several domains within Portuguese
society. In particular, university theatre acted as a social milieu for young
people to be culturally and politically engaged and break with the conservative
values of Portuguese society and especially with the ruling dictatorship.

Another relevant issue is the role of university groups in the renovation of

the Portuguese theatrical scene, through their choice of repertoires, new
interpretations of plays and the sharing of their activities with a largely
university audience that looked to theatre as a means to widen the narrow
horizons of the regime. Furthermore, university theatre definitely contributed
to the creation of new generations of actors and directors, who in turn brought
about independent theatre movements.

3 Graa dos Santos, O espectculo desvirtuado o teatro portugus sob o reinado de Salazar: 1933-1968
(Lisboa: Editorial Caminho, 2004).
4 Grupo de Teatro da Faculdade de Letras, (Theatre Group of the Faculty of Letters) founded in 1942
(beginning in 1964 its activities become more regular). Grupo Cnico da Associao de Estudantes da
Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa (also known as Cnico de Direito), founded in 1954
(Scenic Group of the Students Association of Law Faculty of the University of Lisbon).
5 Teatro Clssico da Universidade do Porto, founded in 1948 (Classical Theatre of Oporto University).
In the 1950s, it changed its name to Teatro Universitrio do Porto (TUP).

147
Inspiration

In Europe, Spanish and French university theatres are the closest parallels for
mapping the Portuguese situation. The close relation to the French theatre
is due to the large influence of French culture that prevailed in Portuguese
society, namely in academic and cultural settings. Another important
contribution to the theatrical scene was the participation of Portuguese
groups in international festivals in France, such as the Nancy Festival, where
new authors and theatrical languages were being internationally disseminated.

Besides interacting with other theatre groups, travelling abroad allowed

students contact with different social and political situations. Carlos Batista,
member of TEUC, recalls how, on a trip to the Festival of Nancy, he visited
the local Communist Party headquarters and learned of the stage scenery that
served to carry books that were forbidden by the censorship: we bought the
Marxist classics which we camouflaged within the scenery parts. We crossed
the frontier with the scenery filled with books.6

One of the mostly referenced shows by Portuguese students who attended

the Nancy International Theatre Festival in 1965 was Morte e Vida Severina
(Death and Life of a Severino), the dramatic poem by Joo Cabral de MeloNeto,
directed by Roberto Freire, presented by TUCA (Teatro da Universidade
Catlica de So Paulo) from the Catholic University of So Paulo (Brazil),
with music composed by the then young student, Chico Buarque de Hollanda.
The long poem describes the life of a poor rural migrant from the north-
eastern part of Brazil who walks to the coast in search of a better life. The
human misery and fight for survival portrayed in this play were issues that
Portuguese students could easily recognize in the Portuguese reality. This
play became a reference point for many young people of that generation.

Of equal importance was the close connection with and large influence from
Spanish and South American playwrights and directors. For Spanish theatre,
geographical proximity and a parallel political situation in both countries
contributed to the similarity of some pathways, especially the politicization
of university groups.7

6 Maria Manuela Cruzeiro e Rui Bebiano, (org. e pref.). Anos Inquietos. Vozes do Movimento Estudantil
em Coimbra (1961-1974) (Porto: Afrontamento, 2006), 123.
7 Csar Oliva, La escena universitaria espaola, in Garca Lorenzo (ed.), Aproximacin al Teatro
Espaol Universitario (TEU) (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas, 1999), 15-30.
About university students during the period of the Spanish dictatorship see: Ruiz Carnicer, Miguel ngel,
El SEU 1939-1965. La socializacin poltica de la juventud universitaria en el franquismo (Madrid: Siglo
XXI, 1996).

148
Moreover, the wide dissemination of Spanish authors such as Sastre, Caldern
de la Barca, Garca Lorca, Buero Vallejo, Lope de Vega, Fernando Arrabal, and
Ramn del Valle-Incln in Portuguese repertoires shows a strong influence of
Spanish theatre performed on Portuguese stages. Another important factor
in the dissemination of international theatre (chiefly Latin-American and
Spanish) is the circulation of the Primer Acto magazine. First published on
April 1st, 1957, the magazine helped the promotion and discussion of the
international theatrical scene and also served as a vehicle for the concerns of
a new generation linked to theatre, including university groups.

Evolution

From the late 1950s to the 1974 Carnation Revolution, the increased number of
university students meant greater participation in extracurricular activities. The
progressive dissatisfaction with the policies imposed by the dictatorship, such as
the restrictions on freedom of thought and the curtailing of civil rights, together
with the wars in the colonies at that time (Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea),
provided fertile ground for university associations contesting the regime.

Despite the censorship imposed by the regime, some outside voices were heard.
Students in social elites were able to access and contact foreign countries; and
in some cultural and political milieus, foreign newspapers and magazines, as
well as forbidden books and records, were circulating underground.

Gradually, the university population framework came to reflect the cultural,

social, political, and moral models and embody social commitment to their
ideals and practices. It was during the 1960s that a new attitude in Portugal
started to affirm itself, namely regarding the action of students associations
as determinant forces of intervention and social commitment. This situation
was perceptible in the changing of how the associative initiatives developed
within universities were defined most notably, being neutral ceased to
characterise positions taken.

Indeed, this would work as a way to legitimise academic associations and to

define their action boundaries in the defence of students interests, struggling
for a distinct vision from that represented by the University institution
as a whole. The claiming of rights to free association and the demand for
acceptance of other political ideologies as valid not only the one advocated
and pursued by the state would set forth conditions that would culminate
in the emergence of the student union movement in Portugal.

149
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that during the 60 s and 70 s, Portuguese
students joined the political contestation and turmoil which was placing
youth at the centre of political and social agitation in different parts of the
world. Students political engagement and regime contestation increased
from the 60 s onwards, and university theatre was a major forum for such
dissent and combat.

Repertoires and aesthetic languages gave voice to cultural resistance, political

criticism, and protests against colonial war. This was the case of Ilha dos
Escravos (Lle des esclaves Slave Island) of Pierre de Marivaux presented
by TEUC in 1969 and staged by Luis Lima. Through interpretation and the
staging of the text, the audience easily recognized the parallelism between
the island of the slaves and the political and social situation experienced in
Portugal.8 The spectacle turned out to be forbidden after a short tour.

Despite the groups different stratagems engendered to overcome the

Examination Committee of National Secretariat of Information, Popular
Culture, and Tourisms dictates, the inspectors thorough analysis of the
texts and rehearsals resulted in text cuts, disapproval and prohibition of
incomplete presentation of certain plays. The reasons given for censoring a
text or an act related with words, phrases, scenes, ideas, and images was that
it could undermine the State or the prevailing moral and social institutions
religious, civic or military. The context of the Colonial War and the increase
of insurgency within the students work was a case particularly targeted by
the Examination Commission.

Regarding this, and following the application for a permit for representation
of the play Picnic on the Battlefield from the Spanish playwright Fernando
Arrabal, produced by CITAC (Coimbras Academy Theatrical Initiation
Circle) in 1964, the report signed by two censors said that:9

The entire text is built on the sense of contempt for war. Hence the ridiculous
situations that are created with the consequent denial of military values that
at any time, but especially at the present time, in which, by all means, it is
necessary to defend and safeguard. I disapprove. (01/31/64)

It is a play with a pacifist character, in the subversive sense that this current
reveals, which is why I entirely agree with the disapproval proposed. (15/04/64)

8Barata, Mscaras da Utopia: Histria do Teatro Universitrio em Portugal. 1938/74, 140.

9 National Information Secretariat, case number 7497. Torre do Tombo National Archive - PT/TT/SNI-
DGE/1/7497 (Reference code).

150
In this period, university theatre drew closer to professional theatre through
collaboration with directors, set designers, and musicians. Contact with these
professionals shaped the evolution of university groups, both artistically
and in terms of social and political thinking. Among the various directors
who worked with university theatre during the dictatorship, there were four
foreign directors who strongly influenced the evolution of university groups:
the Catalan Ricard Salvat and the Argentinians Victor Garcia, Adolfo Gutkin
and Juan Carlos Uviedo.

Directors

The theatrical journey of Victor Garcia10 began in Argentina. However, it

was in France in 1962 that he first gained international prestige, winning
many awards for his staging of a collage of works by Garcia Lorca and Valle-
Incln at the Theatre des Nations in Paris. His acclaimed and controversial
productions of texts of Lorca, Caldern de La Barca, Jarry, Genet, and Arrabal
toured the stages of France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and England. As remarked
by David Whitton: a small, intensive, erratic man from a northern province
of Argentina, Garcia was possibly the most daring and original creator of
baroque spectacles in the 1960s and 1970s. 11

Garcia came to Portugal at the invitation of Crculo de Iniciao Teatral da

Academia de Coimbra CITAC (Coimbras Academy Theatrical Initiation
Circle) in 1965 and remained until 1968. During these years, he organized
training and directed the groups performances. His innovative work
revolutionised the groups traditional theatre methods. Enhancing the scenic
space and creating symbolic universes from the texts, he contributed to a
renewal of aesthetics and to strengthening the group; this was considered
CITACs most active and successful generation ever. With this group he
directed O grande teatro do mundo (El gran teatro del mundo / The Great
Theatre of the World) from Caldern de La Barca, in 1967, and Assim que
passem Cinco Anos (As que pasen cinco aos/ When Five Years Pass) from
Lorca, also in 1967. They presented Mystres (a conjunction of three shows

10 About Victor Garcia see: Jefferson Del Rios, O teatro de Victor Garcia A vida sempre em jogo (So
Paulo: Edies SESC, 2012) and Newton de Souza, A roda, a engrenagem e a moeda: vanguarda e espao
cnico no teatro de Victor Garcia no Brasil (So Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2003).
11 David Whitton, Stage Directors in Modern France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), 163.

151
Auto de S.Martinho,12 Auto das Ofertas13 e O grande teatro do mundo) at the
Biennalle de Paris in 1967 and the Festival Internacional du Thatre de Lige
in 1968, performances that garnered great critical acclaim:

The IIIrd Student Theatre Festival ends in grace thanks to the masterful
interpretation of the Portuguese. (...) Masterfully staged by Victor Garcia,
these three works were interpreted with verve, with decor and costumes
reminiscent of tales of the fantastic. With an admirable staging by Victor
Garcia (an exceptionally controversial director ever since his last show The
Car Cemetery by Arrabal), these two mysteries are masterfully played by
talented actors, turning it into a show of remarkable beauty.14

Ricard Salvat15 succeeded Victor Garcia. A prominent figure of the Spanish

theatre scene, the Catalan Salvat (born 1934) was a director, playwright,
essayist, and university professor, as well as founder and director of the School
of Dramatic Art Adri Gual (EADEAG) who had deep knowledge of Bertolt
Brechts work. Indeed, Salvats whole career reflected his robust background,
his professional experience, and his knowledge of Brechtian aesthetics.

Salvats work at CITAC (Coimbras Academy Theatrical Initiation Circle)

mainly focused on increasing the groups technical and theoretical expertise
through a course in the history of performing arts.

After a long period of research, the group created a collage of texts by several
Iberian authors Roslia de Castro, Alfonso Castelao, Ramon Snder, Manuel
da Fonseca, and others representing the Galician-Portuguese reality as a
field of rebellion against social asymmetries. A show about one of the fathers
of Galician nationalism, Castelao e a sua poca (Castelao and His Season)
(1969), never premiered: it was forbidden by the Portuguese censorship
committee. At the same time, some members of the group involved in
academic fights against the regime were arrested, sent to military service and
then to the war in Africa.

Despite the general commotion, there was still time to work on Brecht. Since

12 Text from Portuguese dramatist and poet Gil Vicente, one of the principal figures of the Iberian
Renaissance, born in 1465 and died in 1536/37.
13 Text from Spanish by an anonymous author of the sixteenth century.
14 Critic in the newspaper La Mouse in Barata, Mscaras da Utopia: Histria do Teatro Universitrio em
Portugal. 1938/74, 200.
15 About Ricard Salvat see: Albert de La Torre, et al., Ricard Salvat i la seva poca (Barcelona: Institut
de Cultura de Barcelona, 2003) and Oriol Puigtaul, LEscola DArt Dramtic Adri Gual i la seva poca
(Barcelona: Departament de Filologia Catalana de la Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona, 2007).

152
Brechts texts were forbidden in Portugal, the material was presented as open
rehearsals. Such shows included poems and The Exception and the Rule (Die
Ausnahme und die Regel).

Salvat ended up being arrested by police and expelled from Portugal.

On the advice of Ricard Salvat, the group contacted another Argentinian

director Juan Carlos Uviedo. The eccentric, provocative directors artistic
work brought something new to the Portuguese university theatre scene:
collective creations. This was not new at the international level, but Portugal
was just discovering them.

Uviedos aesthetic marginality, radicalism, and eccentricity were welcomed

in post-academic crisis times, when repression strengthened resistance
and ideological combat in a significant number of students. Therefore, it is
understandable that Uviedo managed to gather an enthusiastic group that
saw the collective project as a new creative force different from previous
experiences, the theatre as a room of collective transgression.

Denial of bourgeois theatre and aesthetics inspired by Artaud, Grotowski,

and Living Theatre were key elements in the language of the groups show
Macbeth, o que se passa na tua cabea (Macbeth, what is going on in your mind),
which premiered in 1970. The show had nothing to do with Shakespeare just
with what was going on in their own minds! The play caused a commotion
and after performances in Coimbra, Oporto, and at the Parma Festival it
ended up being banned. Meanwhile, CITAC (Coimbras Academy Theatrical
Initiation Circle) was closed by the police after some incidents which had
nothing to do with the show. The group would only resume activities after
the fall of the dictatorship in 1974.16

Almost at the end of the dictatorship, another Argentinean director achieved

considerable success among the students and the critics with two of the
most remarkable theatre shows of the time created with Cnico de Direito
(Scenic Group of the Students Association of Law Faculty of the University of
Lisbon). The director, Adolfo Gutkin, had also been recommended by Salvat
to some of the groups members. He had started his work in Argentina and
founded one the first theatre schools in Cuba.

16CITAC, Esta danada caixa preta s a murro que funciona: CITAC 50 anos (Coimbra: Imprensa da
Universidade, 2006), 77.

153
His personal magnetism, knowledge, and experience in theatre would
contribute to changing the traditional theatre-making process. His first
play, Ben Jonsons Volpone, in 1969, amazed and delighted audiences with
its strength, solid interpretation, and exquisite scenery proposal. The
formality of work based on the Method was abandoned and they began the
path to physical expression as well as fracturing the tyranny of the audience
configuration of proscenium theatre.

This was made even clearer with the second play, Melim 4, in 1970, where
the stage was opened to the audience and Lisbon students could experience
collective creation. Less consensual than the first, this play caused a great deal
of discussion in the Portuguese theatrical milieu about the role of theatre in
society.

While the critics praised and audiences raptured, the governmental authorities
were concerned with innovation, discussion, and ideological debate. Gutkin,
too, would be expelled by the Portuguese International and State Defense
Police (PIDE).

However, Gutkins work was so influential that he returned to Portugal after

the 1974 Revolution, invited by the TEUC. With this group, he directed the
collective creation E agora? Histria de Z e Maria (And Now? The Story of
Joseph and Mary), in 1978, which they took to the Lyon, Nantes, and Rennes
University Theatres Festivals. Also with TEUC, he directed the play Homo
Dramaticus, by Alberto Adelach, in 1981. Gutkin continued his work in
Portugal and today he is a Portuguese citizen.

Besides these four directors in the Portuguese theatre scene in the period
preceding the revolution, other Latin-American directors were involved in
Portuguese university theatre: the Argentinean Carlos Augusto Fernandes
who, in 1970, staged the spectacle of collective creation Azul Negro (Blue
Black) at TUP (University Theatre of Oporto) and the Uruguayan Federico
Wolff who staged Os Fsicos (Die Physiker / The Physicists) by Friedrich
Drrenmatt in 1971 with Cnico de Direito (Scenic Group of the Students
Association of Law Faculty of the University of Lisbon).

The work of these directors and the creation of texts by writers such as
Enrique Buenaventura, Oswaldo de Andrade, Alfonse Sastre, Lorca, Arrabal,
Javier Tomeo, or Caldern de La Barca gave birth to the discovery of new
artistic territories.

154
Conclusion

Indelibly, the Spanish and Latin American theatre played a determinant

role in the history of university theatre in Portugal, either through texts
that were worked with or the directors involved in this trajectory. They
profoundly contributed to the aesthetic unblocking and cultural boldness
that, with great commitment, the dictatorship attempted to avoid. During
this period such change was possible through the work carried out and
through the approach of the university students to the aesthetic languages that
emerged on the international theatre scene, namely the collective creation
methodologies, which created moments of reflection and discussion around
the major aesthetic issues of theatre. Likewise, this contribution was crucial
to the relevant role assigned to the university theatre in the renewal of the
Portuguese theatrical scene: that by reading and selecting repertoires from
plays about reform, presenting them, and sharing its activities with the public
(mostly university students) a public that perceived the theatre as one of
the possible means to address its growing thirst for knowledge against the
subjugated horizon of Salazarism17 university theatre allowed a glimpse of
alternative theatre possibilities. Additionally, it unequivocally contributed to
the formation of generations of new actors and directors. In this regard, the
theatre critic Carlos Porto18 indicates the outbreak of the university theatre
practices of the 1960s as a decisive point for the evolution of the Portuguese
art scene. This is so, given that far from a professional profile (and therefore
away from the dictates of the ticket booth) activities were characterised by
the use of a certain freedom and boldness of aesthetic language, becoming
an important driver of the independent theatre and the creation of new
audiences.

The texts of Spanish and Latin American authors during the democratic
period continued to mark the Portuguese university theatre scene, as clear
evidence that, despite the frontiers, the inspiration for the expression of ideas
was never far away.

17Santos, O espectculo desvirtuado o teatro portugus sob o reinado de Salazar: 1933-1968, 327.
18 Carlos Porto, Do tradicional ao Teatro Independente, in Antnio Reis (dir.), Portugal Contemporneo.
Vol.3. (Lisboa: Publicaes Alfa, 1996), 279.

155
References

Barata, Jos de Oliveira. Mscaras da Utopia: Histria do Teatro Universitrio em

Portugal. 1938/74. Lisboa: Fundao Calouste Gulbenkian, 2009.

CITAC. Esta danada caixa preta s a murro que funciona: CITAC 50 anos. Coimbra:
Imprensa da Universidade, 2006.

Cruzeiro, Maria Manuela and Rui Bebiano. Anos Inquietos. Vozes do Movimento
Estudantil em Coimbra (1961-1974). Porto: Afrontamento, 2006.

Del Rios, Jefferson. O teatro de Victor Garcia A vida sempre em jogo. So Paulo:
Edies SESC, 2012.

Oliva, Csar, La escena universitaria espaola. In Aproximacin al Teatro Espaol

Universitario (TEU), ed. Garca Lorenzo, 15-30. Madrid: Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Cientficas, 1999.

Pavis, Patrice. Dicionrio de Teatro. So Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1996.

Porto, Carlos. Do tradicional ao Teatro Independente. In Portugal Contemporneo,

vol. 3, ed. Antnio Reis, 279. Lisboa: Publicaes Alfa, 1996.

Ruiz Carnicer, Miguel ngel. El SEU 1939-1965. La socializacin poltica de la

juventud universitaria en el franquismo. Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1996.

Puigtaul, Oriol. LEscola DArt Dramtic Adri Gual i la seva poca. Barcelona:
Departament de Filologia Catalana de la Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona,
2007.

Santos, Graa dos. O espectculo desvirtuado o teatro portugus sob o reinado de

Salazar: 1933-1968. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho, 2004.

Souza, Newton de. A roda, a engrenagem e a moeda: vanguarda e espao cnico no

teatro de Victor Garcia no Brasil. So Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2003.

Torre, Albert de La et al. Ricard Salvat i la seva poca. Barcelona: Institut de Cultura
de Barcelona, 2003.

Whitton, David. Stage Directors in Modern France. Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 1987.

156
157
 Malgr la popularit des groupes de thtre interactif
dans les universits, peu de recherches ont t faites.
Combien duniversits offrent ce style de thtre?
Quels sont leurs objectifs et les rsultats? Comment
sont financs ces programmes et comment sont-ils
valus? Cet essai fournit des rsultats dune enqute
dans des universits aux tats-Unis, qui peuvent
servir de modle pour dautres pays. Nous appelons
nos collgues mondiaux une discussion plus large
sur le thtre interactif dans les universits, de sorte
que nous cherchons dvelopper et solidifier nos

programmes.

158
Interactive Theatre for Social Change: Who Are We and
What Do We Do?
Anne Fliotsos

Augusto Boals Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is one of several models that
have ignited artists around the globe to identify social problems and enact
possible solutions. In the United States, such high profile groups as the
Living Theatre, the Open Theatre, and the Bread & Puppet Theatre have
promoted theatre for social change. On university campuses, interactive
theatre troupes may also fulfill this role, though on a much smaller scale.
Through a repertoire of short interactive scenes, these theatre groups offer
students, staff, and teachers the chance to examine problematic situations
both within and outside of the formal curriculum. Although there are many
different vocabularies to describe this type of theatre, including Theatre for
Development, Theatre for Transformation, Participatory Theatre, Applied
Theatre and Theatre in Education, not all terms are synonymous. For the sake
of clarity within this essay, I employ two of the most commonly used terms:
Interactive Theatre and Theatre for Social Change.

Despite the prevalence of interactive theatre in colleges and universities,

relatively little research has been conducted about university programs until
recently. There have long been seminal works in the field, such as Paulo Freires
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Augusto Boals Theatre of the Oppressed and his
Games for Actors and Non-Actors, among others.1 While the first two books
lay theoretical foundations for these movements, the later is a more practical
manual in terms of putting the ideas into practice. Recent contributions include
Come Closer: Critical Perspectives on Theatre of the Oppressed, edited by Toby
Emert and Ellie Frieland,2 which collects a variety of first-person narratives
regarding new takes or techniques associated with Boals forum theatre in
order to address new audiences, new purposes, new settings.3 In a similar

1 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, translated by Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Continuum,
1970); Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed (New York: Urizen Books, 1979); Augusto Boal, Games for
Actors and Non-Actors (New York: Routledge, 1992). See also the downloadable pdf from Pedagogy and
Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc. (PTO), How to Change the World: a very brief introduction to the works
of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal http://ptoweb.org/resources/.
2 Toby Emert and Ellie Friedland, eds., Come Closer: Critical Perspectives on Theatre of the Oppressed
(New York: Peter Lang, 2011).
3 Ibid., back cover.

159
vein, Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre, edited by
Norma Bowles and Daniel-Raymond Nadon, compiles twenty-eight essays
from practitioners who have trained with the activist theatre Fringe Benefits.4
Though many of the essays are based in description and reflection, others
include critical examinations and address university groups in particular. The
span of countries goes beyond the U.S.A. to include Canada, Australia, and
the U.K. Dani Snyder-Youngs book, Theatre of Good Intentions: Challenges
and Hopes for Theatre and Social Change, provides a different type of study:
one that challenges the effectiveness of Theatre for Social Change programs
and examines limitations, primarily through case studies.5 Looking beyond
the more obvious books, two research articles on theatre of the oppressed
in colleges and universities deserve mention. Suzanne Burgoyne and her
co-authors at the University of Missouri-Columbia contribute Interactive
Theatre and Self-Efficacy and Investigating Interactive Theatre as Faculty
Development for Diversity.6 Both articles use grounded theory to analyze
the outcomes of specific case studies.

Further investigation proves that little data on university interactive theatre

groups exists. Although some basic information may be available on individual
university websites, there is no professional organization or other source that
gathers and maintains information about these theatre groups. When I began
as the new director of such a university troupe, I quickly realized that I could
not get a sense of what characterizes these groups and how they operate. I
had many questions: How many universities offer this type of theatre? What
are their goals and outcomes? How are these programs funded and how are
they assessed? How similar or dissimilar are they? What could I learn from
experienced troupe leaders, and apply to my own theatre group? I queried
some of my international colleagues and discovered that university theatre
troupes committed to interactive theatre for social change exist world-wide,
but without knowledge of the programs in my own country, I was unprepared
to engage in an international dialogue.

This research provides a starting point in gathering both qualitative and

quantitative information about university interactive theatre programs

4 Norma Bowles and Daniel-Raymond Nadon. Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist
Theatre (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013).
5 Dani Snyder-Young, Theatre of Good Intentions: Challenges and Hopes for Theatre and Social Change
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
6 Suzanne Burgoyne et al., Interactive Theatre and Self-Efficacy, New Directions for Teaching and
Learning no. 111 (2007): 21-26, doi: 10.1002/tl.282; Burgoyne et al., Investigating Interactive Theatre as
Faculty Development for Diversity, Theatre Topics 18, no. 2, (2008): 107-29.

160
across the United States. In 2014 in collaboration with Katherine Burke,
then President of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc. (PTO), we
created a twenty-five-question survey of colleges and universities in an effort
to describe who we are and what we do. This study of a single country serves
as a model for further studies across the globe in order to chronicle how
interactive theatre groups function within a university setting.7

Survey Results

With the aid of Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), we

sent surveys to all four-year colleges and universities with theatre studies
programs in the U.S.A.8 We obtained forty-three responses to our survey and
found a wide variety of schools in terms of size and institutional type:

We wondered if interactive theatre troupes operate more frequently within

or outside of the university curriculum and found they were almost evenly
divided: 53% extra-curricular and 47% curricular. The longevity of both the
curricular and extra-curricular troupes varied greatly, ranging from one year
to twenty-three years, with an average of eight years.

7 The full text of the survey is available at the end of this article.
8 Per agreement with ATHE, survey results were posted on their website in 2014.

161
Although our study focuses upon theatre troupes, we recognize that
many such troupes are connected to courses in Theatre for Social Change,
Interactive Theatre, and similar topics. Of those schools with courses and
degrees in interactive theatre or theatre for social change, 35% report offering
only one course. Sample course titles included Theatre for Social Change
(most frequent), Theatre and Justice, Playback Theatre, Drama Therapy,
Applied Theatre, and Activism and Performance, among others. Only 5%
of the schools responding offered a specialized major, 13% offered a minor,
and 10% offered a concentration (presumably falling between a major and a
minor).

One question on our survey asked about major influences on the troupes
methods. Not surprisingly, the greatest influence was Augusto Boal (82%),
followed by Viola Spolin (43%), Playback Theatre (39%), and Michael Rohd
(32%). Other influences included Agitprop Theatre, El Teatro Campesino,
Bread & Puppet Theatre, Barbara Ann Teer, Paulo Freire, and Keith Johnstone,
among others. We asked if scenes were scripted or not, with the following
results:

Summarizing the characteristics of each program is difficult, as they vary

greatly. Schools reported that anywhere from one to forty students are
active in creating and presenting workshops each year, with an average of
eight students participating. Campus audiences for the troupes included
student groups (residence halls, fraternities and sororities, freshman class,
international groups, study abroad, and various other student organizations)
as well as faculty and staff groups. Off campus audiences include a wide range
of community groups as well as specialized groups such as former prisoners,

162
at-risk teens, City Hall, and even S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons and Tactics unit
of law enforcement). One respondent reported that organizations do not
invite them to perform; rather, the university theatre group gives a community
performance and anyone can attend. In an age of online networking it was
surprising to find that word of mouth was the primary method of advertising
performances and workshops, followed by email, posters, newspapers, and
online outlets.

The next section of the survey focused upon qualitative data, addressing the
goals of each troupe, their mission statements, and their most frequently
presented topics. Issues of diversity and discrimination were commonly
cited, with the following results:

Top three goals for troupes:

1. To develop respect for diverse points of view.
2. To identify/address issues of cultural diversity.
3. To identify/address oppression.

Topics most frequently presented:

1. Discrimination based on gender or sexual identity.
2. Racial discrimination.
3. Bullying and/or micro-aggression.
4. Sexual Harassment or sexual violence.
5. Respecting diverse viewpoints.

Given the prevalence of Boals methodologies cited above, it is not surprising

that these findings closely mirror Boals goals to confront discrimination and
oppression; furthermore, they point to the types of discrimination most often
found on Americas college campuses.

Because assessment is critical in most academic environments, we asked

who assessed the effectiveness of their troupes and how they conducted
assessments. More than half use a survey or questionnaire, but more than
one-third do not formally assess effectiveness at all. This may be partially
explained by the high level of extra-curricular troupes (53%), where
assessment is less likely to be required. We asked what changes the troupes
had made based on they feedback they obtained. Their responses point to the
many challenges in creating and sustaining a high quality experience for the
audience/participants, or spect-actors, to use Boals terminology. Some of
the answers included:

163
 Finding a more diverse group of actors.
Sharing the blame and not putting it all on white/majority students.
Striving for more and better assessment.
Creating clearer articulation of outcome measures.
Increasing length of scenes with a chance to enact a solution.
Creating new topics and tighter focus on content.
Giving more opportunities for spectator participation.
Providing more information on the form of theatre.
Allowing anonymous questions on sensitive issues and time for discussion.
Providing more access and training for community members.
Facilitating class schedules to make student actors more available.
Adding other forms of theatre for social change in the curriculum.
Establishing a center for community engagement.

Each respondent also reported his or her greatest successes and biggest
challenges, with an interesting mix of comments. Common themes for
success were the positive impact on student performers and audiences, as
well as the pedagogical value. Specific comments included:

Gaining confidence through theatre and expression.

Raising awareness of the issues and promoting discussion.
Including non-theatre majors and under-represented students.
Transforming conflict situations.
Empowering student performers, writers, spectators.
Promoting one-on-one time with the students.
Offering new courses in the curriculum based in these techniques.

Common themes regarding challenges were scheduling, budget, support

from the institution, and finding an audience. Specific comments included:

Discovering a lack of support from administration and non-theatre faculty.

Creating fresh work each time.
Generating interest in social issue plays (apathy).
Finding methods of assessment.
Dealing with freedom of speech [on taboo subjects] in high schools.
Balancing performance schedule with other department performances
and projects.
Traveling off-campus with performers.
Dealing with financial support and budget constraints.
Finding no room in the curriculum to add a class in this topic.

Clearly the work of the troupes was perceived as extremely beneficial to

students and to the campus as a whole, but the toll on the directors as leaders

164
and organizers is significant due to inflexibility within the university, the
lack of continued support (both fiscal and otherwise), and constant juggling
required to navigate a group of ever-changing student actors addressing
complex topics for a diverse population.

Summary and Discussion

This survey provides a snapshot of U.S. campuses with Interactive Theatre

for Social Change programs and reveals a wide variety of programs across
a diverse pool of American colleges and universities. Although the troupes
appear to be quite similar in terms of their goals and the topics of their
presentations, the successes and challenges of individual troupes vary
widely depending on the campus climate and the unique obstacles within
each program. Though varied, the obstacles provide data for some crucial
questions: How can we break down barriers (institutional or otherwise) in
order to have more successful programs? To that end, how can we best assess
the effectiveness of our troupes in order to ensure their continued existence?

The obstacles facing theatre for social change groups on campus are many, but the
benefits are worthwhile. Persuading university administrators to support such
troupes, and educating faculty, staff, and students on the benefits of Theatre for
Social Change is critical to the survival of these programs. Burke explains:

Understanding the nature of social justice-oriented theatre in higher education

is imperative for several reasons. First, at a time when university arts and
humanities budgets are diminishing, it is essential that theatre departments
establish and maintain outreach programming that goes beyond educational
study guides for school matinees; finding ways to engage in on- and off-campus
communities is a way to increase visibility of a theatre department. Second,
fostering these programs invites collaboration with other disciplines such as
history, public health, womens studies, African-American studies, sociology,
and more, increasing theatre students exposure to a variety of disciplines, and
increasing other students exposure to theatre. Most importantly, it is vital that
students become empowered, aware, concerned citizens as they enter the real
world, so that no matter their chosen career or life path, they will continue to
create a more just, equitable, and healthy society. If we can understand which
higher education theatre and social change programs are thriving, and the
reasons for their success, we can build on those models to increase the use
of theatre as a tool for social change in colleges and universities and beyond.9

When presenting the survey results at the Xth World Congress of the
International University Theatre Association in 2014, I asked those in

9 Katherine Burke, email message to author, January 31, 2015.

165
attendance to share their observations of such programs in their own
countries. Surprisingly, a theatre professor from Germany told me she knew
of no such programs there. I was just as surprised to find a professor from
Croatia tell me that the most common presentation topics for troupes in the
U.S.A. were entirely parallel to their own, with gender and sexual identity
being the most popular subject. TO and related programming is presented
at universities around the globe, but we know so little about the make-up
of these programs, of their methodologies, of their successes, and of their
unique challenges. How can we dialogue more directly about our programs?
How have successful programs gained the support they need to continue and
thrive, and what can we learn from their methods?10 This survey is not just a
report on the status-quo, but a call to gather and share information in hopes
of building stronger programs in interactive theatre and theatre for social
change in our colleges and universities.

Ideas for Action:

Advocate for a professional theatre organization in your country to create

and maintain a database of university Interactive Theatre programs.
Establish a periodic survey of Interactive Theatre programs to track changes
in the field, making results available via a theatre association web page.
Create both national and international conference programing on
challenges and successes of troupes, including roundtable discussions as
well as more formal case studies and research presentations.
Create awards/grants for research in this area through existing
organizations (such as IUTA, ATHE, PTO).
Create an advocacy flyer that can help promote and justify the role of
Interactive Theatre for Social Change on university campuses.

My hope is that international colleagues are intrigued by these opportunities

to share our TO practices. How might we dream of a future that includes
cross-cultural study? Imagine the opportunities for deeper, richer learning if
we could coordinate our efforts around one theme or social issue, followed by
a conference or festival that allows us to see each others work and converse
about the impact of our programs. As advocates for social change, we should

10 It is beyond the scope of this study to investigate the larger, more established programs throughout
the U.S. Snyder-Young provided names of several well-regarded Master of Arts programs, including
City University of New York, University of Southern California, and New York University. Other vibrant
programs in the U.S. include Arizona State University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of
Texas at Austin. For U.S. programs, see also Lonnie Firestone, Change by Degrees in American Theatre,
January 2015. Globally, well-known programs in English-speaking countries include the University
Manchester and Royal Holloway, University of London in the UK as well as Griffith University in Australia,
among others. Dani Snyder-Young, email message to author, March 16, 2016.

166
continue to innovate within this field, making connections rather than
keeping our work insular. In closing, I echo Emert and Friedlands wish to
foster a continued critical stance toward TO practice, and to offer theatre
artists, activists, educators, and scholars an opportunity to reflect on the
revolutionary work of Boal and Freire, two extraordinary thinkers whose
ideas continue to transform the world.11

Bibliography

Boal, Augusto. Games for Actors and Non-Actors. New York: Routledge, 1992.

------. Theatre of the Oppressed. New York: Urizen Books, 1979.

Burgoyne, Suzanne, et al. Interactive Theatre and Self-Efficacy. New Directions for
Teaching and Learning no. 111 (Fall 2007). doi: 10.1002/tl.282.

Burgoyne, Suzanne, Peggy Placier, Mallory Taulbee, and Sharon Welch. Investigating
Interactive Theatre as Faculty Development for Diversity. Theatre Topics 18,
no. 2, (2008): 107-29.

Burke, Katherine. Email message to author, January 31, 2015.

Emert, Toby and Ellie Friedland, eds. Come Closer: Critical Perspectives on Theatre of
the Oppressed. New York: Peter Lang, 2011.

Firestone, Lonnie. Change by Degrees. American Theatre 32, no. 1, (2015): 44-46.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New
York: Continuum, 1970.

Good, Tim. Email message to author, March 15, 2016.

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO). How to Change the World:A very
brief introduction to the works of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal. Ptoweb.
org. Last modified 2013. http://ptoweb.org/resources.

Snyder-Young, Dani. Theatre of Good Intentions: Challenges and Hopes for Theatre
and Social Change. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

11 Emert and Friedland, 4.

167
 Le choix des pices dans les thtres universitaires
modernes semble tre trs subjectif. Pour dfinir
les particularits de ce choix, il est utile danalyser
le rpertoire du thtre dun point de vue historique.
Dans le cas du Thtre de lUniversit de Moscou
(aujourdhui Thtre Etudiant Ouvert de Moscou
ou MOST), son histoire et sa programmation depuis
sa fondation en 1756 peuvent tre reconstruites et
analyses en utilisant des documents darchives,
articles de journaux, et de nombreux mmoires.
Lanalyse indique les facteurs qui ont affect le
rpertoire du Thtre de lUniversit de Moscou
depuis sa cration. Elle montre galement comment
il a t modifi au cours du temps et suggre ce qui
pourrait avoir influenc le choix des pices durant les

diffrentes phases de son histoire.

168
Moscow University Theatres Repertoire since Its
Foundation to the Present Day
Anatoly Safronikhin and Elena Illarionova

The Moscow University theatre was founded in 1756 and its more than 250-
year history (interrupted by a plague in the 1770s, the Patriotic war of 1812,
and various other events) gives us the opportunity to analyze the repertoire
of this theatre in different historical periods and draw parallels between its
repertoire and the situation in the Russian theatre at that time.

The Moscow University theatre was first mentioned in 1756, a year after the
University itself was founded.1 As its inception proved the foundation of
Russian theatre tradition, it is fruitful to question the context surrounding
its early years as well as its repertoire. Its difficult to imagine that in the
middle of the 18th century there was no professional theatre in Russia, and
that public theatre performances, considered offensive by the church, were
forbidden until 1750. Neither folk theatre and outdoor players,2 nor religious
and church performances3 were developed well enough to count as a theatre.
In 1672, the first Russian court theatre was created at the court of Tsar Aleksei
Mikhailovich, which is considered to be the birth of Russian dramaturgy; but
the plays chosen were various and mixed and did not constitute a cohesive
set of literary genres.4 At the beginning of the 18th Century, a new kind of
theatre came to Russia. It was a school theatre that was based in different
educational institutions and was aimed at assisting theological education.
The plays chosen both for the court and school theatres in the 17th Century
to the beginning of the 18th century were based on plots borrowed from the
Bible and various hagiographies.5 For example, Pastor Johann Gregori staged

1 I.P. Kulakova, Sanctuary of Minerva. Moscow and Moscow University in the XVIII century [Minervin
khram. Moskva i Moscovsky universitet v XVIII veke], Voprosi istorii estestvoznaniya i tekhniki, no. 3
(1997): 20.
2 Theatre with traveling actors and performances given in the open air.
3 Theatre for church-goers with liturgical action inside the church or on a special stage next to it.
4 A.S. Demin, ed., Pieces of the Moscow School Theatres [Piesy shkolnikh teatrov Moskvi], vol. 3 of The
Beginnings of Russian Dramaturgy (XVII First Half of XVIII Century) [Rannaya russkaya dramaturgiya
(XVII pervaya polovina XVIII veka)] (Moscow: Nauka, 1974), 7.
5 O.A. Derzhavina, ed., Russian Dramaturgy of Last Quarter of the XVII and Beginning of the XVIII C.
[Russkaya dramaturgiya poslednei chetverty XVII i nachala XVIII v.], vol. 2 of The Beginnings of Russian
Dramaturgy (XVII First Half of XVIII Century) [Rannaya russkaya dramaturgiya (XVII pervaya
polovina XVIII veka)] (Moscow: Nauka, 1972), 5.

169
Artaxerxes (1672), Judith (1673) and The Lamentable Comedy of Adam and
Eve (1675) for Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich.6

In 1750, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna (daughter of Peter the Great) issued

an Act allowing public performances, and that Act became the first step of
theatre development in Russia. The Moscow University students made use of
the Act, and by 1756 there were only two public (open to a general audience)
theatres in Russia. The Moscow University theatre became the first one in
Moscow, making it also one of the oldest public theatres in Russia. At first the
company of actors did not have their own stage, so performances took part
in classrooms7 and halls on holidays (Christmas, Easter, Carnival),8 but the
theatre quickly became generally accessible and proved very popular with the
public. Announcements of productions and their cast lists were published in
newspapers.

There were no reference points for a university theatre in Russia at that time
as it lacked precedents, but the students founded their theatre on European
models, particularly that of France. This was understandable, as many Russian
noblemen travelled to Europe (mostly Paris) and visited theatres there.9
Since there was no Russian theatre, there was also no Russian dramaturgy.
It was yet to be born. Consequently, the early plays were also borrowed from
Europe and the first play staged in the Moscow University theatre was The
New Arrivals (Les nouveaux dbarqus) by French playwright Marc-Antoine
Le Grand. Even in later years, the influence of foreign dramaturgy on the
repertoire remained strong for example, the farce comedy The Unexpected
Return (Le retour imprevu) by Jean Francois Regnard. However, members
of the theatre would realize the importance of creating their own (Russian)
plays that would more closely reflect a Russian mentality. An important
factor here was the fact that the director of the theatre, Mikhail Kheraskov,
was also the leader of the University literature club where actors were actively
participating; so it was natural that some members of the literature club would
want to write their own plays and try them out in the University theatre. Their
plays then constituted the main repertoire of the Moscow University theatre
in the second half of the 19th century among them: The Venetian Nun, The

6 Laurence Senelick, Historical Dictionary of Russian Theatre (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), XXI.
7 A.D. Ivanovsky, Ancient Times of Russian Lands [Starina russkoi zemli] (Saint-Petersburg:
F.S.Sushchinskys printing house, 1871), 193.
8 Kulakova, Sanctuary of Minerva. Moscow and Moscow University in the XVIII Century [Minervin
khram. Moskva i Moscovsky universitet v XVIII veke], 21.
9 P.N. Berkov, History of Russian Comedy of the XVIII Century [Istoriya russkoi komedii XVIII veka],
(Leningrad: Nauka, 1977), 6.

170
Such a Love production (1957).

Godless Man, and Kind Soldiers by Mikhail Kheraskov, The Minor by Denis
Fonvizin and others.10 Besides, they staged Sinav and Truvor, Khorev, and
Hamlet by Aleksander Sumarokov,11 and continued working with translated
French plays, such as Georges Dandin or the Confounded Husband (George
Dandin ou le Mari confondu) and Scapins Deceits (Les fourberies de Scapin)
by Molire.12 It should be noted that at the beginning the influence of the
European tradition was so great that Russian playwrights commonly copied
plots of famous foreign plays such as Hamlet and The Venetian Nun.

The plays written by the members of the University theatre were published
in magazines, gained popularity because of University theatre performances
and later were played in newly opened public theatres. They became examples
of Russian classicism and the fundamental starting point of Russias national

10 Ibid., 55.
11 A.P. Sumarokov is a creator of the repertoire of the first Russian theatre; his plays were staged at
Empress Elizavetas court theatre. In 1756, he became the head of the first Russian regular theatre opened
in Petersburg.
12 University Theatre [Universitetskii teatr], Fisechko.ru, accessed January 17, 2015, http://fisechko.
ru/100vel/teater/31.html.

171
dramaturgy. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna got wind of Moscow University
theatres success and called the leading actors of the theatre to Petersburg
in order to incorporate them in the Emperors Petersburg theatre troupe.
There were no acting schools at that time, so the University theatre actors
were considered the first professionals, and thus Moscow University theatre
turned into a forge of Russian cultural luminaries.

By the end of the 18th century there appeared several non-repertory

companies; all of them to some extent were connected with the University
theatre, either acting together or borrowing its actors and musicians. The
then famous opera theatre belonging to an Italian, Giovanni Locatelli, often
invited University actors, and the University theatre often held their own
performances on the stage of Locatellis theatre;13 further, the University
theatre became the core of Giovanni Belmonti and Guiseppe Cintis company
in 1769, which later changed owners several times and finally was headed by
the Englishman, Michael Maddox.14 The repertoire of that period gradually
moved away from classical tragedies, consisting mostly of comedies and
modern dramas, amongst which were works by Voltaire, Beaumarchais,
Molire, and Goldoni.15 Fedor Koni described the process of choosing and
working with the plays in Maddoxs theatre. When an author or translator
brought a play to Maddox, he gathered a committee, consisting of leading
actors, and the committee decided whether they should stage the play or
not. If the play was accepted, Maddox left, allowing actors to choose a role
according to their strengths and talent; he also asked the actors how long it
would take them to stage the play. He never shortened the nominated time
period and sometimes even prolonged it, depending on the play. Maddox
then invited people, who usually had their own home theatres and thus were
proficient in the theatre world, playwrights, and translators to see the full
dress rehearsal of a new production. Anyone could make a comment to the
artists and director. Only if this council decided that everything was good did
Maddox set a date for the premiere. This involvement and empowerment of

13 L. M. Starikova, Theatre in Russia of the XVIII Century: Experience in Documentary Research [Teatr v
Rossii XVIII veka: opyt dokumentalnogo issledovaniya] (Moscow: A.A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre
Museum, 1997), 133.
14 Michael Maddox (or Maeddox, Medoks, Maddoks, Mattoks, 1747-1822), was born in England
and graduated from Oxford University. In 1766 he arrived to Petersburg and was engaged by Empress
Catherine the Great as a teacher for Crown Prince Paul. He also was a talented mechanic and illusionist
and gave mechanical and physical performances (Bill in Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 81, 9th Oct
1767). In the period from 1776 to 1805, Maddox was a head of the Moscow Theatre Company.
15 O. V. Bubnova, From Locatelli to Maddox, from Maddox to House of Shchepkin [Ot Locatelli
k Meddoksu, ot Meddoksa k Domu Shchepkina], Nashe Nasledie, http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/red_
port/00600.php.

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actors and external theatrical personalities in the creative process is thought
to have contributed to the success of his company.16

Maddoxs non-repertory company was adopted by the State in 1806 and it

began to be called the Moscow Emperors Theatre. The company later split
into a drama section and opera and ballet section, occupying different
buildings. The building for opera and ballet was bigger than the other, and
their names Bolshoy (Big) and Maly (Small), continue into use even today.
During the whole 19th century the connection between the University theatre
and the Maly Theatre companies was so close that it was difficult to tell where
one finished and the other started.

With the whirlpool of World War I, the October Revolution, and the following
Civil war, cultural life in the University was pushed to the margins. Although
the University theatre made the transition from the Emperors Russia to the
Soviet one with minimal loss, despite its bright and eventful history, it had
to find its place in the new reality. In November 1922, the University theatre
opened in the building that used to be occupied by the Moscow Emperors
Theatre, and the first post-revolutionary play was presented in 1924. While
the radiant future was being built outside,17 the audience considered Leo
Tolstoys The Power of Darkness directed by Maly Theatre actor Nikolai
Soloviev. Whilst preserving its close connection with the Maly Theatre,
the University theatre started an active partnership with the Moscow Art
Theatre. Vasily Kachalov, an actor at the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT), was
at one time in charge of the University theatre. MAT actors and directors,
including Stanislavsky, were often guests at rehearsals and first nights of the
University theatre. Kachalov invited MAT actors Konstantin Babanin and
Nikolai Titushin to train students in acting and to stage plays at the University
theatre. Such connections with Moscows leading practitioners had certain
impacts on the repertoire of the reborn University theatre. Kachalov suggested
thinking big: Work with large and significant material. Dont be afraid to give
your own interpretation. Dont copy.18 Taking Russian dramaturgy only 150

16 F. Koni, Remembering Moscow Theatre in the Time of M.E. Maddox [Vospominanie o moskovskom
teatre pri M.E.Meddokse], Panteon russkogo i vsekh evropeiskikh teatrov, no. 2 (1840): 9091.
17 At the beginning of 20th Century many Russians believed in a radiant future that would begin after
an epoch making change in Old Russias life. For example, Chekhovs characters in The Cherry Orchard
(Trofimov) and Three Sisters (Vershinin, Tuzenbach) always dream and talk about a better tomorrow. The
building of a radiant future was used by the Bolsheviks as a propaganda slogan and then became a dream
of the Soviet people.
18 S. M. Dvorin, A. B. Olenin, Artistic Life of Moscow University [Khudozhestvennaya zhizn Moskovskogo
universiteta] (Moscow: Moscow University Press, 1958), 56.

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years to reach its peak, there was already a large selection of significant plays.
Following Kachalovs message, Babanin and Titushin together created some
productions including stage adaptations of The Philistines by Maxim Gorky,
Wolves and Sheep and Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man by Alexander
Ostrovsky, and The Seagull by Anton Chekhov.19

The theatre continued performances during World War II and the company also
went to the front-line and hospitals, giving about 100 performances in 1944-
1945. The repertoire of that period included scenes from plays by Alexander
Ostrovsky and Nikolai Gogol, the musical comedy Woe from a Weak Heart by
Vladimir Sollogub, the comedy The Young Spouses by Alexander Griboyedov,
and others.20 The University theatre didnt just reflect reality: in Russias difficult
times it gave a quiet radiance and, with the optimism characteristic of youth,
reminded its audiences about happiness and peace.

After the war, the theatres repertoire filled with pastoral plays such as The Old
Friends, a production based on Leonid Malyugins play about the fortunes of
Leningrads young people who graduated from a high school in June 1941
and went off to war; for these people the war became the test of maturity,
the test for permanence of feelings, ideals and goals in life. The Old Friends
enjoyed a huge success with students. Other plays of the 40s, including Peoples
Son by Yuri German, Happiness by Peter Pavlenko, and Youth by Leonid
Zorin, are united by the subject of young peoples life full of difficulties and
questions and a strong desire to serve their country. Another highly praised
play was the lyrical comedy Mashenka (1952) by Alexander Afinogenov,
which brought a sentimental and heart-stirring Dickensian note into Russian
dramaturgy. Afinogenov wrote Mashenka in 1940 as if foreseeing the coming
disaster. Creating Mashenka, the actors decided to make an experiment and
direct this play themselves with no help from a professional theatre director.
The experiment was successful; the actors showed maturity of thinking,
seriousness in the approach to creative process, and an honorable attitude
towards work.21 The play Page of Life by Viktor Rozov staged in 1954 by
Sergey Shtein, a Lenkom Theatre actor and director, and Yury Katin-Yartsev,
a Malaya Bronnaya Theatre actor, was focused on the subject of education of
the young postwar Soviet generation.

19 D. Bulin, Student Theatre of MSU MOST in the Future [Studenchesky teatr MGU MOST v
budushchee] (Moscow: FAIR, 2008), 15.
20 Ibid., 16.
21 S. M. Dvorin, A. B. Olenin, Artistic Life of Moscow University [Khudozhestvennaya zhizn Moskovskogo
universiteta] (Moscow: Moscow University Press, 1958), 5859.

174
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui production (photo 1964).

175
In 1955, on the 200th anniversary of Moscow University, the University theatre
made a premiere of Youth of the Fathers by Boris Gorbatov; the director was
Igor Lipsky, an actor of the Vakhtangov Theatre. This play was full of the
revolutionary romance of youth and peoples work enthusiasm. After Stalins
death and the end of the totalitarian epoch that had ignited overwhelming
fear, came the period known as the thaw, finally allowing Soviet art to express
all the thoughts and feelings that were previously suppressed. The University
theatre managed to reach new heights. In that period Soviet theatre art also
returned to the use of foreign dramaturgy; for example, Lipsky staged
Intrigue and Love by Friedrich Schiller in 1955.

Three years later, in 1958, the position of the theatres director was given to
a theatre school graduate, Rolan Bykov. He decided to establish a new fully
functional theatre on the basis of the university company that could function
as a professional theatre with, however, the university students and faculty
as actors and staff. Bykov turned what was essentially a hobby into a system,
an amateur club into a professional company. To better understand the
conditions for art at that period we shall cite a dialogue between Rolan Bykov
and MSU culture centre director Savely Dvorin that took place when Bykov
decided to officially open the new theatre.

Bykov: We have to ask for permission to open the theatre. Everything is ready.
Dvorin: We cant do that.
Bykov: Why?
Dvorin: They will prohibit it just in case.22

Bykov thought, however, that there were too many officials in Moscow and
that some would think that the permission was obtained from others, but
those others will think that it was given by somebody else. Nobody would
ever think that the theatre was opened with nobodys permission. When the
famous ninety-one-year-old Russian actress, Alexandra Yablochkina, cut the
ribbon at the official opening ceremony everybody was sure that the theatre
had gotten permission from every possible source. The theatre got its new
official name: the Student Theatre of MSU.23

The fact that the Student Theatre of MSU had no authority above it had its
benefits. The company could choose plays that were not possible for other

22 R. Bykov, Student Theatre: Carrying on Tradition? [Studenchesky teatr: prodolzhenie traditsii?],

Teatralnaya zhizn 798, no. 20 (1991): 7.
23 MSU is Moscow State University, also known as Lomonosov Moscow State University.

176
theatres and could create their own style. In 1958, Bykov staged Such a
Love by Czech writer Pavel Kohout, realizing his dream of a theatre with a
contemporary stage language where behind everyday scenes one could see
the new USSR theatre conventions that destroyed old theatre traditions. The
play was a huge success and it marked a revolutionary moment in the history
of the Student Theatre of MSU. No wonder prominent directors and actors
were drawn there. Sergei Yutkevich staged I Have Only One Heart (1961) by
Georgy Polonsky and, together with Mark Zakharov, The Resistible Rise of
Arturo Ui (1965) by Bertolt Brecht, bringing along the spirit of Meyerhold,
Vakhtangov, Mayakovsky, and evoking the best traditions of the revolutionary
theatre with fineness of form and adherence to principles. Together with
the search for new forms and experimentation there was a search for new
contemporary dramaturgy, including foreign authors; but not all the plays
came from outside the theatre. As in the early years of the theatres life,
some plays were written by members of the company; for example Georgy
Polonsky, the author of I Have Only One Heart, was the literature director.
According to M. Knyazeva, G. Viren, and V. Klimov, the play Such a Love
presented the Student Theatre as an original theatre of entertaining form
and civic content.24 Ever since, regardless of the plays directors, the Student
Theatre of MSU has stayed loyal to this claim.

In this period the actors of the theatre also invited a famous actor, Ivan
Soloviev, to direct The Diary of Anne Frank (1960). In his memoirs, Soloviev
described the rehearsal process in the following way: the original diaries
were first translated into Russian to enrich the play by Frances Goodrich
and Albert Hackett; the director and the actors paid special attention to
continuous action on stage and the atmosphere of life in the attic during the
war. Creation of this atmosphere became an important stage of work. It also
took them a lot of time to choose the music arrangement: Soloviev couldnt
find the exact sound until once he turned on a metronome; this became
the music of the play. They chose a special rhythm and sound for each act
of the play, and Soloviev records that it had a major emotional impact on
the audience.25 Soloviev also directed Two for the Seesaw (1962) by William
Gibson, Highway to Ursa Major by Yulian Semyonov, and the philosophical
drama Liberated Don Quixote by Anatoly Lunacharsky.

24 M. L. Knyazeva et al., Student Theatre Today. (Art in the Life of a Young Person) [Teatr studentov
segodnya. (Iskusstvo v zhizni molodogo cheloveka)] (Moscow: Znanie, 1980), 5-6.
25 I. I. Soloviev, According to My Experience [Po sobstvennomu opytu] (Moscow: Vserossiiskoe
teatralnoe obshchestvo, 1982), 8794.

177
Scenic sketch for The Dark Man, or I Am Poor Soso Dzugashvili production (1988).

Director Mark Zakharov produced The Dragon (1963) by Evgeny Shvarts,

filled with political allusions in which the audience immediately recognized
the head of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, as the burgomaster, and,
together with Yutkevich, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. Zakharov found
in Vladimir Voinovich a new author for the Soviet theatre and staged his
short story I Want to Be Honest in 1966. His style was characterized by the
use of pyrotechnics, spectacular effects and circus tricks, the aim of which
was to bewilder and stun the audience. The effect was instantaneous and
stupendous. Zakharovs productions, however, were short-lived. After 15
performances, The Dragon was closed for breeding false allusions (rather
than illusions) and the set design was confiscated and burnt in the yard of the
theatre. The same destiny was shared by I Want to Be Honest and The Resistible
Rise of Arturo Ui after the latters 170 performances and despite the fact that
Resistible Rise won the bronze medal at the International Theatre Festival in
Zagreb in 1965: the first closed because of the ban on Voinovich and the
second for advocacy of gangsterism. The set design of Solovievs The Diary
of Anne Frank was also burnt. The MSU administration rejected Solovievs
idea to create a play on the basis of Ivan Bunins stories; Edward Albees The

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Zoo Story directed by Soloviev was restricted from public performance.26 This
censorship marked the end of a short period of relative freedom in Soviet art;
one that gave a lot of opportunities to the Student Theatre of MSU.

From the end of the 60s to the beginning of the 70s a number of plays were
staged by young directors; among them were The Good Soldier vejk, Three
Nights of One Love, and experiments with classics (for example, William
Shakespeares Hamlet and Twelfth Night, Maksim Gorkys The Lower Depths).
Director Roman Viktyuk broke the classical theatre space and created a new
one where actors and spectators were at an arms reach from each other. He
concentrated on contemporary Soviet dramaturgy and paid special attention
to the perception of the world of a contemporary Soviet person. His works
included Night after Graduation (1976) by Vladimir Tendryakov, Goodbye,
Boys (1977) by Boris Balter, Duck Hunting (1977) by Alexander Vampilov, and
Music Lessons (1979) by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya. One of the characteristic
traits of the Student Theatre of MSU was its stage adaptation of prose works;
the Student Theatre of MSU proved to be more agile in the sense of adapting
prose to the stage than professional theatres where performances were mostly
based on existing dramatic works.

The play Music Lessons, a drama of everyday life, presented an alternative

view of the life of people in the Soviet Union and defined problems, but
this resulted in censorship and soon the play was closed. After this, in 1979,
the director and some of the actors left the Student Theatre of MSU, which
entered a passive, non-productive period. Within a year, not a single play was
staged and not one play was shown in the Student Theatre of MSU.

Everything changed when in 1980 Evgeny Slavutin, a leading theatre director

for more than 30 years, was invited to the Student Theatre of MSU, where
he gave a new definition to the repertoire. Slavutins theatre can be defined
as a lyrical and feeling theatre, the theatre of the word. For good reason the
subtitle of his first play, Luck on the Violin (1980), based on Valery Alekseevs
novel, was a play for a voice and orchestra. Many of his theatre pieces are
quite simple, but owing to exact intonation and well-chosen music, a pinching
mesmerizing feeling of reality emerges, distinguishing him from many
directors who worked in the Student Theatre of MSU in the period between
the 50s and 70s. Slavutins approach can be traced in his following works: The

26 Amateur Artistry in the USSR. Outline of History. From the End of 1950s to the Beginning of the 1990 s.
[Samodeyatelnoe khudozhestvennoe tvorchestvo v SSSR. Ocherki istorii. Konets 1950-kh nachalo 1990-kh]
(Saint-Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 1999), 162.

179
Happy Underdog (1981) based on Vadim Shefners novel; Blue Horses on Red
Grass (1985) based on Mikhail Shatrovs play; The Odd Woman (1986) based
on Nina Sadurs play; The Album (1987) based on Tatiana Tolstayas short
stories Sonya, Good Night, Junio, Okkervil River; and Dear Shura.

Slavutin is very careful in his choice of plays. His earlier work was mostly with
contemporary literature, where he discovered such writers as V. Alekseev,
T.Tolstaya, N.Sadur. In the speculative novel Luck on the Violin, the main
character, Zinochka, sells her soul to the devil for her son to become a
talented musician, and as a result soulless Zinochka brushes off the son, who,
already being a well-known violinist, runs away from home. In the play The
Happy Underdog, a poet tells the story of his childhood full of adventures
and accidents in Leningrad in the days before the war and explains why he
became a poet; he concludes that his family and friends had a great impact
on the formation his individuality. Remaining faithful to his style, Slavutin
turned to classics. His Don Juan (1988), based on Alexander Pushkins The
Stone Guest, sounded completely up to date, not because of textual changes
but because of the set design and unexpected acting techniques.

Slavutin has a wonderful feeling for time and the audience, which enables him
to keep in pace with the audiences needs and moods. In 1988, when the air
was filled with the anticipation of the coming collapse of the Soviet Union, he
staged The Dark Man, or I Am Poor Soso Dzugashvili, based on a farce tragedy
by Viktor Korkia. In this play Stalin and Beria talk in a grotesque-parody
as if in a circus arena, bursting many peoples preconceptions and myths.
The play became a milestone event in the theatre life of Moscow and was a
great success, while state theatres were more inert and conservative in their
choice of plays. The Student Theatre of MSU started a strong partnership with
Korkia, giving him the status of resident playwright for the next 20 years.

Another remarkable event was the next premiere, a tragedy called Walpurgis
Night, or the Steps of the Commander (1989) by Venedict Erofeev, previously
existing only in manuscript form. The play takes place in a lunatic asylum
but it turns out that the asylum is actually everything outside the walls of the
building; this work was offered by the director as a diagnosis not only of the
leaders of the country but all the Soviet system and the society itself.

The third chord in bidding farewell to the epoch was Blue Nights of the KGB
(1989), a cabaret show filled with laughter at the departing times. The cabaret
form had been completely forgotten in Russia but was revived by the Student
Theatre of MSU after more than fifty years of oblivion, now presented as a

180
The Happy Underdog production (2007).

concert in KGB headquarters during the period of massive repressions when

nobody felt safe about themselves or people they loved.

Another creative movement was developing in the theatre at that time: a

music group gathered regularly in the theatre in the mid 80s and this led to a
number of music performances and the popular musical The Waiting Room
(1995). The latter was based on the songs by Irina Bogushevskaya, an actress
and singer of the Student Theatre of MSU, and libretto by Alexey Kortnev, a
music director of the theatre. The action took place at railway station where
a well-known singer, played by Bogushevskaya, is waiting for her train. The
Waiting Room had a great success because of its pretty songs and because the
musical as a theatrical genre was just coming to Russia at that time.

In 1999, on the basis of the Student Theatre of MSU, a state theatre was
established and received the name of the Moscow Open Student Theatre
(MOST). Slavutin took up the position of the Art Director of the MOST and
has been in charge to the present day. This new theatre inherited the spirit
and the traditions of the Student Theatre of MSU and became a city theatre,
accepting students from all Moscow higher education institutions. Receiving
support from the state gave the MOST new opportunities, and it expanded
upon the repertoire inherited from the Student Theatre of MSU. Comedies of

181
Cyrano production (2007).

the 90s like Invincible Armada (1995) and Lessons of Love (1997), based on
Viktor Korkias plays, and Doctor Show cabaret (1996) offered a chance for
audiences to take their mind off post-Soviet reality.

By the end of the 90s the global situation led the company to begin work
on Trojan, a new play by Viktor Korkia. The history of the Trojan War was
told in an abstract place and time; contemporary elements of costumes and
settings told us that though 3000 years had passed since Homers Trojan War,
nothing had changed. People continued fighting, not seeing the lessons that
history had taught them. After two hard years of rehearsing, the first night
was scheduled for September of 2001.

In the 2000s, when things were getting better for people in Russia, Slavutin felt
the need for plays filled with emotional warmth, and his earlier works such
as Luck on the Violin (2001), Dear Shura (2003), and The Happy Underdog
(2007) were given new productions. Advocating lifes true values such as
love, friendship, family, homeland, etc., became the core motif of all Slavutins
work and this can be traced in the consequent repertoire: Cyrano (2007), Is
There Life on Mars? (2011), Dear God! (2013), Little Lord Fauntleroy (2014).
Slavutin rewrote Edmond Rostands Cyrano de Bergerac in modern language
and focused on exposing the characters true feelings within the main

182
storyline. The actors were as young as their characters a little over twenty.
Charming music, songs, and choreography together with youthful sincerity
turned this classic into a story of love and heroism, relevant to the present
day. Dear God! was Slavutins stage adaptation of ric-Emmanuel Schmitts
novel Oscar and the Lady in Pink, which opens up the world of terminally ill
twenty-year-old Oscar; however, the director filled the play with vital force
and happiness and offered us a story of life, not of death. Slavutin led his
audience to the same high principles and humanist ideals in Is There Life on
Mars? (based on Vladimir Voinovichs play The Fictitious Marriage and Kir
Bulychevs short story May I Please Speak to Nina?) and Little Lord Fauntleroy
by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

In 2005 one more director started working in the theatre Georgy Dolmazyan.
His works are notable for energy, special effects, and intricate lighting. His
productions include Attraction (2010), The Importance of Being Earnest
(2011), Illusion (2011), Tobio: the Puppet Master (2013), Candies (2014), and
his last premiere Chekhov (2015). Attraction and Candies are dramatic plays
based on the novels of well-known modern Russian writers, Mikhail Shishkin
and Sasha Denisova, respectively. In the former, a contemporary writer is
working on a novel where his personal tragedy is deeply intertwined with the
lives of his characters. The past flows into the present, fiction alternates with
reality, politics with love, and tragedy with irony. The characters waltz with
books to the jingling bells bearing sorrow on tiptoe awaiting simple human
happiness. Shishkin, after seeing Attraction, said that it is impossible to adapt
his novel The Taking of Ismail for the stage, but one can try to do a miracle as
Dolmazyan and the actors did; in this production they led the audience where
Shishkin wanted to take his readers, to a penetrating joy of life.27 In Candies,
where Dolmazyan addresses the issues of home, family and motherland, a
young woman comes from Kiev, Ukraine, to Moscow to realize her ambition
in creative writing.

To create Illusion and Tobio: the Puppet Master, Dolmazyan used an exercise
method of performance creation, where actors do studies and exercises on
given topics which later are joined to become a whole performance. Staging
these plays, Dolmazyan used a synthetic genre, mixing drama, musical,
clownery, and video projection. The main characters of Illusion are a deaf
and dumb German girl, a French street performer, a famous American movie
director and an emigrant from Bulgaria; they meet somewhere in Europe

27 V. Peshkova, Carlo Mikhailovich Freud [Karlo Mikhailovich Freid], Literaturnaya gazeta, no. 40
(6294), Oct. 13, 2010.

183
in front of the glimmering screen of an abandoned cinema. The story pans
out in a flow of scenes with street circus, city-ballet, and a parade of movie
characters who take an active part in the main characters lives. The zest of the
production was the characters speaking native languages including English,
French, Italian, German, Bulgarian, and others.

Tobio: the Puppet Master narrates the story of fantastic adventures of little Tim
lost in London at Christmas. Travelling the magic dreamlike worlds of Master
Tobio, including fairytale India, Vienna Opera, and America during the Civil
War, Tim learns to appreciate important moments in life; the lonely magician
Tobio, being in a company of a brave and honest boy, understands he doesnt
have to be alone anymore and finds his first true friend. Dolmazyans play
Tobio: the Puppet Master and Slavutins recent productions Dear God! and
Little Lord Fauntleroy, have formed a childrens repertoire of the MOST. This
tendency to stage productions for children also manifested itself in creation
of The MOST Wizard project in 2015, which includes dramatic readings and
short shows based on childrens literature.

In the most recent premiere, Chekhov, Dolmazyan bravely experiments with

the classics, placing the characters of Anton Chekhovs plays The Seagull,
Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard into a single space and time. The three
plays naturally merge into one new production, creating an overall picture of
pre-revolutionary Russia filled with omens of irreversible change.

In conclusion we can say that the Moscow University theatre had a huge
impact on the development of the national theatre and dramaturgy during
the fledging period of theatre in Russia. It was also the ancestor of the
Bolshoy and Maly theatres and had its share in forming dramas in the style
of classicism. Since the middle of the 20th century, the Student Theatre of
MSU has proved to be revolutionary, ready to experiment, a champion of
contemporary dramaturgy, and a quick respondent to global and Russian
events, giving it key differences from the state theatres under the oppression
of censure, which were also rather inert in accepting new theatrical forms
and new plays. From this analysis of the repertoire of the Moscow University
theatre, we can conclude that it has mainly consisted of stage adaptations
of prose works, while professional theatres mostly stage dramatic works.
According to theatre historians, the Moscow University theatre acts as the
accelerant that helps Russian professional theatre develop, fighting stagnation
and bringing new energy and ideas. Crucially, the Moscow University theatre
discovered new Russian and Soviet writers and playwrights such as Georgy
Polonsky, Tatiana Tolstaya, Viktor Korkia, and others. In the last several years,

184
we can observe the enlargement of MOSTs repertoire due to the inclusion
of productions for children, something new for the theatre. At the present
moment, with the existing tendency in Russian theatre to shock and provoke,
the MOST sticks to advocating lifes true values such as love, friendship,
family, homeland, and others. According to numerous responses of theatre-
goers, it is these values that draw them to the MOST; further, they also state
that such are lacking in other Moscow theatres.28

References

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SSSR. Ocherki istorii. Konets 1950-kh nachalo 1990-kh]. Saint-Petersburg:
Dmitry Bulanin, 1999.

Berkov, P. N. History of Russian Comedy of the XVIII Century [Istoriya russkoi

komedii XVIII veka]. Leningrad: Nauka, 1977.

Bubnova, O. V. From Locatelli to Maddox, from Maddox to House of Shchepkin

[Ot Locatelli k Meddoksu, ot Meddoksa k Domu Shchepkina]. Nashe
Nasledie. Accessed January 17, 2015. http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/red_
port/00600.php.

Bulin, D. Student Theatre of MSU MOST in the Future [Studenchesky teatr MGU
MOST v budushchee]. Moscow: FAIR, 2008.

Bykov, R. Student Theatre: Carrying on Tradition? [Studenchesky teatr: prodolzhenie

traditsii?]. Teatralnaya zhizn 798, no. 20 (1991): 7-10.

Demin, A. S. ed. Pieces of Moscow School Theatres [Piesy shkolnikh teatrov Moskvi].
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Century) [Rannaya russkaya dramaturgiya (XVII pervaya polovina XVIII
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Derzhavina, O. A. ed. Russian Dramaturgy of Last Quarter of the XVII and Beginning
of XVIII C. [Russkaya dramaturgiya poslednei chetverty XVII i nachala XVIII
v.]. Vol. 2 of The Beginnings of Russian Dramaturgy (XVII First Half of the
XVIII Century) [Rannaya russkaya dramaturgiya (XVII pervaya polovina
XVIII veka)]. Moscow: Nauka, 1972.

Dvorin, S. M., Olenin, A.B. Artistic Life of Moscow University [Khudozhestvennaya

zhizn Moskovskogo universiteta], Moscow: Moscow University Press, 1958.

Ivanovsky, A.D. Ancient Times of Russian Lands [Starina russkoi zemli]. Saint-
Petersburg: F.S.Sushchinskys printing house, 1871.

28 According to responses on Web sites (Afisha.ru, OSD.ru and others), and in public and private
conversation with spectators.

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Koni, F. Memory of Moscow Theatre in the Time of M. E. Maddox [Vospominanie
o moskovskom teatre pri M. E. Meddokse]. Panteon russkogo I vsekh
evropeiskikh teatrov, no. 2 (1840): 89-102.

Knyazeva, M. L., G. V. Viren, V. M. Klimov. Student Theatre Today. (Art in the Life of a
Young Person) [Teatr studentov segodnya. (Iskusstvo v zhizni molodogo
cheloveka)]. Moscow: Znanie, 1980.

Kulakova, I. P. Sanctuary of Minerva. Moscow and Moscow University in the XVIII

century [Minervin khram. Moskva i Moscovsky universitet v XVIII veke ].
Voprosi istorii estestvoznaniya i tekhniki, no. 3 (1997): 3-54.

Peshkova, V. Carlo Mikhailovich Freud [Karlo Mikhailovich Freid], Literaturnaya

gazeta, no. 40 (6294), Oct. 13, 2010.

Senelick, L. Historical Dictionary of the Russian Theatre. New York: Roman &
Littlefield, 2015.

Soloviev, I. I. According to My Experience [Po sobstvennomu opytu]. Moscow:

Vserossiiskoe teatralnoe obshchestvo, 1982.

Starikova, L. M. Theatre in Russia of the XVIII century: Experience of Documentary

Research [Teatr v Rossii XVIII veka: opyt dokumentalnogo issledovaniya].
Moscow: A.A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, 1997.

University Theatre [Universitetskii teatr]. Fisechko.ru. Accessed January 17, 2015.

http://fisechko.ru/100vel/teater/31.html.

186
187
 Las universidades de hoy, adems de educar
al tiempo que desarrollan el conocimiento y el
pensamiento crtico, enfrentan la necesidad de
preparar a los estudiantes no slo para la profesin
sino para encontrar trabajo en un mercado
altamente competitivo. Los programas de posgrado
MFA avanzan la formacin de sus estudiantes al
incluir en su repertorio una variedad de gneros que
ayudan a preparar al alumno-actor para su ingreso
en la industria del teatro profesional, incluyendo
a Broadway. Aunque sera ideal poder analizar
la totalidad de los programas MFA de los Estados
Unidos, para este breve documento se opt en cambio
por un enfoque ms modesto, y se recogi data en un
campo mucho ms estrecho (repertorio 2013-14 de
las escuelas URTA) con la intencin de producir una
muestra que es quizs sugestiva de un cuadro ms

grande.

188
On The Subject of Repertoire
at Graduate Theatre Programs in the United States
Maria S. Horne and Chelsea L. Horne

The theatre, after all, is an art.

It is true that conditions of modern life, particularly in America,
have made it a business as well.
Harold Clurman1

Todays universities in addition to educating while advancing knowledge

and critical thinking are expected to prepare students for a profession
or, in other words, to be ready to enter the workforce in their field of study
and expertise. In the United States, and with this aim in sight, graduate
MFA theatre programs advance the training of their students by providing
a comprehensive array of academic courses in the classroom, and often in a
lab, where students are exposed to a wide variety of methods and approaches
to the art of acting and performance. However, since stage acting occurs
not in isolation but in public, there is a kind of experiential learning for
which there is no classroom substitute and that is primarily acquired by
actors through live performance on the stage, in front of an audience. For
this reason, a holistic training of the actor requires, in addition to classwork,
that students be given the opportunity to regularly perform in front of an
audience throughout the course of their studies. MFA programs acknowledge
the task and include in their curriculum both elements: classroom training
and stage performance. As part of their pedagogical mission they integrate
both components correlating classwork with a sensibly selected repertoire.
Consequently, and pedagogically, training in the classroom and performance
on the stage are intrinsically linked to each other, along with academic content
and educational objectives.

Exposure to performing in front of an audience stands as an essential factor

in the students training for stage performance and it is integral to a programs
educational objectives. Therefore, repertoire selection acquires weight. The
selection of the plays that will constitute an academic production season
demands serious consideration as well as evaluation of many factors that vary

1 Clurman, Harold. Why Experiment?; The Director of the Group Theatre Here Sets Forth a Major
Policy The New York Times, May 07 1939: 2. Section Drama, Music, Page XI.

189
from program to program. But ultimately, all programs strive to include in
their repertoires a variety of genres that will help prepare the student-actor
to enter the professional theatre industry, including large commercial venues
such as Broadway.

On the subject of repertoire, at the graduate level, the ideal would be to

analyze the totality of MFA programs in the United States. However, for
this brief paper, we instead opted for a more modest approach with the
intention to produce just a sample that may be suggestive of some current
trends, particularly in regards to the production of new original work for the
stage. We acknowledge that our brief survey has limitations and therefore
cannot address all the questions that will arise, but perhaps it might serve to
provoke further investigation and discussion. We will begin with our eyes on
Broadway, moving onto the university, then to theatre as a subject of study, to
production seasons, and finally focus on one sample season.

Broadway

Even in a depressed economy, Broadway thrives as the American public seeks

out entertainment. Theatre is alive and well on Broadway. In 2014, there were
forty Broadway theaters in operation, together generating sales of over 11
million tickets per year. Ticket sales have steadily increased over the past five
years, surpassing a gross income of a billion dollars per season.2

In 2014, standard ticket prices for Broadway musicals ranged from around
$80 to around $140.3 However, maximum ticket prices greatly surpassed that
amount. For example, top tickets for The Book of Mormon sold for $477; Kinky
Boots for $349; and Wicked for $300. Most theatres now implement their
own dynamic pricing systems, calibrating ticket prices by using computer
algorithm recommendations in order to maximize revenue. Ticket brokers
may charge in the vicinity of $1,000 for comparable prime tickets on demand.

There is no question that as a business, theatre on Broadway is successful, even

though a number of productions do fail. The questions we may ask are: is the
objective of theatre to be successful, financially? Is it to entertain and please its
audience? Is it to elevate and enlighten? Can these objectives co-exist?

2 The Broadway League. Broadway Season Statistics. 2014. https://www.broadwayleague.com/index.

php?url_identifier=season-by-season-stats-1.
3 Healy, Patrick. Ticket Pricing Puts Lion King Atop Broadways Circle of Life. The New York Times,
March 17, 2014. http://nyti.ms/1ddf9T2.

190
A precedent exists in American theatre when Broadway, within its offerings,
also hosted a movement that empowered the production of new works by
American playwrights, speaking to issues affecting American society. In 1931,
as a direct reaction to the old-fashioned light entertainment of the 1920s and
with Constantin Stanislavskys Moscow Art Theatre as a model, a group of
young visionaries embarked on what has been called the bravest and single
most significant experiment in the history of American Theatre.4 Harold
Clurman, Lee Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford, along with twenty-eight other
professional actors, founded The Group Theatre with the vision of becoming
an ensemble theatre company professionally producing original American
plays on Broadway that reflected the issues affecting American society and
their times. They dreamed to transform American theatre and indeed they
did. From 1931-1941, during its short ten-year life span, The Group Theatre
brought to the Broadway stage a new vision of American Theatre. What is
most significant about The Group Theatre is not only its enthusiastic reception
by critics and audiences, but that both the audience and the critics embraced
it and recognized their work as a major shift in American theatre. The Group
Theatre experienced unprecedented success, and failures too, which in the
end, contributed to its chronic financial problems and made it impossible for
it to go on any longer than its one fruitful decade.

Losing the ground made on Broadway by a driving force such as The Group
Theatre was a major loss, particularly because unlike many other countries,
the United States does not have a National Theatre. Many American theatre
makers have advocated for a National Theatre that is to say, a government
funded theatre without success. Most notable among them is Tony Randall,
who in 1991 founded the National Actors Theatre, which despite the name
is not a federally funded theatre. Perhaps the absence of a National Theatre
contributes to the focus on Broadway as a mecca of theatre culture and as a
national standard of theatre. Broadway is the sought-after destination for
theatre professionals, with Off-Broadway (and even Off-Off-Broadway) widely
accepted as a natural extension. In terms of repertoire, Broadway typically
favors musicals and big spectacles, but it also stages a wide selection of dramatic
works, and not all from American authors or themes. The annual Antoinette
Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre (informally known as the Tony Awards)5
renders a snapshot of Broadway preferences and categories of work.

4 PBS: American Masters. Broadway Dreamers: The Legacy of The Group Theatre. www.pbs.org/wnet/
americanmasters/group-theatre-about-the-group-theatre/622/.
5 The American Theatre Wings Tony Awards are presented by Tony Award Productions, a joint
venture of The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing. The two organizations have jointly
administered the Tonys since 1967, the year of the first Tony telecast.

191
Today the cost of mounting a production on Broadway is exorbitant, running
in the millions of dollars. By comparison, in 1931 a Broadway production
could cost more than $100,000. In those days, The Group Theatre was able
to produce its plays for a tenth of that figure, notwithstanding controversy.6
During those years on Broadway, The Group first premiered original plays
that went on to become enduring American classics. Even while taking a high
financial risk, even though it was still costly, even though there were many
obstacles to overcome, The Group found it doable to produce new plays on
Broadway during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

There is not usually that kind of financial flexibility available today on

Broadway. Costs and audience interests do have an effect on programming.
The price of producing a flop can be bankruptcy, leaving limited space for
producers to take a chance on unproven work; instead, with the industry
banking on the safe side, there seems to be an emergence of adaptations for
the stage of popular films, books, and contemporary pop music. Such is the
case of Broadways opening The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-
Time (a play), which is a reboot of the highly successful West End London
production based off the internationally best-selling novel of the same name.
Some other theatre adaptations finding their way to Broadway include
Tuck Everlasting, Finding Neverland, and Amelie, all of which are previously
lucratively successful major motion picture productions. If these shows make
it big on Broadway, they can make it anywhere and they will find their way
into diverse venues nationally and internationally.

University

As originally conceived in the 12th century, universities strove to be true

engines of self-perfection, in the Aristotelian sense. Besides this philosophical
component, these universities had a practical mission imbued with scholarly
objectives that was epistemologically different from those other schools that
focused on preparing a student for a trade or occupation.

Our universities in the 21st century in addition to educating while advancing

knowledge and critical thinking face the added pressure to prepare students
not only for a profession, but to find jobs in a small and fiercely competitive
market, de facto steering and shaping schools into trade schools whose task

6 Harold Clurman, The Group Theatre Speaks for Itself , New York Times, Dec. 13, 1931, X2. New York
Times (1923-Current File).

192
is to place students into lucrative or at least self-supporting jobs. In order to
survive and prosper, departments are challenged with the need to prepare
their graduates to succeed professionally and to find the balance between
the development of new knowledge and the practical application of tested
principles.

Theatre as a Subject of Study

Theatre is an area of study at the university in the United States at both the
undergraduate and graduate level. Advanced degrees in Theatre are offered
at graduate programs throughout the country. At the graduate level, the
terminal degrees in this discipline are the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) and
PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), albeit with different focuses. MFA programs are
mainly professional training programs while PhD programs focus primarily
on critical/dramaturgical/historical/performance studies. It is important to
note that there are also some hybrid PhD programs, some of which include a
practice emphasis as well.

For the purpose of this paper, we will focus on the MFA in Theatre, a degree
that offers intensive training in theatre, including concentrations in acting,
directing, design, and all aspects of theatre making. In large part, this degree
aims to integrate educational and professional theatre while contributing
towards the advancement of the American theatre. The MFA programs
succeed in creating a comprehensive approach through rigorous training that
includes contact with professional artists, allowing students to artistically
collaborate with and intellectually stimulate each other. In short, they create
an artistic playground where artists can explore their potential. These MFA
programs recruit highly talented and committed students at various stages
of their professional careers (it is not uncommon for an actor to return to
the university after a number of years in the professional field to seek an
advanced degree). MFA programs are able to attract these students with a
number of incentives such as generous assistantships, fellowships, and other
financial awards, which in many instances cover full tuition remission, a
yearly stipend, and health insurance, thus rendering the cost of studying to a
minimum.

However, not all programs are able to offer the same type of incentives.
Nevertheless, MFA programs are in high demand; the number of candidates
applying greatly surpasses the number of open seats in a given year. The
structure and format of these programs can vary: some programs recruit a class

193
every year, some bring in a class only every other three years. Hundreds of
students apply and as a result, acceptance and entrance is highly coveted.

MFA programs aim to prepare their students to be competitive in the

professional market, be able to land roles, and be successful in their professional
careers. One way in which academia measures a programs success is through
its alumnis accomplishments. There seems to be an institutional perception,
which may or may not be accurate, that the professional success of a student
is directly linked to the educational program responsible for that student. For
example, it would be difficult not to associate Yale University alumna Meryl
Streep with her alma mater, a fact that is reinforced by the success of recent
Yale alumna Lupita Nyongo, forwarding the perception that the program
has produced and is still producing successful award-winning actors. These
types of connections and perceptions help to increase a programs reputation
by correlating it to its alumnis successes. This effect creates a cycle of self-
fulfilling success because as the programs reputation increases, they are able
to recruit superior talent, and so on. This is not new and it is not area or
discipline specific; rather, this applies university wide. Strategically then,
schools boast their alumnis achievements and utilize them as recruitment
tools, both nationally and internationally. However, particularly in theatre,
success in an industry where luck, being at the right place at the right time,
knowing the right people, are all vital ingredients in landing a job is not
synonymous with good training alone. To be clear, there is more to a program
than the fame and fortune of its alumni. Notwithstanding, preparing a
student to enter the professional arena successfully is an integral part of any
noteworthy MFA program. And if in turn, one of their students achieves
professional success, the school will benefit from the notion that it was their
program that prepared that student to achieve that success.

Season

Because MFA training nurtures the students ability to participate actively in

select productions, the season selection constitutes a powerful educational
tool to help students to further hone their skills and gain professional or
pre-professional onstage experience. For this purpose, a program takes into
consideration the student population available to be cast in those shows. It is
vital in the planning of a theatrical season that the chosen repertoire provides
opportunities for those students. Along with logistics, another important
factor is the need to develop a season that will contribute to the programs
educational goals. And yet another increasingly influential factor is the

194
economics affecting the university itself and what funding is made available
for theatrical productions.

The global economic state of affairs that drives ongoing funding cuts trickles
down from the university to individual departments and increases pressure
for external fundraising and self-funding. University budget cuts are most
heavily felt in the arts. In a university-wide funding shortage, reallocations of
funding generally blossom in the academic disciplines of science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM fields) and languish in the arts and
humanities. These funding cuts in the arts sometimes lead to the downsizing,
merging, or in extreme cases to the complete shutdown of entire departments.
The challenge of funding may steer departments in search of external sources
of income, and in this regard theatrical seasons present great fiscal potential
because of the possibility for ticket sales.

While not always the case, some programs partially rely on box office revenue
projections, with ticket revenue attached to production budgets. In such
cases, projections may be taken into final consideration, along with audience
preferences, when selecting a seasons repertoire, because in addition to
producing a show, there is an incentive to attract audiences that will buy tickets.
In this scenario, ticket driven revenue becomes a factor in season selection.
There are a number of different models under which MFA programs operate.
Some MFA programs have a close relationship to professional playhouses;
some are solely responsible for their seasons; and some function under other
models. And there are a variety of funding structures in place at different
institutions. But funding, in any variation, is an element considered while
selecting a season.

Theatre programs strive to find a balance between producing commercially

proven repertoire with original, and possibly financially uncertain shows.
Perhaps the question of funding contributes to the trend towards producing
more commercially proven productions and fewer premieres of new work,
since the latter may be more expensive to develop. Both the production timeline
and financial cost of hosting a playwright in residence and of developing a new
play are considerably higher than producing an existing show.

Commissioning new plays is a calculated risk that a program can pursue if

funding, logistics, and resources are available for this purpose. The reasoning
behind the commissioning system is the importance of creating new work.
Theatre academics are painfully aware of the importance of developing
new works even though the system, infrastructure, and/or finances may

195
discourage departments from pursuing the production of original material.
There are, however, some MFA programs whose mission and funding are
directly aligned with the creation of new works that fund various projects
and emerging writers. By investing in a particular writers voice and future,
the program gets the benefit of having produced a play that may never have
existed without their funding.

One promising example of how university theatre programs are attempting to

circumvent financial obstacles is a new initiative by the theatre departments of
the Big 10 (a conference of universities). Together, the Big 10 theatre departments
each contribute a modest amount in order to fund a playwright to develop a
new original work. The programs belonging to this type of consortium can
then produce the new original work commissioned for that year. And so, while
individually it may not have been financially possible for these schools to fund
a playwright on their own, this new initiative offers a solution that still allows
for the creation and development of new work annually.

On the other hand, in terms of Broadways influence and presence on the

university stage, it is possible to speculate that, among other reasons,
Broadways repertoire is often included in university repertoire because: a)
educationally, working on these shows will prepare students to become part
of this industry; b) artistically, the play has intrinsic value; and c) financially,
these shows may potentially increase local audience interest due to mass
Broadway appeal and name recognition.

In the end, in their season selection, MFA programs seek to integrate in

their repertoire both the old and the new, the tested and untested, and in the
process, partake in the contemporary university model by pursuing a balance
between development of new knowledge and application of tested principles,
or in this case, repertoire.

A Sample Season

While it would be ideal to analyze, in a comprehensive manner, the totality of

American MFA programs and their seasons throughout a substantial number
of years in the United States, no such data is yet readily available for such a
task. The scope of the enterprise and the vastness of the field merit an in-
depth study, indeed, and a study that definitively surpasses the confines of
this brief paper. Instead we chose a more modest approach, collecting data in
a much narrower field, with the intention to produce a sample that is perhaps

196
suggestive of a much larger picture. For this purpose, we focused on just the
2013-14 production season of a limited number of MFA programs.

For our study, we chose to focus on just one sub-group of MFA programs.
These programs share the common denominator of being members of the
University Resident Theatre Association (URTA). URTA is the nations
oldest consortium of professional graduate theatre training programs and
partnered professional theatre companies. URTA counts forty universities
in its membership. It was established in 1969 to work towards the highest
standards in theatre production and performance, and to help bring resident
professional theatre to the university campus and its community. While it is
the largest consortium in the U.S. and is sometimes deemed the standard in
graduate programs, not all graduate theatre programs are part of it. In our
case, narrowing the field to URTAs schools was done solely for the purpose
of studying schools sharing a similar profile as defined by the eligibility
requirements for membership into this association. It is important to note
that there are excellent MFA programs that are not members and/or chose
not to become members of this association and that such membership is not
in any way a reflection of a programs ranking or stature.

For practical reasons, we also narrowed the scope of our inquiry to just one
season: 2013-14. For this study, we collected information on the theatrical
seasons of these programs looking at each school individually. A particular
interest was to look at the percentage of original/new work produced in a
given season, in contrast with percentages for drama, comedy, classical/
Shakespearean, and musical theatre. The data utilized originated from
information provided by the aforementioned schools in their publicity
brochures, websites, and in some instances by their personnel via e-mail and/
or phone. Due to unforeseen circumstances, seasons are sometimes altered.
Cancellations and/or replacements, while not common, do occasionally occur.
Therefore, there might be a slight margin of error in the numbers quoted. The
results below provide just a quick view into the repertoire selection at these
MFA programs during the 2013-14 academic season. Even in such a focused
scope, these numbers may help provide some interesting data on the subject
of graduate university theatre repertoire.

In 2013-14, the combined seasons of the forty URTA MFA schools produced
267 productions, averaging between six to seven productions by theatre
departments for their academic year. The minimum number of shows presented
by a school was four and the maximum was ten. Of the 267 productions:

197
 Ninety were dramas produced by thirty-nine schools.
Sixty-six were comedies produced by thirty-three schools.
Forty-four were musicals produced by twenty-nine schools.
Thirty-two were Shakespearean/classical works produced by twenty-one
schools.
And thirty-three were new works produced by nineteen schools, though
one school alone produced six new works. The other twenty-one schools
did not present any original works in that year.

A first glance at the percentage breakdown shows that original/new works

share the same percentage as Shakespearean/classical, marking a balance
between new and classical repertoire selection. In contrast to the new works
12%, a resounding 88% of the shows produced were mostly already proven
works or works by authors that had received critical acclaim in professional
venues and/or were part of the worlds theatre repertoire. However, upon
closer inspection, it is notable than only 47% of the schools produced new
works, which meant 53% of the consortium did not produce shows in this
category the year examined. In regards to the choice of producing original/
new works, the survey suggests an almost 50/50 divide in terms of repertoire
selection choices among the forty URTA schools during 2013-14. Of the
12% comprised of original/new works produced, the majority of these 33
productions encompassed a variety of devised pieces, new short plays, and
student created work. Only a small fraction of these were commissioned full-
length plays, which would actually suggest a much smaller percentage of new
original plays in the traditional or professional sense of the category.

198
These statistics provide a limited view of repertoire selection at the graduate
level in MFA theatre training programs partnered with professional theatre
companies during 2013-14. It must be noted that this is but a sample of only
one season, and that future seasons may produce similar or, perhaps, different
results. Due to the narrow scope of this inquiry, it is not possible to determine
definite outcomes since the variables are too numerous. Nevertheless, these
numbers represent an accurate picture of the current state of affairs in the
aforementioned season and schools.

Conclusion

Today, MFA programs advance the world theatre repertoire both in the
training of their students and the development of their audiences. They
include in their repertoire a variety of genres that help prepare the student-
actor to enter the professional theatre industry, including Broadway. MFA
programs engage their communities, entertaining and enlightening, even
with limited financial resources. And yet, funding cuts in the arts may be
stifling the creation and development of new plays that will speak to our
times.

In an ideal world, university repertoires also provide the testing-grounds

from which to give voice to perspectives that might not otherwise be voiced.
Universities are places for research, for the exploration of knowledge, and
platforms for groundbreaking ideas that advance the frontiers and engage
in meaningful conversation. New work is an important place for this critical
inquiry. The future of American Drama cannot rest on commercial theatre
alone, because art cannot be compromised by the fear of risking financial
solvency. Instead, the place to foster the voices that mirror our society and
culture, voices that address our understanding of ourselves and of humankind
in a global sense, voices that reflect on the effects of the past, pose questions
on the present times, and dare with visions of things to come, may very well
be at our universities.

In advancing the life of the American Theatre, MFA programs are

momentously situated as heirs apparent to the ideals of movements such
as The Group Theatre. Not only are their methods taught in the classroom,
but their legacy is shared by university teachers and directors. There is
room however, for MFA programs to further emulate and advance The
Group Theatres quest to produce relevant new work by the writers of our
generation that speak to our historical moment. And it is for these reasons

199
that an attention to repertoire at the MFA university level has immediacy
and urgency. While it is true that the experiment initiated by The Group
Theatre has not since been repeated on Broadway, it is high time that this
kind of platform reawakens with academic freedom and full institutional
support. It is worth the investment; it is worth the time. American theatre
might again be ready for a new wave of dreamers who will address relevant
issues of today, issues affecting the American people, raising their voices on
the university stage.

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University of South Carolina, Department of Theatre & Dance. Accessed April 2014.
http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/thea.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Department of Theatre. Accessed April 2014.

www.clarencebrowntheatre.com.

University of Texas at Austin, Department of Theatre and Dance, Accessed April

2014. www.utexas.edu/finearts/tad/.

University of Virginia, Department of Drama. Accessed April 2014.

www.virginia.edu/drama.

University of Washington, School of Drama. Accessed April 2014.

http://drama.uw.edu.

University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Theatre & Drama. Accessed April

2014. www.theatre.wisc.edu.

URTA, The University Resident Theatre Association. Accessed April 2014.

www.urta.com.

202
203
 La universidad es el entorno ideal para elaborar,
dado que el riesgo y el tiempo necesario para hacerlo
tienen un valor pedaggico. Si bien una autobiografa
independiente puede producir teatro fascinante y
profundo, la creacin colectiva de historias personales
puede llegar a ser mucho ms gratificante. Este ensayo
provee un modelo de creacin autobiogrfica colectiva
usando como caso prctico una reciente produccin
universitaria. As como lo eran las historias en que se
basa el espectculo, este mtodo es simultneamente
universal y personal, especfico en el tiempo y el
espacio, pero transferible a diversos continentes y
culturas. Sin embargo, estos proyectos no carecen
de obstculos. El actuar es una empresa vulnerable
y el relatar una historia propia puede tornarse en
asunto de alto riesgo. Aquellos que alientan a sus
estudiantes a explorar historias personales deben
transitar por una cuerda floja de tica que se tensa
entre los objetivos artsticos y la salud psicolgica,
considerando cuidadosamente aspectos como las

directrices, la proteccin y la reaccin de la familia.

204
Exploring Family, Expanding Repertoire: A Model for
Devising
Angela Konrad

There are so many approaches to collective creation that those who wish to
introduce devised work into the university repertoire might not know where
to begin. Original adaptations of classic literature, explorations of evocative
themes, and topics torn from headline news can all prove fruitful starting
points for devising. In fact, the inspirations for collaboratively created
plays are as diverse as the people making them, so deciding on a direction
can be daunting. Furthermore, many approaches require special training
or experience that might not be available in the university context. The
condensed timeline of college productions proves an additional challenge, as
the long gestation period typical for devised work in the professional theatre
is not usually possible in the academy. However, the pedagogical value and
flexible programming provided are sufficient incentive to make devising a
regular part of any university theatre program.

Following is a snapshot of a devised theatre production created at Trinity

Western University that serves as a primer for novices. This model relies
on the participants internal resources rather than a theoretical approach or
particular skill set, providing an excellent entre to devising, and an adaptable
framework for exploration. It is particularly effective with students who have
never devised because the source material is the participants own families.
This ensures students write what they know and that they have a personal
investment in the subject matter. On top of training in collective creation,
participants learn more about themselves, about family dynamics, about
communication patterns, and about growing up. Basing the play on family
stories removes the need for the extensive research many devising methods
demand, making it suitable to a shorter timeline. And because the source
material is the participants themselves, this model can be easily adapted to
any university, culture, or language.

Why Devise Based on Personal Stories?

Peoples stories matter. One of the primary benefits of this approach to devising

205
is that it teaches student actors that their own personal stories are important
and meaningful. Because the actors instrument is himself and because the
compelling power of theatre is empathy, the value of this lesson cannot be
overstated. My goal was to empower students to tell their stories, honestly
and openly. This quote from Frederick Buechner provided inspiration for our
journey:

My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell
it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it
is also yours If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be
profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually.1

The process of unearthing and expressing personal stories can be therapeutic

and it can also be richly educational. It can stimulate a greater knowledge
of self (which is essential for actors) and a deeper understanding of and
connection to others (which is essential for all of us). These personal stories
inevitably have their roots in family, and family is a rich source of material
for a show. Everyone has a family. Every family is different. Every family is the
same. Instantly, you have the particularity and universality that make for a
meaningful artistic work. This investigation seemed a worthwhile experience
for my students.

Buechner reveals the links between telling, family, and being or becoming
who we truly are:

I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same
secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling
in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition
that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our
full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything
else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly
and fully are even if we tell it only to ourselves because otherwise we run
the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to
accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the
world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our
secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our
lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us
a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what
being a family is all about and what being human is all about.2

1 Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), 42.
2 Ibid., 2-3.

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These ideas of Buechners the importance of knowing ourselves and of being
known; the need to see where we have come from and where we are going;
and the value of telling secrets as a means of connection and a way to tap into
our common humanity validate the benefits at the core of autobiographical
collective creation. For the theatre maker, the value of knowing and the human
need and significance of being known are fundamental to artistic practice.
Truly moving theatre necessitates self-revelation and equipping students to
do this work is an essential part of most contemporary theatre programs.
This benefit alone is sufficient to justify devising from personal stories. But
when those stories are rooted in family, they are situated in the trajectory
Buechner identifies based on history and looking towards the future. This
increases the students understanding of and appreciation for their family
histories and avoids the temptation of self-aggrandizement presented by an
isolated me-story incident. The truth of Buechners third point that telling
secrets creates connection was ably proven during the rehearsal process
in which participants took on the role of family in telling and hearing each
others secrets. The resulting deepened relationships prompted eagerness to
share those stories with an audience, extending the connection beyond the
inner circle.

Strong practical and pedagogical reasons exist for family-focused collective

creation in a university context:

1. The creative process is intense and intensely educational. Students gain

confidence and learn more about self-producing, which can be valuable
in many ways after graduation.
2. Devising of this sort gives students opportunities to develop new skills
(e.g., choreography, songwriting, etc.).
3. This model of production can be done in any season, with a cast of any
size and gender/ethnic composition, and with simple production values,
so it can be a positive solution to season planning challenges.

How It Worked

As is frequently the case with devised work, the original vision and the final
product did not bear much resemblance to each other. I knew I wanted
the show to be an exploration of family, that I wanted it to be ultimately
celebratory (though certainly not every story would be positive), and that I
wanted it to include original music and dance. I started with the inspiration
of family photographs and named the show Picture This! before we held

207
auditions in late spring. The tagline that encapsulated the concept (and
served a promotional purpose) was A visual and musical journey home.
With that idea and a November opening in mind, I gave the new cast
summer homework that included bringing in 10-12 photographs that either
represented a significant event in their family or seemed to ones that were
evocative. I envisioned an episodic structure in which each vignette would
be introduced by the central player who would stand in a spotlight and say
something like, It was the summer I was 12. I had just had my appendix
removed and my grandparents were visiting from Winnipeg. And then, my
dog ran away. So, picture this.... The lights would shift, the inspirational
photo would be projected on a screen or wall, the other actors would form
the tableau of the photo, and the story would unfold from there. Truthfully...
or not. (One of our advertising lines was Warning: may contain true stories,
absurd fabrications or both!).

But there were two problems in realizing this original idea. First, it became
quickly apparent that we did not have the perfectly appropriate photos that
existed in my mind. The best family stories did not have corresponding
photos and the best photos did not have true stories attached to them. The
second problem was a voice in my head. I had told a friend about my plan and
his response was, So, whats the point?. This question kept bouncing around
my brain, nagging me to ensure that I knew whether this was going to be a
play or simply an animated show and tell. That voice pushed us towards a
more cohesive and meaningful vision.

Because of these two factors, we had to throw out the structural blueprint
but we were left with something far more valuable: a mandate to tell a story.
We continued to develop a collection of scenes but my attention shifted to
the overarching narrative. Whatever the path ahead, I knew that the actors
ability to collectively create a unified story depended on the nature of the
group dynamic; the quality of the process would determine the quality of the
product. Even more than with scripted work, creating the proper environment
in rehearsal is crucial for collaborative creation. Particularly when the stories
are personal, participants must feel they can trust the others in the room in
order to speak and explore and play boldly. For us, this process included:
warm-ups and movement work, group storytelling, improvisation, nature
walks, follow-the-leader, rehearsal games, singing, dancing, and drum circles.
I also had the students watch two TED talks: Brene Browns The Power of
Vulnerability and Chimamanda Adichies The Danger of the Single Story.
Early on, we set ground rules, including what happens in rehearsal, stays in
rehearsal. And, as I always do, I had everyone write out measures of success

208
and greatest fears for the production. The students did not always understand
the point of the every exercise and, truthfully, at times it wasnt entirely clear
to me either. But reliance on instincts, impulses, and the will of the group
were foundational throughout, and all activities proved valuable. Each built
camaraderie and confidence, amplifying individual voices and increasing the
groups cohesiveness.

Concurrently with the exercises, activities, and videos, we spent a lot of time
talking, getting to know each other. I would ask general questions about
family . Do people yell in your house? How are decisions made? Who
has the most power? Do people talk about their feelings? Do you ever have
family meetings? Inevitably, there was a range of responses. For example, one
would say we have family meetings all the time and someone else would say
whats a family meeting?. Each actor took a lot of time to talk and reveal.
Starting with the gathered photographs, they told stories of their experiences.
It was like group therapy, in a way, with a lot of risk-taking and many tears.
Students talked about their struggles with self and family. Some revealed
events they had never told anyone else. They began to respect each other and
find the courage to speak. It was a delicate balance to encourage all voices,
ensure the subject matter was not too raw, and keep the focus on the work. It
was sometimes necessary to stop or redirect a conversation and occasionally
I needed to speak to a student privately. Because of the mutual respect
foundational to all activities, and because talking was always voluntary,
very few problems arose. Most often, difficult topics provided opportunities
for bonding and mutual support. Talking also sometimes led to discovery
of a story that needed to be told, whether or not the actor realized it was
important or even interesting. In this way, the response of the group was an
essential part of the creation; stories were coaxed into existence or reshaped
in another direction by comments and questions in the room.

Writing activity started quite early, interspersed with exploration and

conversation. Although I knew the photographs could not be integrated into
the production in the way I originally intended, they remained significant
in generating ideas for stories. To start, students each chose one of their
photos and from that inspiration wrote a two-minute scene with at least
four characters. In the next rehearsal, that first draft was cast by the writer,
read aloud, and then improvised. Some stories died fairly quickly because
the improvisation didnt work; others grew and developed, prompting
discoveries that shaped future directions. Sometimes, scenes were read in
rehearsal and then discussed rather than enacted. The group responded to the
most intriguing elements of a scene and made suggestions for improvements.

209
This could have been damaging if the students did not trust each other, but
because the groundwork had been laid, they were able to provide informed
and effective feedback.

Knowing how to respond to this sort of work is tricky. In one case, a student
wrote a story that came from bitterness and a desire to hurt his parents, and
that made his character very unsympathetic. As I was trying to decide how
to deal with it without being destructive (since the subject was obviously
difficult and close to his heart) one of the students said. I dont like Stanley
in this scene. Hes kind of an asshole. In the ensuing discussion, we were able
to help the actor see all the ways the character was charming and likeable
in other scenes but not in this one. This led to a teary session in which the
actor discovered that he didnt really like the character or by extension
himself. The group was thoroughly supportive and the whole experience was
noticeably healing for him. It also helped him as a writer to understand theres
a difference between properly telling a story and trying to get people to take
your point of view (which in this case was to condemn his parents). Stepping
back from his own pain and judgment allowed him to create a character
people wanted to get to know, one more likely to generate empathy.

Before too long, we had more material than we could possibly use. To
determine whether a scene should be in the show we asked these questions:
How personal is this story? How universal is this story? If it was neither, it
was cut. We also considered how to integrate the family photographs into the
show. Some of the pictures chosen were related to true stories but others we
wanted to use simply because they were fun and evocative. For example, there
was one photograph of a bride and groom, clearly from the 1980s, next to the
sign for a funeral home. This photo was essentially a joke when it was taken
but it became the inspiration for a completely fictitious (and hilarious) story
about a wedding in a funeral chapel.

Creating some fictional stories was a way to protect the students from too
much self-exposure. If the audience is never quite sure what is based in
fact and what is fabrication, theres a bit of distance that allows the actors to
risk vulnerability. For the same reason, the actors all created characters for
themselves so that they would not use their own names and personal histories.
I encouraged the students to come up with character sketches that made it
clear that the characters were not them but also allowed each actors own story
to be told naturally and truthfully. For example, one student had an important
story that took place at Disneyworld, so she determined that her character
was from Florida because that would allow for the story to emerge naturally

210
in the course of the play. Creating characters also helped us to develop an arc
for each individual, so all characters had a journey and the show had depth
and cohesion. As the culling and shaping continued, we determined that each
actor should have two stories one personal and heartfelt, the other lighter.
Some of the cast were more prolific and proficient writers, so sometimes one
persons story would be given to another. A collateral benefit of this exchange
was that it provided another layer of protection from factual truth in some
cases, a story did actually happen but not to that particular character/actor.

As the collection of stories came together, it was clear that we still needed
some sort of framework to justify their telling. We needed to figure out where
or why strangers might tell each other personal stories. In one of many eureka
moments, we realized the show could be an actual as well as a metaphorical
journey home. We came up with the idea to set the play in an airport at
Christmastime. As frequently happens in many parts of the world, bad
weather has grounded the planes and everyone is trapped together, waiting
to get a flight home. It provided the perfect rationale for strangers to talk to
each other and to swap stories about home and family.

To lend shape and to integrate the photographs in a way that incorporated the
plays title, we created getting to know you scenes in which strangers began
to chat as they waited. During the conversation, a question would be asked
that would lead another character to tell a story beginning with the words:
picture this!. The storyteller and others in the company would then enact
the scene while the questioner watched. When the scene transitioned back
to the airport, the photo related to that scene was projected onto the screen
backdrop.

An additional element that we did not foresee was that the entire show became
the story of one woman who listened in to each of the other characters
stories and learned something about herself and her family through them.
She provided the backbone and bookends for the production. This element
evolved because one actor kept saying, I dont have a story. She had a broken
relationship with her family and the personal stories she told were too hurtful
and raw to be part of the show. Her understanding of how family can function
was so limited that during one rehearsal discussion she looked around at her
castmates incredulously and said, I thought families were only like that in the
movies. The big picture story became her journey of discovering what family
could be by meeting all these strangers and hearing their stories. In the final
scene, she was invited to the home of one of her new friends for Christmas
dinner. (An event that actually happened after the production closed!).

211
This narrator character (whom the actor had named Grace long before
the characters dramatic function was discovered) provided another layer
of protection because all stories were filtered through her perception. This
allowed the lines of truth and fiction to be blurred even further. It also justified
the ordering of the stories in a way that gave the production a clear arc:
following Graces personal journey towards a deeper understanding of family.
Given the plays tagline, this development was immensely satisfying. The final
phase of writing involved creating the connecting scenes that revealed Graces
experience and introduced each story, scenes we called ligaments because
of their connective function.

Up until this point in rehearsal, the team guided every aspect of creation but
once we moved into this stage, I took more control. In devising, the director
is dramaturge and once the individual elements were assembled, it was my
job to step back and examine the piece as a whole. While some students
had written their own introductory segment, others had not. I took all the
scenes and ligaments and determined the best order. Then, based on the
needs of the overarching narrative, I wrote many of the ligaments from tidbits
of information collected during rehearsals. A lot of character development
happened during the ligaments so they became very important to the flow
of the overall show. Once the structure became clear, certain scenes were
eliminated because they did not advance the story or teach us more about
the characters. I also put on my director hat, determining where to place
each scene on the stage and beginning to solidify the technical elements that
would help the show hang together.

Once the script was assembled, the show became much like any other new
play, with rehearsals geared towards performance rather than creation, and
the continued potential for edits, minor rearranging, and ongoing discovery.

TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL PROCESS

1. Create a safe environment set ground rules expect and require mutual
respect. Allow time for meaningless exploration. (e.g., nature walks
paying attention to environment, being in moment and open to impulse
and experience). Cultivate opportunities for laughter.

2. Allow it to be a truly collective creation Establish an egalitarian structure

in which all including director and stage manager are collaborators.
As much as possible, ensure everyone has equal voice in both talking and
writing.

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3. Hold your vision loosely. Dont over-manage. Devising has been likened
to archeology: the process is not so much writing or constructing
but digging out and discovering what is waiting to be revealed. Our
experience bore this out; we didnt know where what we were looking for
but we knew when wed found it.

4. Build in safeguards so that stories can be told in the room and on stage
without shaming or over-exposure (e.g., character names, swapping
stories, and intentional falsehoods).

5. Be open to many different ways of expressing self: e.g., the student who
kept saying she didnt have a story. Rather than pushing her into a mold,
we realized that could be her story the one who doesnt speak. Another
student was having a terribly difficult time writing her story, though she
knew what it was. She is a dancer and she said, I wish I could just dance
my feelings. So her story became a beautiful dance sequence in the show,
another way of expressing an experience.

6. Let students try things outside their comfort zone or experience. We had
several musicians in the show but our most moving song was by a student
who had never written a song and did not play an instrument or read
music. He simply brought in lyrics and a tune in his head and we were
able to learn and transcribe it.

7. Ensure you have a competent recorder (likely the stage manager). It is

extremely important to have someone who can effectively compile and
format and sometimes transcribe the scenes coming in from all directions.

8. Start writing early/keep exploring late. In our experience, it is most

effective to begin writing almost right away and to ensure experimentation
continues late into the rehearsal period.

Some Cautions

1. Set parameters for stories and discussion.

It is important to help students understand what is an appropriately
personal story and what is not. Anything the actor has not already worked
through is best left out of the show. Manage the discussion so that no one
dominates and the quieter voices are given space.

213
2. Get students to write their stories, not tell them.
We had one incident when a student had not written the assigned scene
and asked to tell the story instead. It ended up being a long, painful,
detailed, account of a high-school heartbreak. Not only was it tortuous
to listen to, it had no clear relationship to family. However, because it was
obviously painful for the speaker, I didnt know how to stop her without
being destructive. Afterwards, I set clearer boundaries!

3. Empower students to reveal and to conceal their stories.

Some will be frightened by the idea that they need to dredge up dirt from
their lives so make it clear that all sharing is voluntary. Sometimes students
dont know if something is too raw until they begin the exploration.
However, as long as the guide is clear on the guidelines and the students
are respectful, there can be value in telling a story that doesnt get into
the show.

4. Beware of students using rehearsals as therapy.

Although the process can be therapeutic, it is important for the director
to keep focused on creating a show, without being harsh or quashing
creativity.

5. Redirect when a scene is inappropriate for inclusion.

Three tactics I used with the student who was spewing bitterness at his
parents in scene after scene: 1) praise he is a very good and prolific
writer so I encouraged him to tell his whole story in a solo show; 2) let
the group speak, as the collective mind and will are very powerful; and
3) encourage a completely different sort of writing to redirect from a
destructive focus. In our case, I asked for a purely funny scene. The result
was complete in one draft and remained a favorite of cast and audience.

6. Prepare for the response of actors families.

Some participants have creative freedom because their families will not see
the show. Others will not only have families in attendance, their parent(s)
might be public figures. These factors affect creation, presentation, and
reception, but sensitively handled, all stories provide opportunity for
increased understanding. Students who were initially elated that they did
not have to consider offending family members were later sad that such
a meaningful journey could not be shared. Those who were concerned
about their families seeing themselves on stage discovered the experience
provided opportunities for connection and healing.

214
Conclusions and Reflections

For those working in a university context, devising provides an appealing

solution to production planning problems. Balancing a season or semester
can present serious challenges with respect to cast size, gender, or diversity,
issues that disappear when you create your own work. In addition, devising
affords opportunity for innovative and inspired design (particularly valuable
in schools with design specializations) or no design at all (always desirable
when functioning under budget restrictions). However, these practical
considerations are not the best reason to ensure collective creation is a regular
part of university programming; the persuasive impetus is the pedagogical
value of the process.

Every student of theatre can benefit from devising. Theatre is the most
collaborative of the arts and this messy means of playmaking is the most
collaborative form of theatre. Picture This! was created by the coming together
and wrestling of nine actors, one stage manager, and one director. But in a
process such as this, those titles take on new meanings. The actors are writers
and musicians, choreographers and editors; the stage manager is recorder,
sounding board, and supervisor; the director is strategist, dramaturge, and
den mother. This intensive collaboration and fluidity of roles teaches students
to risk and to rely on each other. It pushes them outside their comfort zones
and gives them the courage to fail boldly. It also prepares them well for the
professional world where they will inevitably be called upon to do something
for which they feel unprepared. Learning to practice interdisciplinarity in
this way cultivates generosity and fearlessness.

There is no definitive guidebook for how devised theatre ought to take shape.
For us, rehearsals were chaotic, touching, hilarious, and beautiful kind of
like life. We started with photos and stories of family, teasing out nuances,
details, and truths. Ideas became scenes, often written in partnership with
another. The group would engage by performing, or improvising, or
responding and the scene would be revised. Songs emerged from intention
or inspiration, changing shape as instruments and performers were chosen.
Working in this way, without the security of a script, forces students to listen
to the voice of their own inner artist. Following impulses extends from acting
technique to essential tool of the creative process, and the creative process
itself becomes not just the means to an end but the source and measure of
artistic growth. This artistic growth is mirrored by personal growth. Situating
the heart of our exploration in family intensified this development as the
subject matter was deeply personal, and because the students were at the age

215
of learning to separate from their parents, they were especially receptive to the
investigation. Exploring alongside others magnified the learning experience
and at some point, our collected stories took on a life of their own. Rather
than my story or her story, Picture This! became our story, a whole much
greater than the sum of its parts. We were constantly surprised by the truths
that revealed themselves to us, by the echoes and amplifications as stories
ricocheted off each other. While none of us knew where we were going, we
all knew when we had arrived. Through it all, we discovered connections we
didnt guess existed. We uncovered a diversity of experience and marveled
at our common understanding. We came to love and respect each other. We
celebrated. For me, the most significant and meaningful reason to do a show
like this is the healing that results from the exploration of home and family.
Every cast member reported improved relationships with their family as a
result of this show.

Our final collaborator, as is always the case in theatre, was the audience. As
they embarked on the journey with us, they had the power to change the
story and to be changed by it. If what Buechner says is true, and if we told our
stories anything like right, they discovered that this was also their story. I
am hopeful that it enriched their lives as it did ours.

I urge you to consider this method. As Buechner points out, you should have
no shortage of material:

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you,
but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your
stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.3

References

Buechner, Frederick. Telling Secrets. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.

------. Telling the Truth. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977.

3 Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977), 3.

216
217
 Ce travail porte sur les manires dont la cration
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conduit un type dapprentissage peu encourag
dans un environnement o lenseignant est central.
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lUniversit James Madison (Etats-Unis) offrent un
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dans des domaines varis.

218
Student Experimental Theatre as Experiential Learning
Environment
Dennis Beck

Theatre has always sat somewhat uncomfortably within the ivory tower.
While drama as a literary form has played a role in university curricula for
centuries, only after 1900 was theatre practice recognized as an academic
discipline. Its late acceptance points toward a fundamental tension. Lecture
halls and libraries suggest students receive learning from repositories of
knowledge. The Greek root of drama, dran, conversely, does not indicate a
written dialogue form readily studied and found in a library but, instead, as
the Oxford Dictionary indicates, a verb meaning to do, to act. Conceptual
as well as practical reasons underlay why the chair, that piece of sedentary
furniture so common in classrooms, did not enter the Western stage as a
significant and utilized set piece until the nineteenth century. How might
these seemingly opposed ways of learning and discovery for the university
theatre student passive and active, received and enacted be reconciled or
even complementary?

At the mid-size Virginia (USA) school of James Madison University (JMU),

that problem disturbed two young teacher-artists, Tom Arthur and Tom
King, in the 1970s. They hoped to create a program of theatre education that
would reconcile the development of artists having the ability and inclination
to break rules, offer unexpected perspectives, and initiate new work with
an institutional structure that rewards rule-following, reinforces traditional
methods, and cultivates a certain degree of passiveness through its methods.
Their solution was to create contexts that propagated learning through student
experiences and the professors abandonment of the teachers traditional role.
The student Experimental Theatre program they instituted well before
most programs created student production spaces recognized the critical
significance of independent environments that stress the value of practice as
a mode of learning.

The importance of experience would be championed by educational theorists

in the coming years, but in the 1970s, Arthur and King were responding
intuitively to the limitations they perceived in conventional educational
practice. Students began their experience in the Experimental Theatre by

219
proposing a production and, once it was accepted, working with their team
independently of faculty to create and manage myriad aspects of its realization.
Rather than its frequent connotation of avant-garde, experimental in
this context points toward experience and the reality of doing. Experience
and experiment, in fact, share the same Latin root, experr: to test, to try.
Experience, whose Latin origin, experientia, means knowledge gained by
repeated trials, reveals their inextricable link to each other and to learning.1
Thus, attempts at radical process/style or simple mounting of a realistic play
without external guidance were both valid experiments. The Experimental
Theatre became a place for doing that which is outside ones previous
experience, for gaining knowledge through trying. The composition and
outcomes of the Experimental Theatre continue to challenge conventional
classroom teaching in one sense; in another, they complete it.

Arthur and Kings practices post-date John Deweys 1916 observation that
Thinking... is the intentional endeavor to discover specific connections
between something which we do and the consequences which result, so
that the two become continuous.2 They preceded, however, the growth of
experiential learning and related pedagogical approaches built on Deweys
theory and signaled by David Kolbs influential 1983 book Experiential
Learning. In the context of virtual environments within which todays students
are often immersed, such approaches may assume unusual significance.
Embodied Learning, Active Learning, Problem-Based Learning, Discovery-
based learning, and Team-Based Learning share a belief in active engagement
with an activity whose solutions students must discover as one of the most
effective strategies for learning. They reject an instructor-centered approach,
shifting the emphasis from teaching to learning, and cultivate higher-order
thinking skills of analysis, evaluation, and synthesis/creation within Benjamin
Blooms taxonomy.3 They create a framework within which to appreciate the
educational effectiveness of the independent student theatre experience, one
affirmed by the professional successes of JMUs theatre graduates.

1 Online Etymology Dictionary, s.v. Experience, accessed 7 June 2014, http://www.etymonline.com/.

2 John Dewey, Democracy and Education in The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Vol 9: 1916,
ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale Southern Illinois UP, 1980): 152.
3 Although in 1956, Bloom proposed the most advanced levels of intellectual behavior in the ascending
order of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, in the 1990 s a new generation updated the taxonomy to
reflect 21st century work demands and developments in educational psychology. The highest behaviors
in ascending order were revised as analyzing, evaluating, creating. See David R Krathwohl and Lorin W.
Anderson, Merlin C. Wittrock and the Revision of Blooms Taxonomy, Educational Psychologist 45.1
(2010): 64-65.

220
To appreciate how a framed student experience cultivates effective learning,
the following examines the Experimental Theatres activation of four
components Kolb outlines that promote the capacity to elicit changed
behavior at a more complex level of functioning. They include incorporation
of students previous concrete experiences, abstract conceptualization, active
experimentation, and reflective observation.4 Although Kolb presents these
stages as a cycle, the steps may occur or recur in nearly any order.5

These stages assume greater meaning in light of the Experimental Theatres

characteristics, which still today provide students an unusual degree of
freedom to succeed and fail. Students are provided rehearsal and performance
space, a scheduled slot of time, limited access to prop and costume stock, and
the resources of a budget, lighting and sound equipment. They choose their
source material (textual or not), student production team, and approach.
They then direct, design, act, manage, and publicize their production. The
space for such student creations during most of its history was, comically
and poetically, a repurposed turkey hatchery. With a concrete floor and brick
walls, the low-ceilinged black box conversion was virtually indestructible.
Reconfigured for every production, it typically seated fewer than 100
spectators. Experimental Theatre projects, however, can also be performed
elsewhere, in restaurants, courtyards, etc., reflecting the Experimental
Theatre as a policy as well as a space. A proposal process requires students
to articulate the projects purpose, vision, methods, and requested resources.
Proposals are vetted and approved by faculty and student representatives.

Previous Concrete Experiences

The experience and success of drafting the proposal, conceptualizing the

production, and working in rehearsals, however, is influenced by the students
prior experiences in five significant areas, which the process prompts them
to reflect on and utilize. First is pre-college theatrical productions on which
theyve worked. Understandings formed from them are often challenged
by the second experience, performances seen before and during college.
Their third experience, working on university productions, develops skills,
understandings, and confidence. Fourth, encounters and workshops with

4 Linda H. Lewis and Carol J. Williams, Experiential Learning: Past and Present, New Directions for
Adult and Continuing Education 62 (Summer 1994): 9.
5 Lee Andersen, David Boud, and Ruth Cohen, Experience-Based Learning, in Understanding Adult
Education and Training, ed. Griff Foley (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997), 226-27.

221
visiting artists, introduces entirely new perspectives and methods. Lastly,
experiences in the departments classrooms provide practices, historical
developments, performance theories, and literatures of various kinds that
become approaches to test, ideas to embody, and foundations on which to
build within the Experimental Theatre context. The influence of study in
other disciplines should also be considered.

Abstract Conceptualization

Such experiences and other life encounters constitute the well of reflection
that enables students effective drafting of proposals for Experimental Theatre
projects. Drafting the proposal provides students their initial challenge of the
project in abstract conceptualization, requiring them to amalgamate their
understandings of dramatic structure, action analysis, metaphor, design
concept, staging method, and acting approach within the concrete physical
limitations of space and resources. This educational experience begins with
the students choice of material to explore, with each new work forming
part of an unpremeditated Experimental Theatre repertoire. The openness
of the programs production options prompts significant variation in types
of sources, from original works written or devised by students to published
dramas. Avant-garde, classic, and, postmodern plays, novels, stories, and
nonfiction have graced the repertoire. Sources arise as a response to the
students interests in a particular play, dramatic genre, theory, period or
playwright encountered in a class, idea, challenge posed by a professor,
situation in the world, or any of a hundred inspirations. The Experimental
Theatre, thus, develops what might be called an organic repertoire, one
responsive to the areas students have felt compelled to explore. Grown from
multiple inspirations within numerous individuals, this collective organicity
provides students an alternative approach to constructing repertoire that
contrasts with the deliberate and centralized methods of choosing the
Mainstage, faculty-directed season. It also teaches them, however, that
even in institutionally defined contexts where factors such as cast size and
composition, public interest, role in the entirety of the season, etc., must
be considered, that at the heart of choosing material resides a question, an
artistic exploration, a connection between the artist and the source.

Contexts like the Experimental Theatre necessitate expanding the idea

of repertoire, however, beyond that of source texts. Lacking givens like a
proscenium arch, fixed seating configuration, costume and scene shops, and
large budget, students are forced to explore new and untried ways to produce

222
plays. If students want to produce a play like Henrik Ibsens Ghosts with a
proscenium arch, they must build the arch themselves, purchasing materials
from their budget. The cost of that decision encourages them to think
through why the arch is beneficial and how it relates to the play, its style, and
their interpretation, understandings less likely developed when the arch is a
default. The proposals demand for abstract conceptualization asks students to
relate those abstractions repeatedly to the physical world, creating a dialectic
between the two characteristic not only of theatre but of many endeavors
they will attempt. For developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, Kolb notes,
the twin processes of accommodation of ideas to the external world and
assimilation of experience into existing conceptual structures are the moving
forces of cognitive development. Experiential approaches are grounded in
the insight that learning involves transactions between the person and the
environment.6 The rethinking of (a repertoire of) sources constitutes an
abstract conceptualization of the what, the material, while a reconsideration
of (a repertoire of) methods requires a more complex conceptualization,
one that constructs productive relationships between the goals, processes,
and aesthetics of the concept with a different kind of material: that of the
environment and physical resources available.

Although faculty members in this context have abandoned teaching, they

have not abandoned students. Research finds that too little guidance during
an educational project does not lead to sufficient learning.7 Perhaps sensing
this, faculty began requiring each student submitting a proposal to enlist
a faculty advisor. The advisor responds to proposal drafts with questions,
eliciting the search for answers from students, helping craft a project
challenging both artistically and educationally. Once a proposal is accepted,
advisors respond to select rehearsals, again avoiding the kind of teaching
that supplies answers but instead Socratically encourages students to search
for solutions. Abstract Conceptualization, as well as the next stage, active
experimentation, contribute to the wealth of knowledge and ability that
develop the students internal direction and understandings. These in turn
enable artistic autonomy and mark a successful education. The advantages
of guidance begin to recede only when learners have sufficiently high prior
knowledge to provide internal guidance.8

6Kolb, Experiential Learning, 29, 34.

7 Paul Kirschner, John Sweller, and Richard Clark, Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does
Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and
Inquiry-Based Teaching, Educational Psychologist 41, no. 2 (2006): 75.
8Ibid.

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Active Experimentation

Despite the role of faculty advisors, the relative removal of the professor
from the process is paramount to the effectiveness of projects as learning
environments. A tempting internal monologue for educators who lead
educational productions might sound like my own: I do things differently.
I avoid replicating corporate hierarchical models and consciously create
process-oriented experiences when directing productions. I give students
responsibility and stress the importance of discovery. I create a laboratory.
I facilitate learning. While these are noble goals, they disregard that the
automaticity of social behavior reveals in human relations that the mere
presence of the professor affects the experiment/experience.9 We can no
more shed our institutional positions and the perceptions students hold of
us as educators, as the ones ultimately responsible, as the font of answers
or guide through the process, than we can remove our skins. Authority and
antiquation cling to us by virtue of a number of factors over which we have
no control related to institutions, experience, age, students upbringing and
socialization, etc. As Bargh, Chen, and Burrows show, behavior is often
triggered automatically on the mere presence of relevant situational factors.10
Our attendance ultimately constrains young artists risk-taking, creativity,
development of autonomy, and discovery of artistic voice. While we facilitate
learning in important contexts, we open channels for greater learning when
we recognize that we also impede it in significant ways.

Why are contexts in which students create independently important in

todays world? The answer lies in the unique position that such spaces
occupy between classroom lesson and professional stage. Often students
have no chance to initiate or participate in a production process not guided
by a teacher or established professional until after graduation. Those who
get such post-graduation experience do so with existential pressures related
to funding, rehearsal and performance locations, living expenses, press
critique, publicity, the schedule-juggling of busy professional participants,
etc. Such factors often impede focus and may lead to compromises on artistic
problems and vision, experimentation with possibilities, and exploratory
processes. Such distracting pressures occur, moreover, at the moment when
students are crossing a transformative threshold as they seek to synthesize

9 John A. Bargh, Mark Chen, and Lara Burrows, Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of
Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation in Action, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71, no.
2 (1996): 230.
10 Ibid, 231.

224
their university lessons and influences with their own ways of understanding
and experiencing the world. Resilience, self-knowledge, confidence, a sense
of direction, and feeling of artistic identity are still often so embryonic at this
stage that external pressures threaten to distort them, shift them onto well-
trodden paths, to make what might have been more fully creative instead re-
creative, an application of what others have done. Practical experiences such
as determining a budget, working within a schedule, and publicizing a show
are also invaluable, but Experimental Theatre projects provide these without
some of the monetary and existential pressures that threaten to undermine
a concentration on artistic process and the delicate development of students
own intuition of possibilities.

Many of theatres most significant developments in the modern period

occurred in spaces deliberately created to be distanced from the centers
of money, popularity, power, authority, and various material pressures.
Symbolism, Expressionism, Surrealism, dada, Futurism, all emerged outside the
large, highly organized, conventionally professionalized and administratively
directed contexts in which realism and melodrama were performed in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The independent theatre movement
was often their cradle. Jerzy Grotowskis Polish Laboratory Theatre,
Konstantin Stanislavskys Studios, George Pierce Bakers 47 Workshop at
Harvard, the Living Theatre, Caffe Cino, Eugenio Barbas Odin Teatret, Yuri
Lyubimovs Taganka, Englands fringe, New Yorks early Wooster Group,
Sheffields Forced Entertainment, Polands Gardzienice, Pragues Farm in the
Cave,...; the list continues to grow as innovations emerge from laboratory
contexts. This is the sphere of Barbas Third Theatre, outside the ideological
and material pressures of both the commercial theatre and the avant-garde.11
In all of these spaces, learning comes through doing, discovery emerges from
experimentation, artistic voices develop through challenging established
principles and asserting a vision of the world of possibility. Their proliferation
and historical significance attests to the importance of the impulse they
share, one grounded in the suspicion that innovation thrives best outside the
corridors and stages of power.

The discipline-transformative experiments in the 1960s of Jerzy Grotowski

at his Polish Laboratory Theatre were, to a significant degree, his attempts to
wrestle with the implications of his formal education. He located the technical
and ideological basis of his own practice in the work of Stanislavsky, by whose

11 Ian Watson, Towards a Third Theatre: Eugenio Barba and the Odin Teatret (New York: Basic Books,
1983): 18-22.

225
direct successors [in Russia] he was trained.12 His laboratory work was, thus,
a synthesis of Stanislavskys principles with his own inclinations. Stanislavsky,
the wests most influential acting theorist and founding artistic director
of the historically significant Moscow Art Theatre (MAT), also inspired
Grotowski through his creation of studios independent of the institution of
the MAT. It was in the studios, in fact, that Stanislavskys groundbreaking
work and significant members, such as Vakhtangov and Meyerhold, of a new
generation of innovative directors developed.13 Similarly, the Experimental
Theatre provides a forum for students to amalgamate classroom lessons and
reading with their own impulses and interests. It is also a sphere in which
lessons can be abandoned. In a memorial to his 47 Workshop teacher George
Pierce Baker, for example, the inveterate experimenter Eugene ONeill does
not credit Bakers teaching of technical points [and] play-making as the
most vital thing for us, as possible future artists and creators, to learn at that
time. The vital thing instead was the lesson to believe in our work and to
keep on believing. And to hope.14 Likewise, an autonomous sphere is vital
for the freedom it enables and the belief it reflects that creativity and personal
vision are not simply an outgrowth of education but ineffable, indefinable
forces that need space for their emergence, discovery, and development.

Significantly, the types of approaches that the Experimental Theatre experience

exemplifies require kinds of trust that many educators may be reluctant to
give: Trust that students own desires to learn will prevail over those to be
simply entertained. Trust that students will, through the nature of the process,
grapple with and cover the content that the educator traditionally transmits
as information. Trust that students will teach and learn from each other. An
Experimental Theatre project of Rossums Universal Robots provides an example
of the outcomes of trusting students even when the aspirations of a project
seem unsupported by the depth of the students backgrounds. The directors
choice to explore Josef Svobodas use of projections and Vsevelod Meyerholds
biomechanics and constructivism applied to Karel apeks Expressionistic
text created the circumstances for more than twenty students to learn and
experience these approaches. It also presented numerous complex technical
and conceptual questions and problems requiring solutions. The project was
so challenging that its final production only partially realized its potential,

12 Lisa Wolford, Ariadnes Thread: Grotowskis Journey through the Theatre, in The Grotowski
Sourcebook, ed. Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford (New York: Routledge, 1997): 10.
13 Rebecca Gauss, Lears Daughters: The Studios of the Moscow Art Theatre (New York: Peter Lang, 1999).
14 Travis Bogard, Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene ONeill, revised edition (New York: Oxford UP,
1988), 49.

226
but the impression it created was unambiguous. It remained an experience
that both participants and student audience members referenced repeatedly
in following semesters for what it taught them about the theories and forms it
incorporated as much as the practicalities of negotiating the projects physical
and conceptual complexities. It inspired students who experienced it on
both sides of the footlights to be more artistically courageous. Such ventures
demand from educators an ethical stance towards learners involving
such features as openness, validation, respect, and trust which values and
supports the self-directive potential of the learner. Andersen, Boud, and
Cohen identify this quality, in fact, as one of the six essential criteria for
effective experience-based learning. (The others include 1. appropriation of
something personally significant to the learner, 2. immediate engagement
with the phenomena studied, 3. debriefing and reflection, 4. acknowledgment
that learning involves the whole person, and 5. recognition of formal and
informal prior learning).15

Students within the active experimentation phase of their work undertake

a vast array of physical and intellectual tasks in the attempt to manifest
the vision articulated in the proposal. They must analyze not only written
texts but those texts constituted by space, behavior, sound, and physical
expression. Directors, technicians, stage managers, publicists, crew members,
and lighting, set, costume, and sound designers must assess needs at every
turn and discover how to meet them. Some are conceptual, such as for a 2012
production, what means might express the magic in Christopher Marlowes
Dr. Faustus in a way that reflects the Elizabethan period, avoids reliance
on modern technologies, and yet still seems credibly magical to a modern
audience? Others are more practical, such as what two color light gels can
be combined to create three different color combinations, one of them being
white, to economize the limited number of lighting instruments? Research
into texts, philosophy, history, technology, literary theory, and other areas
informs students assessment of needs as well as discovery of solutions. Time
itself becomes the most unforgiving instructor, since strict deadlines, the
ultimate of which is opening night, teach the consequences of poor planning.
Without a professorial mediator, students must also discover and develop
ways to work together, communicate effectively, and either arrive at solutions
as a group or cultivate group investment in a decision made by the leader(s).
As much as collaboration, therefore, the experience develops leadership. The
relative autonomy of their work in the Experimental Theatre ultimately leads
students to assume responsibility for their own learning, and thus become

15 Andersen, Boud, and Cohen, Experience-Based Learning, 226-227, 228.

227
lifelong learners, which Lewis and Williams argue the rapid pace of change
today necessitates.16 Responses to a survey conducted with our graduates
confirms that the experience not only taught students hard skills like
electrics, set construction, and craft, but the soft skills of teamwork, ethics,
discipline, accountability, leadership, empathy, organization, risk-taking,
learning from failure, and entrepreneurship.17 Those who have left the theatre
credit their success in new areas to such abilities. It is through acquiring such
a repertoire of attitudes, skills, and understandings, Lewis and Williams
contend, that people become more effective, flexible, and self-organized
learners in a variety of contexts.18 As Arthur and King originally intended,
the learning that students experience in the Experimental Theatre extends
into areas beyond the specific purposes articulated in their proposals.

Reflective Observation

Reflection and debriefing enable experience, which learning theorists

recognize does not by itself necessarily lead to learning, to be arrested,
examined, analyzed, considered, and negated in order to shift it to
knowledge.19 Sensing the importance of that shift as early as the 1970s, faculty
members initiated a practice that following each production a postmortem
attended by students and faculty provides feedback on its effectiveness and
realization of its apparent intentions. Each faculty member wrote a one-
page evaluation of the production, shared orally with the group and filed
in the departments archives. Students were also invited to offer feedback,
having observed the faculty model of constructive critique. In later years, the
postmortem process grew increasingly dialogic, with student artists asking
questions and openly reflecting on their experience. This activity, and the
requirement that each faculty member see every student production, has
not only kept the extra-curricular Experimental Theatre integrated with the
theatre program but demonstrated to students the respect that faculty accord
their work. The postmortem process manifests the Experimental Theatres
ultimate purpose of aiding the educational development of the students as
artists and lifelong learners.

16 Lewis and Williams, Experiential Learning, 15.

17 Thomas Arthur, Key Excerpts from Surveys of JMU Theatre Program Graduates, Unpublished
manuscript, 3 Feb. 2014.
18 Lewis and Williams, Experiential Learning, 15.
19 J. Aitchison and P. Graham, Potato Crisp Pedagogy in Experiential Learning in Formal and Non-
Formal Education, ed. C. Criticos (Durban: Media Resource Center, University of Natal, 1989): 15.

228
Research indicates that one of the key conditions of learning is, in fact,
helping students to analyze their strengths and limitations.20 A survey of
contemporary issues in Active and Experience-based Learning research finds
that one consistent feature of this literature is the central place of reflection.21
The postmortem process and advisors prior questioning also help cultivate
what Donald Schn in 1983 called the reflective practitioner in which
experiential learning is paired with professional feedback so each student
can surface and criticize the tacit understandings that have grown up around
the repetitive experiences of a specialized practice, and can make sense of
the situations of uncertainty or uniqueness which he [sic] may allow himself
to experience.22 Such contexts of active reflection, therefore, encourage
reconsideration of not only the students own practices and approach but the
traditions, assumptions, and habits (tacit understandings) that adhere to a
disciplinary practice. The experience of doing enables a quality of reflection
that uniquely positions the student to subject the practice he or she is learning
to critical evaluation. Writing on the crucial role of reflection, David Kolb
notes that learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through
the transformation of experience.23 That transformation of experience
into knowledge begins with the advisors questioning during the rehearsal
period. The glimmerings of self-reflection prompted in such sessions prepare
the student for the more challenging and multi-faceted experience of the
postmortem, in which observations from multiple perspectives provide rich
material for deepening the artists personal reflections on their intentions,
choices, and practices.

The accomplishments of graduates who were most active in the Experimental

Theatre suggests the pedagogical effectiveness of the process of concrete
experience, conceptualization, experimentation, and reflection they
experienced as students. Some are actors on stage and screen, a number have
been graduate students at prestigious programs like those of Yale, Columbia,
Northwestern, and New York University, others are playwrights, directors,
company managers, professional designers, teachers. Many are successful
independent, freelance artists. Results of an informal questionnaire showed,

20 Anna Kwan, Problem-Based Learning, in The Routledge International Handbook of Higher Education,
ed. Malcolm Tight, Ka Ho Mok, Jereon Huisman, and Christopher Morphew (London: Routledge, 2012),
103.
21 Andersen, Boud, and Cohen, Experience-Based Learning, 232.
22 Donald A. Schn, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic
Books, 1983), 61. The term reflective artist, however, extends back at least to 1852 with the publication
of The Essential Character of Painting by M. Unger.
23Kolb, Experiential Learning, 38.

229
in fact, that they felt the Experimental Theatre to be an invaluable environment
for learning new skills and offering the practical experience to develop them.
Perhaps most notable, however, is that many have founded their own theatres,
some of which have become significant US institutions. A partial list includes
the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, African American Repertory Theatre,
Courier theatre (Baltimore), Annex Theatre (Baltimore), Forum Theatre
(Washington, DC), Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and in New York, the
Neofuturists, Drama Department, and Examined Man Theatre. This marked
tendency demonstrates how the Experimental Theatre inspires the desire and
ability to create new environments to make work as well as an inclination to
support original theatrical creations. The questionnaire revealed that nearly
every student learned from the Experimental Theatre experience a taste
for creative freedom, the confidence to do their own work, and the belief
that anything is possible.24 Considering the number of new theatres JMU
graduates have created, this sentiment might be summed up as the confidence
to follow their own vision and to lead rather than follow. The same students,
however, nearly always also noted that in the Experimental Theatre they
truly learned how to cooperate and collaborate. The necessity to assemble
creative teams and work productively with them has served them in their
careers, as demonstrated at one of the most respected theatres in the country,
La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, California. A new program, modeled on
the Experimental Theatre by JMU alumnus and La Jolla Managing Director,
Michael Rosenberg, funds projects by company members whose proposals
show merit. As did Moscow Art Theatre artistic director Konstantin
Stanislavsky more than a hundred years ago, Rosenberg recognizes that
creating autonomous spheres for the development of creative work relatively
independent of external pressures, even of his own organization, means to
honor the impulse to experiment into the disciplines future.

The alignment between the Experimental Theatre process and the four
key components of experiential learning previous concrete experiences,
abstract conceptualization, active experimentation, and reflective
observation occurred at JMU by coincidence and pedagogical intuition
rather than through research of an educational literature not yet written. That
subsequent literature, nonetheless, confirms the educational soundness of the
approach. The accomplishments, abilities, and understandings of graduates
who were most active as students in the Experimental Theatres carefully
designed but loosely monitored environment suggest the formative impact of
a space apart. In it, students can experiment, experience, discover, succeed,

24 Arthur, Key Excerpts, 1.

230
and fail free of instructive oversight that may in some ways short-circuit the
process of learning or, through a professorial presence, affect the ownership,
mindfulness, and independence with which a young artist approaches a
challenge. The indelible impact of such experiences suggests something more
than educational undertakings or assignments. Stakes are raised and the
students relationship to the work elevated by the fact of doing the labor of
their chosen profession, creating something not for a grade or purposes of
a classroom but for the very reason they chose to enter the discipline. As
young artists, as apprentices to their future selves, they discover and create
themselves as practitioners in the Experimental Theatre. The lessons of seizing
initiative, personal responsibility, technical skill, multi-functionality, risk-
taking, professional courage, innovation, and others become their internal
guides for the future. The usefulness of such abilities and understandings
extend beyond the professions within the theatrical arts since they constitute
qualities important to success in multiple disciplines. Perhaps the key lessons
learned within a carefully constructed environment that allows for wide-
ranging experiment are not articulated by a disciplines specific area of study.
They form the cast of mind, however, that enable creative work to be pursued
passionately, responsibly, and innovatively.

231
References

Aitchison, J., and P. Graham. Potato Crisp Pedagogy. In Experiential Learning in

Formal and Non-Formal Education, edited by C. Criticos, 1-13. Media
Resource Centre, University of Natal, Durban, 1989.

Andersen, Lee, David Boud, and Ruth Cohen. Experience-Based Learning. In

Understanding Adult Education and Training, edited by Griff Foley. 225-239.
Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997.

Arthur, Tom. Key Excerpts from Surveys of JMU Theatre program graduates.
(unpublished manuscript, Feb. 3, 2014), Word file.

Bargh, John A., Mark Chen, and Lara Burrows. Automaticity of Social Behavior:
Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71, no. 2 (1996): 230-244.

Bogard, Travis. Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene ONeill. 1972. Revised edition.
New York: Oxford UP, 1988.

Gauss, Rebecca. Lears Daughters: The Studios of the Moscow Art Theatre, 1905-
1927. New York: Peter Lang, 1999.

Kirschner, Paul, John Sweller, and Richard Clark. Why Minimal Guidance During
Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist,
Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching.
Educational Psychologist 41, no. 2 (2006): 75-86.

Kolb, David A. Experiential Learning: Experience as a Source of Learning and

Development. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1984.

Kwan, Anna. Problem-Based Learning. In The Routledge International Handbook

of Higher Education, edited by Malcolm Tight, Ka Ho Mok, Jereon Huisman,
and Christopher Morphew, 91-107. London: Routledge, 2012.

Lewis, Linda H., and Carol J. Williams. Experiential Learning: Past and Present.
New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 62 (1994): 5-16.

Online Etymology Dictionary. Experience, by Douglas Harper, accessed June 7,

2014. http://www.etymonline.com/.

Schn, Donald A. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action.

New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Watson, Ian. Towards and Third Theatre: Eugenio Barba and the Odin Teatret.
London: Routledge, 2003.

Wolford, Lisa. Ariadnes Thread: Grotowskis Journey through the Theatre. In The
Grotowski Sourcebook, edited by Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, 1-19.
New York: Routledge, 1997.

232
233
 Au Centre des Arts de lUniversit de la Ruhr Bochum
les tudiants en sciences naturelles, en sciences de
lingnierie, en mdecine et en sciences humaines
peuvent travailler ensemble et de faon autonome
des productions thtrales. Cet essai entend
dcrire toutes les productions des tudiants durant
les quinze derniers semestres. Il y a eu soixante et
onze productions diffrencies en pices adaptes de
la littrature ou de films et en crations originales.
Une distinction doit tre faite ici entre crations,
narrations, pices inspires ou ayant seulement le
divertissement pour but. Il faut surtout prendre en
compte laspect: Quest-ce que les tudiants veulent
raconter ou montrer? Ainsi se rvle la grande

diversit des reprsentations thtrales tudiantes.

234
Student Performances at the Arts Centre
Karin Freymeyer

Under the theme of the Xth AITU/IUTA congress University Theatre and
Repertoire, the question of what kind of performances students put on
stage can be discussed. What do students want to tell or to show? What
distinguishes a student theatre repertoire from a conventional repertoire?
One option for exploring those questions is to analyse all autonomous student
theatre performances at the Arts Centre1 of Ruhr University Bochum over
fifteen terms. There, students from Natural Sciences, Engineering, Medicine
and the Humanities can work together independently in theatre. To address
the questions above, this paper offers a brief overview and analysis of the
student theatre productions, and finally a consideration of significance. The
repertoire is very diverse and includes edited plays and original works like
collective creations, interdisciplinary art performances or original plays,
adaptions from literature or movies and entertainment theatre. Finally
the question stands: What can be concluded from the students repertoire
regarding the role of theatre in the future?

Before discussing the nature of the performances, it is helpful to explain the

university institution that is offering this theatre opportunity and what the
conditions are for the students.

Arts Centre and Student Ensembles

The Ruhr University, Bochum, has an Arts Centre that is quite unique in
Germany: it offers a space for creativity, not only for theatre, but also for music,
the fine arts and photography. Students can attend seminars and workshops
and have the opportunity to fuse theory and practice, aided by artists and
practitioners. Thus, people at Ruhr University have the opportunity to reach
beyond academic work, flex their creative muscles, and enhance their artistic
talents.

1 Arts Centre (German = Musisches Zentrum).

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Since the year 2000, the Department of Theatre2 has offered its stage and its
rehearsing room for potential student theatre groups. This is an opportunity
without any teacher and without artistic and pedagogical guidelines. The
head3 of the Department of Theatre supports the educational process of
learning-by-doing with all its consequences for the theatre program. Indeed,
performances can differ extremely in terms of quality from time to time. Most
important is that students get the possibility to make their own experiences
with their own theatre productions without fear. The offer to students is
communicated as a laboratory in which every stage directorial concept is
possible. Students can test their artistic skills and creative potential. There are
no regulations as to the aesthetic form and content of students performances.
Each student theatre group is alone responsible for the quality of the artistic
work, which depends above all on a more or less intensive mode of operation
in the work. Only the technical installation must done by a separate technical
student team, which is under the control and leadership of professionals.
Administrative management is also overseen by professionals and supervised
students.

Over the years, the number of student theatre ensembles has increased. Fifteen
diverse student theatre groups worked simultaneously, for example, during
the summer term 2014. Never before had so many students performed. This
should be emphasized because volunteering is not self-evident for students
anymore. Since the 2001 implementation of the international Bachelors and
Masters at Ruhr University, all studies in every college have become more
intensive concerning workload. The consequence is that non-curricular
student projects must look intensively for members and have to be attractive
to the present students. But this particular arts institution for students, which
makes technical, economic, and organizational demands and also enables
artistic freedom, currently does not have any problems with its continuation.
In it, students spend time outside their coursework voluntarily in rehearsals
and performances without getting any credit points.

The amount of time every single student devotes depends on the requirements
of the respective director and the number of possible rehearsals concerning
all members of the ensemble. Some ensembles work daily en bloc during
their semester break. Others rehearse regularly every week over one or two

2 The name of the Department of Theatre at Ruhr University in German is Musisches Zentrum, Bereich:
Studiobhne.
3 The head of the Department in Theatre is Karin Freymeyer, who began her theatre career in 1980 at an
independent theatre group which developed artistic work by means of learning by doing.

236
terms. Every student theatre group, however, is given only one weekend
per semester during which to perform their production. One third of these
ensembles repeated their production in the following semester. In general,
the lifetime of a student ensemble is between one semester and five years.
In contrast to an established theatre or an independent theatre group, the
planning for a repertoire in a university theatre institution must be flexible
and it must be short-term.

REPERTOIRE

Published Plays

From April 2007 until July 2014, seventy-one premieres were celebrated
by about forty-one diverse student theatre ensembles. In categorizing the
repertoire, one can differentiate between previously published plays and
devised productions. Eighteen plays were made using published plays. Fifty-
three productions, nearly three quarters of all the productions, were written
or ensemble-created by students. In this regard, it is interesting to note which
topics and ideas inspire students to find additional time to devote to the
theatre. Of course, every director or ensemble has made his or her choice
individually. The following brief analysis deals mainly with selected devised
productions from students. Space does not permit each performance to be
examined. In the category of published plays, only the German plays are
described below. The discussion stresses contents and gives little attention to
interpretation, aesthetics, design, or style.

Out of eighteen edited plays, five were in English and were presented in the
English language. All these plays were initiated by the same drama group,
which calls itself the English Drama n Acting Society or the EDNAs for
short. It is a group of actresses and actors in Germany who perform plays
by English-speaking authors in their original versions.4 Their choice of
authors ranges from William Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams and three
contemporary Britain playwrights, namely Jim Cartwright, Martin Crimp
and Catherine Grosvenor.

From the thirteen German-language plays, the students chose six

contemporary playwrights and seven plays which were first performed

4 The EDNAs, Facebook, last modified December 11, 2014, http://de-de.facebook.com/pages/the-

EDNAs/210714129186?v=info.

237
between the final decades of the 20th century and the present. Three plays
were written by young German playwrights. They are about typical topics for
students. Schwimmen wie Hunde (Swimming like Dogs)5 is about friendship
and unfulfilled love. Hotel Paraiso6 describes the nuclear family and its ways
of decision-making and individual happiness. Electronic City 7 tries to point
out the flexibility of human beings in the digital world.

However, it was more interesting for students to write their own plays or to
create their own productions. Their topics are, of course, often personally
linked to a specific directors or ensembles current fundamental questions.

Productions of Original Work

Fifty-three newly made works were created and produced. The elaboration of
these self-made pieces is tricky because of the extreme variety of their contents.
It should be pointed out that the analysis of these self-made productions
reflects my personal judgement (as an observer), a subjectivity that cannot
be ruled out. Related to the artistic intentions of the students, four categories
are introduced to facilitate the explanation of the repertoire: creations,8
original plays, adaptations or inspirations, and entertainment theatre. There
were twelve creations based on associations to certain topics; eleven original
plays with a story; nineteen adaptations from films, books, or inspirations
influenced by motifs from media and literature; and eleven entertainment
theatre productions. Each production is attached to one category. Each of
them, however, could strictly speaking also belong to another category.

Creations

Thomas Oberender, a German author and theatre festival director, writes

in an article about new ways in theatre that creations are performances that

5 Reto Finger, Schwimmen wie Hunde, directed by Thorsten Sperzel, T-ATER, Musisches Zentrum,
Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 12, 2011.
6 Lutz Hbner, Hotel Paraiso, directed by Patrizia Schuster, Ludentes, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-
Universitt Bochum, June 27, 2009.
7 Falk Richter, Electronic City, directed by Patrizia Schuster, Ludentes, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-
Universitt Bochum, Mai 19, 2010.
8 Creation (German = Kreation) is a term which was introduced by Gerard Mortier 2002. He was the
first director at the RUHRtriennale which is an important German Festival of the Arts with Music theatre,
Theatre, Dance, Installation, Music. A creation is made and is only performed by one ensemble.

238
are personally linked to the performers because the oeuvre is dedicated to
its creator and nobody else could re-enact it.9 In creations, all scenes are fit
together by associations without any linear narrative structure. Different
kinds of creations were produced. Four of these were collective creations
made from improvisations by actors. Another four creations would be better
defined as interdisciplinary art works. Finally, students created four dance
theatre productions.

In four performances, students improvised in a very personal fashion, using

philosophical, social or existentialistic topics. For example, one ensemble
scrutinized the system of catharsis and others reflected on health, illness, or
individuality and society. In the most recent creation considered, Ausgang
Freiheit (Exit to Freedom),10 which premiered in June 2014, the students began
their improvisations with the following questions: What does it mean to be
young today? How do young people behave in a contemporary society in
which the once rebellious creativity of youth cultures has become the social
norm and the social expectation? How to deal with a subjective will that was
transformed into an imperative a long time ago? The result was an intensive
associative insight into the personal situation of these students. At the end
of the play they claimed that nobody ought to tell them what to do. It was a
rebuke to parents and teachers. The students expressed clearly that educators
are controlling them too intensively.

In addition to discussing questions of life and lifestyle, the students

experimented with a mixture of the arts. One production concerned identity
and how to gain it. For that, the students combined music, poems and drama.
For another production, the resources of imagination were history, literature
and movies. The result was a mixture between concert and reading in which
aspects of love and life were presented. In the production Hotel Arkam - A
Live-Action Comic Strip,11 students combined popular villains and heroes
from literature and media with a turbulent potpourri of scenes in cartoon
style. Three pairs of lovers meet each other in a crazy and speedy way: Marie
Antoinette and Alex DeLarge, Joker and Mystique, and finally Elmer Fudd
and Cruella de Vil. They encounter each other at Lady Macbeths hotel, where

9 Thomas Oberender, Ein Theater neuen Typs, in Theater entwickeln und planen. Kulturpolitische
Konzeptionen zur Reform der Darstellenden Knste, ed. Wolfgang Schneider, (Bielefeld: [transcript] Verlag,
2013), 82.
10 Susanne Goldmann, Ausgang Freiheit, directed by bzw. beziehungsweise, bzw. beziehungsweise,
Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, June 21, 2014.
11 Christian Quitschke, Hotel Arkham A Live-Action Comic Strip, directed by Christian Quitschke,
Studiobhne, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, July 5, 2008.

239
also Darth Vader works as a janitor and provides general observations on all
the proceedings. The basis of another creation, Regenschauer Wie ich starb
(Rain Shower How I Died),12 was an installation of several film screenings on
stage, which replaced conventional scenery. In this science fiction biography,
the protagonist was searching for the meaning of life. The spectators saw
more of his virtual self, which had been recorded on campus and in town,
than actual live performance on stage.

As a contrast to the creations which were inspired mostly by movies, four

dance theatre productions were elaborated on abstract studies in movement,
impulse, body and collective. In Und so weiter (And so on),13 students worked
on the following questions: How do changes in movements arise? What
are the conditions to continue them? In another production, the dancers
investigated different forms of concentration, tension, discharge and
centring. The relationship between the collective and the individual body
served as a basis for all productions. These practical dance-theatre experiences
were a challenge for all students whose studies do not involve physical effort.
Nearly as much as associative creations, original plays are popular.

Original plays

Eleven plays with a definable story have been put on; i.e., all actors worked
with an original text. These will be divided into two categories: plays that were
started with ensemble improvisations and plays that were written in advance
by the respective director or a member of the ensemble. A distinction is made
here according to whether the play took place either in a realistic world or in a
non-realistic world. Similarities as to the content and aesthetics of these works
do not exist because the plays are as different as the students who made them.

In two plays the actors started with improvisations, but their respective
directors composed the text for all the players afterwards. One of these was
a collage about absurd relationships between human beings. The other play
pictured the power of dreams, especially nightmares.

Nine further original plays were written in advance by a student. Five plays

12 Nathanael Ullmann, Regenschauer Wie ich starb, directed by Nathanael Ullmann, Theater ohne
Mittel, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, January 12, 2012.
13 Svenja Mordhorst and Sabrina-Dunja Sandstede, Und so weiter, directed by Svenja Mordhorst and
Sabrina-Dunja Sandstede, ConcEpt2.1., Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 23, 2013.

240
were located in realistic locations with more or less existential topics. There
was one story about the inner thoughts and feelings of a murderer. Another
told about crises in private friendships. One student illustrated the moral
abyss of a village society. Two plays were about questions of daily life. One of
them was written like an everyday conversation. In Freitagsabendsillusionen
(Illusions on Friday Evening)14 five students talk in their kitchen about their
crises after examinations. They also discuss the question of what else they
want to do in their lives.

Four plays took place in non-realistic worlds. For example, one student
theatre group works under the principles of absurd theatre. The author and
director invented Sinn und Unsinn Die homoerotischen Polyluces (Sense and
Nonsense The Homoerotic Polyluces),15 an absurd story about different human
beings with different lifestyles. The focus was on the relation between human
beings and three overhead projectors, and the central question was to which
sex the overhead projectors belong. The projectors were used like dressed
puppets in a puppet theatre, and they served as a symbol of discrimination of
marginalised groups. Also, there was an irritating lecture by the protagonist,
who is a mouse, in the play Theater der Verachteten (Theatre of the Despised).16
In a satire featuring animals and fictive figures, the play argues that in theatre
nothing new can happen; thus the theatre as medium is called into question.
With this play, the students wanted to express their crises with theatre and
their studies in theatre science.

Original plays are not the only possibility for exploring ones own thoughts.
Associative motives from the world of media or from literature can serve as
the basis for an absolutely new vivid experience for students.

Adaptations and Inspirations

Nineteen student ensembles used their own adaptation of a movie, a book

or a classical play as template for their performances. Others used them only
as an inspiration for their work. Intensive work on scenic studies and acting
style characterized a few of these performances. There were seven adaptations.

14 Maria Sojka, Freitagsabendsillusionen, directed by Simon Dapprich, DreiPnktchen, Musisches

Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 26, 2013.
15 Caroline Knigs, Sinn und Unsinn Die homoerotischen Polyluces, directed by Caroline Knigs,
Spielwut, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, January 18, 2014.
16 Nathanael Ullmann, Theater der Verachteten, directed by Nathanael Ullmann, Theater ohne Mittel,
Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, November9, 2013.

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Two productions referred to the work of Gerhart Hauptmann,17 a German
dramatist whose work belongs to literary naturalism. One play was called Ich
bin so mde, mein Sohn (I am so Tired, my Son).18 It concerned the question
of whether a person can find their great love and how they can deal with
losing it. The other Hauptmann-related play raised questions of who shows
solidarity today and where the solidarity of students lies. Its foundation was
the play The Weavers,19 in which a group of Silesian weavers stages an uprising
during the 1840 s due to their concerns about the Industrial Revolution. That
play was linked to an actual situation at the university because in the same
semester some students protested against the increase of registration fees.
Works by Bertolt Brecht, Edward Bond, Aldous Huxley, Franz Kafka, Juan
Rulfo and William Shakespeare served as templates for other adaptations.
In these texts, topics like interpersonal conflicts and questions of moral and
ethical principles attracted the students.

Additionally, four adaptations were made by a female student of Slavonic

studies. She based them on plays from Russian literature of the 1920 s and
1930 s. Her aim was to introduce authors from Eastern Europe to the regional
Russian community and students. Her focus was on a present, specific,
and personal perspective on the works of authors of her choice in a satiric
interpretation. For example, she made two adaptations of plays by Mikhail
Bulgakov: one of his work Hundeherz (Heart of a Dog)20 and one of Master
and Margarita.21

Finally, movies, action-adventure television series, comics, and horror have

been a source of inspiration for students. Eight plays were devoted to virtual
protagonists. In one example, motifs and characters from movies by Quentin
Tarantino were given a new plot with new characters. Also, a creepy and
amusing zombie-horror show with a lot of special effects and many allusions
to contemporary issues on the campus of the Ruhr-University was presented

17 Gerhart Hauptmann (15 November 1862 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist.
18 Nina Ferreira da Costa, Ich bin so mde, mein Sohn, directed by Anne Liebtrau, DreiViertelAcht,
Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, June 8, 2013.
19 Dirk Schwantes, Die Weber, directed by Dirk Schwantes, megafon, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-
Universitt Bochum, December 13, 2008.
20 Elena Resch after Michail Bulgakow, Hundeherz (= Heart of a Dog), directed by Elena Resch, Theater
des Lotman-Instituts, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, June 29, 2013.
21------, Meister und Margarita (= The Master and Margarita), directed by Elena Resch, Theater des
Lotman Instituts, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, October 24, 2009.

242
in Zombies Es leben die Toten (Zombies There Live the Dead).22 One theatre
group, Theatre Phalanx, produced four plays: Masters of the University, 23 The
A-Team Begins, 24 James Bond Der blutige Fart Gottes (James Bond The Bloody
Way of God),25 and Super Imprator World. 26 This group is trying to establish
a new theatre type by means of using media icons in theatre. It implemented
the term casual theatre, which means the performances should be easy to
watch. Above all, they believe young spectators should have fun watching the
mixture of irony and bizarreness,27 which is essentially a persiflage of movies
and various television series. According to the director of the student group,
Were children of the generation of private TV. Our ability for differentiation
between good and evil was not made by politics; it was made by the World
Wrestling Federation.28 In conclusion, the audience loved the plays that were
inspired by the media more than those adapted from literature. This can be
confirmed through spectator numbers and press reports.

Entertainment Theatre

Simply providing entertainment was a wish of some students. Eleven shows

can be subsumed under the category of entertainment theatre. One student
of engineering wrote a musical called Fausto.29 He combined the story from
Goethes Faust with songs from Falco.30 Another three shows were announced
as colourful journeys through the world of TV shows and comedies with
glamour and surprises. A phenomenon with which every TV spectator

22 Kai Bernhardt, Zombies: Es leben die Toten, directed by Kai Bernhardt, Studiobhne, Musisches
Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, July 13, 2013.
23 Dominik H. Freeman, Masters of the University, directed by Dominik H.Freeman, Theater Phalanx,
Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, May 1, 2009.
24------, The A-Team Begins, directed by Dominik H.Freeman, Theater Phalanx, Musisches Zentrum,
Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 6, 2010.
25------, James Bond Der blutige Fart Gottes, directed by Dominik H.Freeman, Theater Phalanx,
Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 5, 2011.
26------, Super Imprator World, directed by Dominik H.Freeman, Theater Phalanx, Musisches
Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 4, 2012.
27 He-Man und A-Team. Theatergruppe Phalanx pflegt die Pop-Kultur, Ruhr Nachrichten, September
14, 2014, http://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/staedte/bochum/He-Man-und-A-Team-Theatergruppe-Phalanx-
pflegt-die-Pop-Kultur;art932,1959952.
28 Theater Phalanx: Generation Privatfernsehen, LABKULTUR, September 14, 2014, http://www.
labkultur.tv/blog/theater-phalanx-generation-privatfernsehen.
29 Alexander Czechowicz, Fausto, directed by Alexander Czechowicz, Rubicals, Musisches Zentrum,
Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, Juli 3, 2009.
30 Falco was an Austrian pop and rock musician and rapper in 1980s and 1990s.

243
is familiar was tested in Zapping! 31 There, by means of one buzzer in the
auditorium the spectators could switch back and forth between three original
theatre plays on stage. While one play was performed, the actors of the other
two plays stayed simultaneously in a freeze, in mute and motionless suspension
of their play. The spectators had to decide which play they wanted to see, and
after each election the chosen ensemble continued their actions on stage. The
audience, therefore, played an important and incalculable part, which also
posed a risk for the success of this show. Ensembles in Theatre Sports also
work with the risk of spectators activity. Different players use improvisation
and they enter the competition for dramatic effect. From a collection of games,
the audience participates as a source of ideas and as referee. Presently, this
format is booming so much that diverse Theatre Sports groups from Ruhr-
University have competed in an annual theatre cup since 2013.

Summary of the Characteristics of Student Performances

In general, students prefer to make their own plays, reflected by the fact that
about three quarters of all productions were original plays or self-created.
Students like to express their own thoughts and feelings or to use the stage
as place for theatrical research and experiments. Within the previously
published plays, students favoured contemporary plays from the 20th century.
The self-made productions show an exceptional amount of creativity within
the divisions of creations, original plays, adaptations or inspirations, and
entertainment. Creations came from three different initial points. On the one
hand they were elaborated to specific terms or questions; i.e., some students
needed to express their point of view on personal, social or philosophical
topics. On the other hand, students wanted to experiment with the means
of theatre. They wanted to replace the conventional presentation in theatre
by mixing it with other arts or elements of media. The third type was Dance
Theatre, in which choreographers and dancers wanted to research in the
fields of theoretical insights and practical dance work. Conversely, students
wrote original plays. They had two working methods. Either, an ensemble
made improvisations from which somebody wrote scenes or students chose
an unpublished play and then gathered an ensemble. The contents were
multifarious: stories about human beings in their relations to others, questions
on vital issues, existential uneasiness, daily crises and social discrimination,
and finally the basic challenges of theatre. Moreover, most adaptations and

31 Christian Quitschke, Zapping!, directed by Christian Quitschke, Studiobhne, Musisches Zentrum,

Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, July 7, 2012.

244
inspirations had a narrative structure. These plays were mainly inspired by
literature or media. Novels, parables and plays were adapted. The topics were
love problems, social deficiencies, life and death, inner and social conflicts
or interpersonal difficulties. Also, movies and TV series have served as
templates. Students have made use of the stage to bring to life protagonists like
zombies, James Bond, the Joker, and other movie-inspired characters. Finally,
in at least one quarter of the above-mentioned plays, the fun factor was very
important, which could be read in programs or announcements. One seventh
of all premieres are definitely attributable to Entertainment Theatre. Above
all, the form theatre sports, a composition between improvisation and
theatre, is popular. In observing the performances from the students between
April 2007 and July 2014, I noticed that the most students in the Arts Centre
shy away from political and social topics. Their interests were mainly on very
specific personal concerns, often ones that originated more from his or her
virtual experiences than from socially relevant themes.

Motivations for Making Theatre

As was mentioned in the beginning, the students that produce plays at the Arts
Centre come from every faculty/college. Above all, there are students from
theatre science, media sciences, language studies, sport sciences, philosophy,
pedagogy, sociology, or law but there are also some students from natural
sciences, engineering and medicine. The motivations for making theatre are
diverse. Some students are searching for innovative or alternative theatre
forms. Others put their focus on the interpretation of a play and its parts
and/or they want to experiment with being authors and/or directors. Some
students simply want to make theatre for entertaining themselves and the
audience. There are those, also, who want to explore their technical skills.
They use a lot of media support and special effects on stage. In conclusion,
it can be said that students prefer to discover the stage as a forum to express
the way they perceive the world. Theirs lives are heavily influenced by the
Internet, virtual experiences, and the fast pace of life. They cannot see their
interests reflected properly in the conservative repertoire. A lot of students
know the most popular stage plays in the repertoire of German theatre from
school: for example, Goethes Faust or Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights
Dream.32 However, the standard repertoire seems to be outdated to them.
Students prefer to write their own plays.

32 Deutscher Bhnenverein, Bundesverband der Theater und Orchester, Werkstatistik 2011/2012 des
Bhnenvereins erschienen, Buehnenverein, last modified Decembre 15, 2014, http: //www.buehnenverein.
de/de/presse/pressemeldungen.html?det=359.

245
A Chance for Every Student and for Theatre

In July 2014, Burkhard C. Kosminski, director of the state theatre in Mannheim,

wrote in the most important German theatre magazine, theater heute, that
in daily life in our era, culture and art are becoming less important.33 Also
for this reason, the Department of Theatre in the Arts Centre tries to arouse
interest in theatre among students by giving them a free space for practicing
and performing. Every young student shall get there a chance to find his or
her own access into the artistic work. Additionally, if a student participates in
a performance, he or she also generates new spectators.

Within the active students one must be distinguish different types. There
are students who use the offer from the Department of Theatre as a pre-
professional working opportunity and other students who take part just for
pleasure. For students who will work later in the environment of theatre, it is a
space where they can test their practical artistic skills. Sometimes people have
the prejudice that theatre created by students who are engaged in it during
their free time does not equal the quality of theatre produced by students who
are studying it. However, it is also a fact that some directors and actors from
the student ensembles are now employed in established theatre, although
they never studied formally in any theatre department.

From the seventy-one mentioned student productions, three-quarters

were original works in the forms of collective creations, interdisciplinary
works, dance theatre productions, original plays, adaptions, inspirations
and entertainment theatre. This fact seems to express that the motivation of
a student for making theatre originates from the possibility to use theatre
as a medium for expressing their own ideas. They want to present their
perception of the world, and thereby they are steadily in a process of re-
thinking, re-inventing and re-creating. Faced with life in a globalized world,
some students need to assimilate the many impressions into the microcosm
of a theatre world. That helps them to find a position as a human being, but
also as an artist or a scientist. If they get offered a protected theatre rehearsal
room and performance hall, they are able to work out independently
their artistic inspirations into performances. That opens up incalculable
possibilities of producing plays, of story-tellings and of aesthetics methods.
A university theatre stage can be a vivid place for new approaches in terms of
fresh methods and styles in theatre. That possibility was initially confirmed
through the student theatre movement, which functioned as a cultural

33 Burkhard C. Kosminski, Offener Brief , theater heute 07, Juli 2014, 1.

246
player in programmatic and structural changes to theatre in the 60s and
70s in Germany.34 Last but not least, the student performances establish an
access point into the aesthetic background of the present young generation.
Repeatedly in recent German discussions about the need for reform, theatre
critics, theatre practitioners, and theatre scientists claim that a cultural
institution should not insist on perpetuation of a system like a traditional
repertoire.35 Therefore, student performances can be and still are a source of
inspiration for professional theatre makers. The promotion and analysis of
student performances also can be a condition for keeping theatre alive.

A rather pleasant side-effect is that student productions help in audience

development. The director of the Berliner Festspiele, Thomas Oberender, says
of the changing audience of today that there is a difference between the old
audience and the young audience: The traditional audience remains true to an
institution and it is open to the variety of what it offers. The young audience is
devoted to its own taste and demands only innovations in the range of what
they already know.36 The same applies for the students in the Arts Centre
of the Ruhr University, Bochum. Each ensemble has found its specific way
in theatre. Independently, after each show it became clear that the students
presented a great performance for them and their spectators. In the Arts
Centre one can notice again and again that actors and spectators from one
ensemble hardly visit the performances of the other groups. Some of them
are attending theatre for the first time. This will mean for the future of theatre
that theatre must collect its audiences. A traditional theatre repertoire does
not work any longer. Theatre is losing more and more its cultural relevance in
society, and meanwhile each theatre institution should enlarge on needs and
wishes of the potential performers and spectators within the perspectives of
specific local circumstances. Theatre has to take the chance that the reality of
actors and spectators in every performance will hold such audiences.

In conclusion, it is critical to note that offering open stages available for

every student is also a way for theatre to remain alive. Meanwhile, there
are models of participation of everyday citizens in German state theatres.

34 Marlies Hbner, Studententheater im Beziehungsgeflecht politischer, gesellschaftlicher und kultureller

Auseinandersetzung, mit einem Ausblick auf die Theaterszene der sechziger und siebziger Jahre, (Erlangen-
Nrnberg, Universitt, 1987), 79.
35 Wolfgang Schneider, Under Construction. Reformbedarf auf der Baustelle Theater, in Theater
entwickeln und planen. Kulturpolitische Konzeptionen zur Reform der Darstellenden Knste, ed. Wolfgang
Schneider. (Bielefeld: [transcript] Verlag, 2013), 22.
36 Thomas Oberender, Ein Theater neuen Typs, in Theater entwickeln und planen. Kulturpolitische
Konzeptionen zur Reform der Darstellenden Knste, ed. Wolfgang Schneider, (Bielefeld: [transcript] Verlag,
2013), 77.

247
In the year 2009, the state theatre of Dresden installed the first stage for
everyday citizens as a means of developing new audiences.37 But even more
important is to offer a free and inspiring space for creativity so that students
can try out their artistic potential, because on one hand it supports personal
development belonging to human and social skills. On the other hand,
university theatres can generate within the students new, culturally interested
individuals. Moreover, theatre institutes in universities were and will be the
place for new impulses in questions of the repertoire of theatre.38 German
theatre students especially follow the growing discourse about the future role
of theatre in view of budget cutbacks. According to the standing of theatre in
society, theatre departments in universities should take the chance to support
practical theatre work by students and to pose theoretical questions at the
same time. Theatre and its repertoire must remain up to date, and thereby
it can be useful to take under reconsideration supposed definitions and
conceptions of theatre. Examples here are the questions from the Institute for
Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen: What is theatre? What could theatre be,
if it cannot just be what it currently is? And how is an ever-changing theatre
to be conceived of and experimented with?.

37 Hajo Kurzenberger and Miriam Scholl, Die Brgerbhne, das Dresdner Modell, (Berlin: Alexander
Verlag, 2014), 7.
38 In Germany, the student theatre movement from the 60s and 70s has clearly influenced the repertoire
of established theatres. Since the 80s, new important stimuli for theatre came from the Institutes of Applied
Theatre Studies in Hildesheim and from the Institutes of Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen.

248
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Bernhardt, Kai. Zombies. Es leben die Toten. Directed by Kai Bernhardt. Studiobhne,
Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, July 13, 2013.

Czechowicz, Alexander. Fausto. Directed by Alexander Czechowicz. Rubicals,

Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, July 3, 2009.

Da Costa, Nina Ferreira. Ich bin so mde, mein Sohn. Directed by Anne Liebtrau.
DreiViertelAcht, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, June 8, 2013.

Deutscher Bhnenverein, Bundesverband der Theater und Orchester, Werkstatistik

2011/2012 des Bhnenvereins erschienen. Buehnenverein. Last modified
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Finger, Reto. Schwimmen wie Hunde. Directed by Thorsten Sperzel. T-ATER,

Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 12, 2011.

Freeman, Dominik H. James Bond Der blutige Fart Gottes. Directed by Dominik
H.Freeman. Theater Phalanx, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum,
February 5, 2011.

------. Masters of the University. Directed by Dominik H.Freeman. Theater Phalanx,

Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, May 1, 2009

------. Super Imprator World. Directed by Dominik H.Freeman. Theater Phalanx,

Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 4, 2012.

------. The A-Team Begins. Directed by Dominik H.Freeman. Theater Phalanx,

Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 6, 2010.

Goldmann, Susanne. Ausgang Freiheit: Directed by bzw. beziehungsweise. bzw.

beziehungsweise, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, June 21, 2014.

He-Man und A-Team. Theatergruppe Phalanx pflegt die Pop-Kultur, Ruhr

Nachrichten, September 14, 2014, http://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/
staedte/bochum/He-Man-und-A-Team-Theatergruppe-Phalanx-pflegt-
die-Pop-Kultur;art932,1959952.

Hbner, Lutz. Hotel Paraiso. Directed by Patrizia Schuster. Ludentes, Musisches

Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, June 27, 2009.

Hbner, Marlies. Studententheater im Beziehungsgeflecht politischer,

gesellschaftlicher und kultureller Auseinandersetzung, mit einem
Ausblick auf die Theaterszene der sechziger und siebziger Jahre,
Erlangen-Nrnberg: Universitt, 1987

Knigs, Carolina. Sinn und Unsinn - Die homoerotischen Polyluces. Directed by

Caroline Knigs. Spielwut, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum.
January 18, 2014.

Kosminski, Burkhard C. Offener Brief. theater heute 07. Juli 2014, 1.

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Kurzenberger, Hajo and Miriam Scholl. Die Brgerbhne, das Dresdner Modell.
Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2014.

Mordhorst, Svenja and Sabrina-Dunja Sandstede. Und so weiter. Directed by Svenja

Mordhorst and Sabrina-Dunja Sandstede. ConcEpt2.1., Musisches Zentrum,
Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 23, 2013.

Oberender, Thomas. Ein Theater neuen Typs. In Theater entwickeln und planen.
Kulturpolitische Konzeptionen zur Reform der Darstellenden Knste, edited by
Wolfgang Schneider, Bielefeld: [transcript] Verlag, 2013.

Quitschke, Christian. Hotel Arkham - A Live-Action Comic Strip. Directed by

Christian Quitschke. Studiobhne, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt
Bochum, July 5, 2008.

------. Zapping!, Directed by Christian Quitschke. Studiobhne, Musisches Zentrum,

Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, July 7, 2012.

Resch, Elena after Michail Bulgakow. Hundeherz. Directed by Elena Resch. Theater
des Lotman-Instituts, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, June
29, 2013.

-------. Meister und Margarita. Directed by Elena Resch. Theater des Lotman Instituts,
Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, October 24, 2009.

Richter, Falk. Electronic City. Directed by Patrizia Schuster. Ludentes, Musisches

Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, Mai 19, 2010.

Schneider, Wolfgang. Under Construction. Reformbedarf auf der Baustelle Theater.

In Theater entwickeln und planen. Kulturpolitische Konzeptionen zur Reform
der Darstellenden Knste, edited by Wolfgang Schneider, 21-26. Bielefeld:
[transcript] Verlag, 2013.

Schwantes, Dirk. Die Weber. Directed by Dirk Schwantes. Megafon, Musisches

Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, December 13, 2008.

Sojka, Maria. Freitagsabendsillusionen. Directed by Simon Dapprich. DreiPnktchen,

Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, February 26, 2013.

Theater Phalanx: Generation Privatfernsehen, LABKULTUR, September 14, 2014,

http://www.labkultur.tv/blog/theater-phalanx-generation-privatfernsehen.

The EDNAs, facebook. Last modified December 11, 2014. http://de-de.facebook.

com/pages/the-EDNAs/210714129186?v=info

Ullmann, Nathanael. Regenschauer Wie ich starb. Directed by Nathanael Ullmann.

Theater ohne Mittel, Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, January
12, 2012.

------. Theater der Verachteten. Directed by Nathanael Ullmann. Theater ohne Mittel,
Musisches Zentrum, Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, November 9, 2013.

250
251
 Le Forum International de Thtre de lUniversit
Vilnius est le plus grand vnement de thtre
universitaire dans les pays baltes. Par rapport des
vnements similaires, il se distingue par sa tradition
unique de montrer au public ce que lon appelle des
actions - courtes pices de thtre, et des actions,
souvent lies lenvironnement ou spcifiques au site,
mises au point par petits groupes au cours du Forum.
Le but de cet article est de prsenter les thmes
du Forum, de distinguer les groupes dominants
(historiques, du patrimoine, et sociaux) et laide de
cette analyse de discuter la formation du rpertoire
des thtres universitaires lituaniens. Le Forum est
lvnement le plus important dans la vie des thtres
universitaires lituaniens. Le comit du Forum est
form de metteurs en scne et dtudiants, et cela
dtermine le fait que non seulement les positions
artistiques et sociales des metteurs en scne sont

mises en vidence, mais aussi celles des tudiants.

252
The Themes of the International University Theatre Forum
in Vilnius as the Litmus of Lithuania Student Theatres
Repertoire
Dalia Kiaupaite

IN MEMORIAM
Oskaras Valiullinas

White as the very tops of cherry trees,

Azure-faced as the azured skies,
Like souls, like immortal, tenacious souls,
The journey across the wide worlds breadth.

Once they were friends of shining Apollo,

Dear brothers and sisters of Sappho,
And along the way of their endless road
I never saw them tired, exhausted.

They celebrated they danced, drank, and sang

With Catullus in Dianas fields;
Horace himself called out them: Bravo!
From cherry tree branches fell blossoms

The blossoms fell like the nights, like the days,

Just as life itself will at last fall,
And they alone, alone, will, all alone,
Not regain the past forever gone.

(Bernardas Brazdionis Across the World They Journey)

The year 2014 was very important to the theatre of Lithuania. The year was
announced as the Year of Theatre in all Lithuania. For the university theaters
of Lithuania, that year was exceptional with anniversaries and celebrations.
Four hundred and forty-four years earlier, Stefano Tuccios Herkulis
(Hercules) was performed in the College of Jesuits, so named at the time
and later reorganized into the University of Vilnius. Thus, in the year 2014
Vilnius University theatre turned 444 years old. There are two companies
present at Vilnius University the drama troupe Minimum and a Kinetic

253
troupe. There is as well, a younger company in Vilnius Gediminas Technical
University called Palp, or The Attic, which recently celebrated its 15th
year anniversary. Together, all three theatre companies invited participants
and spectators to the 15th Annual International University Theater Forum in
Vilnius, which was dedicated to the theme Theatrical reminiscence.

With the creation of the Forums, the organizers wanted to compensate for
the lack of student theatre festivals in Lithuania and to connect the university
theaters around Lithuania. The organizers chose the name Forum, however,
for a reason. They wanted to emphasize that this international gathering of
theaters does not fit under the notion of a festival. During the Forum, not
only are plays performed, but creative workshops, discussions, and traditional
get-togethers are organized. What is more, the tradition of basing the Forum
on theatrical action (described below) has been established since the fourth
Forum. The Forum is a thematic event. Every year a new theme is chosen.

The purpose of this essay is to recount the development of the Forum themes
and methods in order to show on what grounds the theaters in Lithuanian
universities are formulating their repertoire, what themes and current events
are important to them, and what measures they use to achieve them. The use
of theatrical actions, described below, in the context of a gathering, enables
students to discover and examine significant social and spiritual issues of
which they were not previously very aware and leads to their development
as theatre artists and conscientious citizens of their countries and the world.
I present below how the Forums lead them to these lessons, what themes
have unfolded during the theatrical actions, what were the most important
nuances, and where they were placed. Since I participated in the actions, I
cannot be objective in terms of evaluating their artistic level. The Forum, being
a collective work of three theater companies from Lithuanian universities,
best represents, in my opinion, the main themes of the university repertoire.

Emergence of a Workable Structure

How to best arrange the Forum underwent a process of development.

For the first two years, the program was organized by trying to find plays
corresponding to the theme of the Forum. Thus, the first Forum was
dedicated to interpretations of works of William Shakespeare. The second
Forum was dedicated to the works of young playwrights. An attempt was
made to analyze differences between cultures during the third Forum, which
was called Different but Similar. However, it was revealed that to gather
plays based on a particular theme or context is rather difficult, unless the
themes are of general origin as in the third Forum. Therefore, from the fourth

254
Forum, it was decided not to do Forums based on groupings of plays or works
brought by the groups, but instead to organize theatrical actions created at
the Forum to reveal the Forums theme. Thus, every year, during the theatrical
actions, companies from Lithuania or foreign countries (or mixed creative
companies) try to interpret and reveal their chosen Forum theme.

I would like to briefly describe my own relationship with the Forum. In the
Xth World Congress of the AITU/IUTA in Lige, Belgium, I represented
the Lithuanian Universities Theatre Association as the stage designer of
the Vilnius University drama theatre troupe Minimum. I have been in this
position for ten years. However, my relationship with the Forum started long
before. In 2001, I attended this event for the first time, but as a viewer. I was
invited by Olegas Kesminas, the director of the theater-studio Palp, to take
part in the Forum as a spectator.

By the fall of the same year I became a member of the theater-studio Palp
and have remained a participant of the Forum for thirteen years now and its
organizer for five. I have participated numerous times in theatrical actions as
a member of theater-studio Palp. However, in 2013, encouraged by Olegas
Kesminas and the creative director of drama troupe Minimum, Rimantas
Venckus, and after I found a remarkable creative companion, Oskaras
Valiullinas (who was a member of the drama troupe Minimum), I myself
began to co-lead the creation of theatrical actions. We presented our second
action in the year 2014. Hence, my relationship with this articles object is
subjective. However, I hope that my observations will be interesting and useful.

The Methods of Theatrical Actions

As previously mentioned, every year a new theme is chosen for the Forum,
and since the fourth Forum, the theme has been represented and interpreted
by doing theatrical actions. Theatrical actions are devised mini-plays,
mostly fifteen to thirty minutes long. They do not require long preparation,
numerous rehearsals, or big production budgets. They are a tool to reveal
the theme of the Forum in a certain environment, usually going outside the
traditional theatre frame and involving different means of expression, often
by adapting to the environment or including the audience to the performance.
The majority of theatrical actions take place outside. Some of the theatrical
actions are created during the Forum week; other times the troupes prepare
theirs before the event. It depends on many different factors. Every year the
Forum organizers undertake the primary research of the theme, locations
where the theatrical actions can be held, and who can create them. Each
theme requires different preparations. Working processes differ year to year.

255
During the Forum, the theatrical actions are usually created within two
different groupings. Lithuanian or foreign companies do their theatrical
actions in the places they have been assigned or separate groups are formed
just for the theatrical actions. By creating a mixed group to perform a theatrical
action, new relationships, communications, and creative opportunities arise;
but at the same time difficulties may arise due to different experiences, in
most cases a language barrier.

The type of group dictates different kinds of working processes. The

Lithuanian companies usually conduct their own research of the place and its
history, looking for referents such as documents, texts, photos and etc. Often
the words and lyrics of a historical writer related to the theme are chosen as
the main structure of a theatrical action. Preparation processes with foreign
companies also differ every time. For example, Polish groups are mostly
able to prepare on their own because there is a lot of communion in our
histories; the same historical persons are important for both countries. For
other companies, the Forum organizers send extensive information about the
area and its history, as well as photos.

Normally one companys theatrical action is prepared before the Forum

week. Mixed groups, however, rehearse during the Forum week and need
very strong preparation from the leader of the group due to the limited time
during the Forum.

Some theatrical actions are more successful than others and are talked about
for years. In September, 2013, during the Teatralny Koufar Festivali in Minsk,
Georgina Kukoudaki and I recalled theater-studio Pelps theatrical action
in the Vilnius train station shed in 2006, which fascinated Georgina and
inspired her deeper interest in the Lithuanian Theatre. That year the Forum
was dedicated to the industrial heritage of Vilnius and its surroundings.
A huge moving turntable in the station shed steers the locomotives to the
sheds. It became a stage for Jonas Sakalauskas music pieces created for voices
and percussion (big oil barrels). Industrial heritage as the stage mixed with
modern music accompanied by physical movement to create an unpredictable
and memorable atmosphere. Other theatrical actions, unfortunately, are less
compelling, yet they have still become the distinctive symbols of the Forum.

The Themes and Contexts of Theatrical Actions

The variety of the themes of the Forum is great. They vary from Vilnius
crossroad of the nations culture to Theatrical reminiscence. It is important
to note that not only theatre company directors but also students participate

256
in choosing the theme for the next Forum. The influence of the students
increased in 2009 when the organization of the Forum was revised. An
organizational committee of the Forum was established composed from the
companies directors, stage designers, and students who willingly participate
in the organization of the Forum. The voice and opinion of every member
of the organizational committee is honored and important. Thus, often the
themes are suggested by the directors of the theatre companies and by the
students. Earlier, the opinions of the students were also taken into account;
their use, however, wasnt structured in a clear manner.

A distinction needs to be made between two main kinds of themes in the

Forum social and historical/cultural heritage. In most cases the theme
combines both aspects. Currently that combination is even encouraged and
sought; thus the distinction became indefinite as the following list of Forum
themes demonstrates.

Heritage / Historical:

Vilnius crossroad of the nations culture the theme dedicated to the

multinational and multicultural heritage of Vilnius, 2003.

My space the theme dedicated to the abandoned churches in Vilnius and

to the creation of awareness of their state, 2005.

Perpetuum mobile the theme dedicated to the anniversary of Vilnius

Gediminas Technical University. The theme was interpreted through the
technical/industrial heritage of Vilnius, 2006.

De profundis the theme dedicated to the anniversaries of Vilnius

University and the first mention of the name Lithuania. The theme was
displayed through the Philomath Philaret movement, taking into account
their motto Honor. Knowledge. Homeland, 2009.1

Ladies and Gentleman, the Carriage Awaits...! this theme was intended
to raise awareness of the usage of manor houses around Vilnius and how they
can be incorporated in contemporary usage, 2011.

1 During the period when Poland and Lithuania were absorbed into the Russian Empire, the Philomath
Society was a secret student organization that existed at the Imperial University of Vilnius, 1817-1823. In
addition to self-education, it concentrated on social and political goals, such as national independence.
The Philaret Association, a subgroup within the Philomaths, emphasized independence and was dedicated
to Polish and Lithuanian patriotic literature. Ed. See J. F. Gomoszyski, A Course of Three Lectures on the
History of Poland (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1843): 61-64.

257
Suspended moments the theme dedicated to museums around Vilnius. It
was intended to attract the youth to museums by using theatrical actions, 2013.

Theatrical reminiscences the theme dedicated to the Theatre Year declared

in Lithuania. This was achieved by remembering previously functioning but
now defunct theatres in Vilnius and the influence they had on the history of
Lithuanian theatre, 2014.

The Social:

We are together the theme dedicated to Lithuania entering the European

Union, 2004.

Creating a world and ones self the theme dedicated to analysis of the
formation of a young personality and what influence theatre has on it, 2007.

Traces of generation the theme dedicated to analysis of the issues and

problems the first generation of independent Lithuania is facing and what
they have created so far, 2008.

My yard the theme dedicated to discussing civic questions, by using yard

(backyard, courtyard) as a space where society is forming, society that we are
exposed to the minute we close the door of our house, 2010.

Meeting the theme dedicated to encouraging live interactions while

searching for places suitable to communicate in Vilnius, 2012.

Another distinction I would make would be chronological. It is not

immediately apparent but nonetheless evident. Unquestionably the common
Lithuanian political, economic, social, and cultural situations had an impact
on the Forums. The Forum was first organized in the year 2000, ten years
after Lithuania regained its independence. Even though the economic and
social situation was stabilizing in the country, the issues of mobility and
identity were still essential. The process of entering the European Union was
underway, which made society and the Forum organizers at the same time
happy and scared. Big hopes of economic upturn went together with the
fear of losing our identity as a nation. This can be seen in the theme titles
We are together, Traces of generation, and Creating a world and ones
self . In 2007, during the Forum Creating a world and ones self , a direct
social action was performed. Workshops were chosen as the way to create the
theatrical actions. They were hosted by Lithuanian and foreign directors; the
person in charge was Jeanne Avery. The participants were not only students

258
from university theatre companies, but also children living in different foster
houses. For Forum organizers it was important to involve these children
in cultural processes, to bring them the possibility of being in society, not
excluded from society.

The first time we recognized the heritage/spiritual aspect of themes was in

2005. The Forum My space was dedicated to churches around Vilnius, the
majority of which in Soviet times were used for manufacturing or storage
purposes. In 2005 they still remained locked, unrenovated, and unusable for
the spiritual needs of the society. This situation emerged due to the economic
issues of the country and the lack of interest from different quarters. The
goal of the organizers of the Forum was to attract the attention of society,
media, and certain institutions; to make them aware of this issue; to show the
significant usage of this heritage for other cultural needs. Theatrical actions
were performed in the church buildings that had been already returned to
the church but not yet renovated and in other church buildings that still
belonged to other institutions. One example was the womens correctional
home in Vilnius. The theatrical actions got a lot of attention that year due to
the high artistic level some achieved. The sealed, dark, and dirty churches
came back to life with young voices, classical poetries and theatrical
movement.The surroundings and historical weight had a great impact.
Although we cannot claim the social efficacy of the theatrical action, soon
after the Forums theatrical actions, one of the churches was returned to its
appropriate religious congregation and another church was renovated and
used for cultural purposes.

On one hand this theme was a typical heritage theme since all theatrical
actions were held in historical places. On the other hand, it was a search for
spiritual identity. The question of faith and the churchs place in society was
still very sensitive. Lithuania was the last pagan country in Europe, but after
Christianization became very Catholic. In the time of the Soviet Union all
religious activities and institutions were prohibited. As a result, the young
generation especially was still confused which way with or without church/
religion to choose.

In the year 2006, the theme was again linked to heritage and was dedicated
to the industrial heritage of Vilnius in honor of the anniversary of Vilnius
Gediminas Technical University. Performed, as previously mentioned, in
the Vilnius railyard, it attracted the attention of society, media, and foreign
colleagues. In the brochure of the 2006 Forum, the organizers claimed that
they already had a long-term plan, to cherish not only the traditions of theatre
but also the spiritual, cultural, and material heritage of society; however this
goal received a clear form only during the Forum of 2010.

259
Theatrical action in Saint Catherines church, Vilnius, 2005.
This church is now restored and used for cultural purposes.

The theme of the Forum in year 2010 was My Yard, dedicated to a social
theme about civic behavior outside the home. By performing theatrical actions
and choosing their locations, an historical context was given to them. Three
different theatrical actions were performed in three different courtyards of
the Old Town section of Vilnius. I would set apart drama-troupe Minimums
theatrical action, directed by Atas virblys, which combined the current
events of Vilnius Old Town the buying of houses, re-selling of them, and
re-constructions which did not consider historical heritage (Vilnius Historic
Center is included in UNESCOs list of World Heritage Sites) with a
particular yard story. The theatrical action told us a story of how a pair of the
newly rich wanted to buy a building in the Vilnius Old Town but suddenly
ghosts from all periods of houses history come to protect the building. The
newly rich and the audience meet killers from the middle ages, a shop owner
from the 19th century, a painter, and a lot of other characters inspired by this
particular houses history. Of course, the newly rich decide they do not want
to buy the house anymore.

After the year 2010 we can recognize that it has been very important to the
Forum organizers and creators of theatrical actions to explore the state of
modern identity based in city and national history and to maintain their social

260
mission to show the scarcity of heritage protections. Lithuania has begun
gaining ground in the European Union and the world. The mobility of citizens
has become status quo, and the young generation feel themselves more and
more citizens of the world. For these reasons it was important to show the
young generation the possibility to create themselves via our historical memory
and so to be more and more atractive for the world.

Interestingly, directors from Lithuania and fellow directors of foreign

companies regard the Forum themes in a similar manner. During the
Forum Ladies and Gentleman, The Carriage Awaits...! (2011), which was
dedicated to the manors of Vilnius, the theatrical actions were performed
by three mixed groups, led by action directors Davyd Chaumard (France),
Timur Galijev (Russia), and Olegas Kesminas (Lithuania). The manors were
in various conditions, from almost abandoned to reconstructed and suitable
for the needs of the Lithuanian Royal Dukes Association, whose members are
descendants of Lithuanian nobility. However, during the theatrical actions,
models of the future usage of the manors were constructed through means of
different artistic expressions. Timur Galijev choose a consistent story-telling
manner, showing the history of building the manor, different stages of its
life, the reality of the present day, and a simulated future. Olegas Kesminas
used theatrical means to emphasize the present surroundings of the manor
and gave hope that even today the manor could become alive and perform
its cultural duty if it would lean on its historical heritage. David Chaumard
hosted a remarkable historical excursion through the manor and its park as if
the vision of Olegas Kesminas had become a reality in another manor.

The theme of the year 2013, Suspended moments, combined the two aspects
of Forum themes very vividly. We might say that its social mission was to catch
societys attention, that of youth in particular, to the importance of cultural
heritage by using the spaces of museums, where unfortunately the youth of
Lithuania are not a common guest. Museums picked by the organizers differed
the Church Heritage museum, the Energy and Technology museum, and
the museum of Genocide Victims (KGB). The Church Heritage museum is
located in the former St. Michaels church and the Energy and Technology
museum in the first power plant in Vilnius, which was in operation from
1903 to 2003. The museum of Genocide Victims (KGB) was established in
the former prison of the KGB. By the choices of museums it can be said
that the organizers wanted to go back to the previous themes of church and
industrial heritage which were analyzed in 2005 and 2006. They show the
undying importance of the themes of heritage in the ever-changing society
and economic situation of the country. Only the viewers position changes. If

261
Theatrical action in Abromiks manor. Director Olegas Kesminas, 2011.

in 2005 the organizers were trying to save church heritage, in 2013 it became
important to attract the young person to the new and modern museum
of the church. In doing so, we hope to build conviction, especially in the
young generation, that we are a modern, attractive country with a deep and
interesting history, thereby uprooting the provincial complex.

The genocide prosecuted in Lithuania by the KGB was an untouched theme

by the organizers of the Forum. It still remains a fragile and painful topic
to the people of Lithuania; it usually is expressed in the form of tears and
fears. Therefore, while doing a theatrical action in the museum of Genocide
Victims, the main goal of Oskaras Valiullinas and myself was to look at this
dark period of Lithuanian history through a new perspective, without tears
or pathos, and so to encourage the youth to become interested in their history
and respect it. In the former KGB prison, where in 1992 the museum was
founded, we did not tell stories of torture and suffering, but the stories of
peoples lives before they were imprisoned there. We tried to emphasize that
people who were imprisoned there were not abstract creatures but real people
like you and me. In cells, the audience met the characters a young poet was
reading his poesy; girls were preparing for their weddings; a music teacher
gave lessons; a priest was writing a sermon; a family was eating dinner. Gun

262
shots as the symbol of arrest stopped each story. A second time the audience
met all the characters again in the courtyard of the prison. They were reading
the true names of the all victims who were killed in the prison. The audience
had the chance to light candles to remember the victims. By doing this we
tried to engage the youth on this topic and invite them to honor the casualties
not because they needed to, but because they felt an inner desire to do so.

In the year 2014, the organizers of the Forum took upon themselves a
very difficult task to analyze the theatre itself; in other words, to analyze
themselves as an institution and as a society. However, once again the theme
was not being looked at in an abstract manner. It revolved around already
closed theaters around Vilnius, theatres that once were functioning but now
are closed and unused. A history of 444 years lay before me and my colleague
Oskaras Valiullinas. Yes, Vilnius University theatre is currently functioning,
but the tradition to perform in the architectural courtyards of Vilnius
University is gone. This tradition was immensely vital during the Baroque
era and was later revived in the second half of 20th century, but unfortunately
only for a few decades. We did not take upon ourselves to tell the stories of
all the theatres of the universities. We told a story about a simple student:

Vilnius University theater drama troupe MINIMUMs theatrical action Memories will not be closed
inside the Genocide Victims museum (former KGB prison). Part I Stories. Directors Dalia Kiaupait,
Oskaras Valiullinas, 2013.

263
Vilnius University theater drama troupe MINIMUMs theatrical action Know yourself . Stage V
Diploma. Directors Dalia Kiaupait, Oskaras Valiullinas, 2014.

how he enters university, how he studies and spends his leisure time until
he finally graduates. This time the story prompted to us the context but
not the form. After a long break, this theatrical action once again placed
performance in an ensemble of architectural yards of Vilnius University. The
audience followed the student and the muses Thalia and Melpomene, who
were trying to lure the student to their side, through five yards. What is more,
the historical context influenced the chosen texts all texts of the theatrical
action Know yourself were a compilation of classical world and Lithuanian
literature. The majority of its authors had been at some point performed in
Vilnius University theatre. Our purpose was to show how the university as
an institution and community, as well as the university theater as the part
of both (institution and community), is forming the young personality, how
much of a path lies before him or her after graduation, and how much ability
they have to choose the right one using the experience gained at university.

Reflections and Conclusions

In summary the first decade of the Forum was a research period about which
way to organize and focus the Forum. Some themes were more successful and

264
others less. In this period we acknowledge some flatness of themes, some
aspect of the temptation to moralize.
After reorganizing the structure of the Forum organization in the year 2009,
more and more young people who were students or had just graduated were
integrated, not only in the actual process of organizing but also, with the
blessing of directors of the companies, in the creation of their own theatrical
actions. They started to write the scenarios and/or direct the theatrical actions.
On one hand this becomes a good platform for them to test their strengths

The participants of the International University Theater Forum in Vilnius, 2012.

not only in acting, but also as directors. Some of them later created them
own performances on the stages of university theatres which were included
in the repertoires. On the other hand, the organization of the Forum became
increasingly decentralized, with more and more decisions made by students,
so that stronger communication between the generations brought to the
Forums themes a greater variety of aspects or viewpoints. The themes and
their presentation became more multilayered. The desire to join the contexts
of education with the engagement in social and historical reminiscence is
only getting stronger.

Beginning in the year 2003, theatrical actions became the symbol of the Forum
and a very good platform to analyze different themes that are important to

265
the community of Lithuanian university theatres. It might be discussed how
significant the theatrical actions influence was on heritage protection, but I
must remark that after theatrical actions, some objects of cultural heritage
where the actions took place received attention from state institutions some
were reconstructed, others preserved.

There is no question, however, that theatrical actions increased the artistic

level of Lithuanian university theatres and brought various new waves because
it is a form wherein students can try new artistic forms of communication,
think outside the box, and try interdisciplinary methods.
Having been the organizers of the Forum now for fifteen years, we can claim
that we have established methods of how, in an interesting way, to talk about
social and spiritual problems of the present day. By teaching the Lithuanian
youth to lean on the history of their city, we encourage consciousness and
a need to act in the youth. Similar trends are noted in the repertoire in the
theatres of Lithuanian universities: through historical contexts and through
the involvement of classical texts, we talk about social and political problems
of contemporary society.

266
267
 Le thtre a toujours fonctionn en tant que lieu
de tension entre une pulsion dinnovation et les
demandes de la tradition, entre lcriture et la langue
parle, entre le texte et lacteur qui linterprte. Cest
en effet une continuation de la querelle des Anciens
et des Modernes et qui suscite actuellement de grands
dbats au niveau universitaire aux Etats-Unis.
Comment considrer le thtre comme acte vivant et
crateur et comme objet historique fig? Je propose
quil nexiste pas une seule rponse ce dilemme et
quil faut trouver un moyen de respecter les traditions
historiques mais en mme temps initier lacteur au
processus crateur. Je cite Peter Brook (LEspace vide)
pour qui la seule faon daborder le mot serait de
passer par un processus parallle celui de lorigine

cratrice.

268
Theatre as a Site of Pedagogical Tension:
A New Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns
Cara Gargano

The theatre has always been a site of tension, between tradition and innovation,
and between the written word and the speaking and acting body that inhabits
it. Since the 1960s, however, this tension has increasingly circled around the
role and rights of the author in relation to the text. With the rise of New
Criticism and its emphasis on studying the text apart from the author and
from authorial intention, the emergence of companies like the Living Theatre
and Wooster Group, Roland Barthes 1967 declaration that the author is
dead, and Foucaults equally famous 1969 rebuttal that there is a singular
relationship that holds between the author and a text, the stage was set on a
theoretical level for todays conversation on a practical pedagogical level.

In this brief review of the current debate around the pitfalls and challenges
of choosing repertoire in theatre programs in the United States, I explore two
apparently opposing positions as well as their legal ramifications. I examine
these positions with an eye to the contradictions inherent in both the argument
for strict adherence to the theatre text and the argument for freedom to share
and alter existing material. I will argue, with Jon Garon, that there is a fine
line between innovative interpretation and abusive infringement, and that
mutual respect and trust between playwright and a creative team is necessary
if the theatre is to remain relevant and engaging for contemporary audiences.

The education of theatre artists ultimately asks: is the theatre a highly

structured system with strict rules or is it an open set of relationships, fluid
through time and space? Is it a way for humans to make sense of our human
condition or a way of understanding the history of individual achievement?
Is a theatre text a complete document or does it only live when it is inhabited
and embodied? These questions are not terribly dissimilar from the ones
that were raised in 17th century France, where the argument centered on the
tension between dogma and tradition versus change and progress.

This has become a particularly urgent discussion in university theatre

programs within the United States, as it relates to the choice of, and approach
to, repertoire. Education of a theatre artist in the United States may take

269
many forms. Every program is different; each state has its own Department
of Education guidelines and within these guidelines every university tries to
identify some unique characteristic that will make its program competitive
and attract the best students. The two principal undergraduate degrees are
the Bachelor of Arts, typically a more general academic curriculum, and the
Bachelor of Fine Arts, a more conservatory type of degree. Even within these
two degrees there is great diversity as every faculty determines what they
believe to be the most successful way to educate and train their students.
Invariably, such conversations address the question of how the choice and
treatment of repertoire might contribute to the best possible outcomes in
student learning.

It seems logical that the repertoire of a university theatre company should

serve the pedagogical mission of the theatre program. In the case of our
own conservatory-style BFA program, the mission is to develop directors,
designers, and actors who will contribute to the theatre in meaningful ways
and be able to support themselves in their endeavors. For us this means
choosing repertoire that offers our students the opportunity to practice
their craft, to make the work relevant and compelling, and to address urgent
contemporary questions.

We have recently engaged in this conversation in our program, as we try to

serve the needs of our directors, designers, and actors to explore a text in all its
dimensions and seek contemporary relevance while addressing an insistence
on the primacy of the published text. Of course we want to choose work that
will challenge our students and help them develop a process, a voice, and a
point of view of their own. Our discussions on the casting and education of
student artists revealed a deep-seated conflict regarding not only the nature
of theatre but also what theatre education should be, since our role is both
to educate students about the history and theory of our art and to prepare
them for a career in professional performance. This is a daunting task indeed:
how do we balance the need to impart historically accurate information and
respect for the playwright while at the same time giving students ownership
of their creative process and the tools to make choices that are honest and
relevant for contemporary audiences?

The conversation became more complex however, as we considered the

current discussions surrounding issues of authorial intent, the legal exigencies
of copyright, and an increasing emphasis on the limitations they might
impose. While the argument is really, I think, about the nature of the theatre
and what students should know and do today, it is impossible to neglect the

270
legal aspect of the conversation; for educational theatre programs this is
particularly important as regards the issue of copyright, so a brief history of
its origins might be pertinent.

It was Foucault who pointed out that the notion of the author is inextricably
bound up with the legal system. He reminds us that historically the concept
of the author was linked not to the idea of economic ownership of a text as
property, but rather to courageously owning a point of view that might
be risky or subject to punishment. One has only to think of Giordano Bruno,
burned at the stake for heretical writing in 1600, or Galileo, shortly thereafter
forced to recant and burn the texts he had authored. Lest we imagine that
this risk no longer pertains, in our own time we cite among other instances
the case of Salman Rushdie, who lived for 10 years under a death threat for
his novel The Satanic Verses, or most recently the writers at Frances Charlie
Hebdo, who were the target of terrorist attacks in 2011 and again in 2015,
with fatal consequences.

Copyright itself emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries as questions of

ownership and textual responsibility became more urgent in the face of wider
distribution. The British Statute of Anne (1710)1 was the first real copyright
act, giving publishers exclusive rights to a work for a certain period of time.
Although it was entitled An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, it is
important to note that it functioned largely as economic protection for the
publishers since copyright emerged as a consequence of the invention and
proliferation of the printing press; this allowed for greater sharing of written
material but required financial outlay on the part of the printer in terms of
press, paper, and ink. Thus it was primarily a way for printers to profit from
their investment, not necessarily a protection for the author or artist.2

The copyright clause in the United States Constitution dates from 1787 and
states that its purpose is: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,
by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to
their respective Writings and Discoveries.3 In other words, the focus in this
new country had shifted from the printer or publisher to the entrepreneurial
author or inventor, in the hope that they would invest time and energy in

1 Edward G. Hudon, Literary Piracy, Charles Dickens and the American Copyright Law American Bar
Association Journal 50, no. 12 (December 1964), 1157.
2 Francina Cantatore, Authors, Copyright, and Publishing in the Digital Era (Hershey, PA: IGI Global,
2014), 12.
3 United States Constitution, article I, section 8, clause 8.

271
creation with the incentive of profit. This suggests that the successful author or
inventor could potentially devote full time to creation without an additional
means of support, be it patronage or other employment. It is important to
note here that although the authors received the copyright protection, that
protection remained economic, not artistic.

Nearly 100 years later, in 1886, international copyright was introduced when
members of the Berne Convention recognized copyright among the signing
nations. Under the Convention, once a work is published or recorded in some
physical medium, its author is automatically entitled to all copyrights to the
work and its derivatives. This was too late for Charles Dickens, however,
who complained on the occasion of a trip to the United States, almost 50
years earlier, in 1837, that he had lost income due to a lack of international
copyright, since his novels had been published and copied there without his
consent.4

Garon notes that even under more recent copyright law in the United States,
a playwrights protection is primarily for economic incentive and points out
that the copyright laws seek to protect economic rather than non-economic
interests. They focus on the right of the individual to reap the reward of his
endeavors and have little to do with protecting feelings or reputation.5

Interestingly, Garon also points out that in certain countries other than the
United States the doctrine of droit moral or moral rights protects artistic
work as an extension of the authors personality, independent of the authors
property interests.6 He does not see that this protection applies based on
the United States Constitution; in other words, in the United States control
still seems to be based more on economic than on artistic ownership. Corey
Doctorow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation sums up the U.S. copyright
policy succinctly: copyright law remains controversial [] because it was
conceived of as an industrial regulation, instead of as a law that could be
applied to cultural activity.7

4 Hudon, Literary Piracy, 1158. As university theatre companies travel more frequently to international
festivals and conferences, it is important to note that copyright laws differ internationally and that while
copyright is recognized across borders, acquisition of international performance rights must be separately
negotiated.
5 Jon Garon, Directors Choice: The Fine Line between Interpretation and Infringement of an Authors
Work, The Columbia VLA Journal of Law and the Arts 12, no. 2 (1988), 279.
6 Ibid., 280.
7 Mary Beth Quirk, Fairly Used: Why Schools Need to Teach Kids the Whole Truth about Copyright,
Consumerist, last modified Feb. 26, 2016, https://consumerist.com/2016/02/26/fairly-used-why-schools-
need-to-teach-kids-the-whole-truth-about-copyright/#.

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With the advent of the Internet, the situation has become even more
problematic since the Internet enables us to download and/or alter
information much more easily. This raises the question of intellectual property
to another level, since copyrighted and other written material can be even
more quickly downloaded, shared, and manipulated. Previously, copyright
violation required expensive printing tools, and could be, as in Dickens case,
extremely profitable for the copier. Today anyone can copy a published play
for a few cents a page, and many complete scripts can be found online.

Computers have made it much easier to cut and paste or rearrange texts
and there are new ways to explore and reinterpret them through the quantum
jump of the hyperlink. This resource offers new opportunities for creativity
but comes up against the very real problem of compromising an existing
artistic vision. A recent and egregious example of this problem is the 2014
production of Hands on a Hardbody at Houstons Theatre Under the Stars.
It seems that scenes, songs, and characters were transposed from one act to
another. The director referred to these changes as modular since the text
had been moved but not changed. In the Dramatists Guild condemnation
of this restructuring it was noted that the director treated the process like
a workshop of a new musical as opposed to an already published piece of
theatre.8 After extensive negotiation, the production was shut down.

This seems to be a clear example of a collision between an Internet mentality

and a print mentality and demonstrates that we are at a critical cultural
crossroads in our understanding of how to relate to a theatre text. While the
director believed that he was serving the plays concept by explicating it in his
own way, the authors did not agree.

If this case seems to be an obvious instance of an inappropriate alteration

of an existing text, where the director viewed the play as a piece of found
material with which to engage, it leads to the more difficult question of the
hybrid or devised performance. Hybrid and devised performances typically
use materials that refer to, or comment on, each other. Such texts usually draw
on a variety of contemporary and classical sources, from advertisements,
political commentary, and news items to texts from well-known canonical
sources. These devised scripts tend to be relevant and impactful in their
unexpected juxtaposition of texts that create new and unexpected meaning
through analogy.

8 Isaac Butler, What Happened to Theatre Under the Stars Production of Hands on a Hardbody,
American Theatre online, October 2014. http://www.americantheatre.org/2014/09/17/hands-on-a-
hardbody-creative-team-blindsided-after-unwarrented-changes-made-to-songs-dialogue/.

273
How much these texts can be considered as plagiarism and how much they
can be seen as original has been the subject of much debate. An important
example of this controversy is I Love My Hair When Its Good & Then Again
When It Looks Defiant and Impressive, Chaunesti Webbs 2012 production for
Manbites Dog Theatre, where Webb juxtaposed the words of three authors in
what amounted to a commentary on the relationship between their texts and
her experiences and those of the performers. Although only 2 percent of the
work was attributed to these authors, and Webbs lawyers argued that the use
was transformative because it built on the meaning of the original work,
Webb was forced to remove all reference to the controversial texts in 2013.9

Jennifer Jenkins from Dukes Center for the Study of Public Domain points
out that a lack of understanding of the Fair Use Doctrine aspect of copyright
law may have the chilling effect of deterring young people from doing
creative things that they want to do or it turns young people who are doing
creative things into assuming that they are all lawbreakers.10 In fact the Fair
Use Doctrine might have been applicable in Webbs case.11

Jenkins emphasis that copyright law might stifle creativity is echoed by arts
and entertainment lawyer Lawrence Lessig, former Director of the Sofra
Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and a strong advocate for copyright
reform. Lessig bases his argument on the rise of the Internet and our rapidly
changing technology. He lobbies for a less rigid copyright law and suggests
that such laws overly restrict innovation and are literally an obstacle to the
expansion of cultural knowledge. He cites Thomas Jeffersons belief that to
build on the work of others is extremely important for social and intellectual
progress and that creativity should be nurtured by creativity, not stifled by it:

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without

lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without
darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the
globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his
condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature,
when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening
their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move and

9 Byron Woods, Chaunesti Webb, Her Play at Manbites Dog Theater and the Woman Accusing Her of
Artistic Theft. Indy Week, January 15, 2014, http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/chaunesti-webb-her-
play-at-manbites-dog-theater-and-the-woman-accusing-her-of-artistic-theft/Content?oid=3804090.
10 Jennifer Jenkins, director of Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law quoted by Mary
Beth Quirk in Fairly Used.
11 Fair Use Doctrine: U.S. Cod, Title 17 Chap. 1 Sec. 107, http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.
html#107.

274
 have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give
an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to
men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be
done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or
complaint from anybody... The exclusive right to invention [is] given not of
natural right, but for the benefit of society.
Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson, 181312

Lessig is also the founder of Creative Commons, a non-profit organization

that facilitates shared art-making, often referred to as Copyleft.13

If Lessig argues for a more flexible copyright policy, the late Louis Catron,
a professor of theatre at the College of William and Mary, was a strong
advocate for strict adherence to the published text, including stage directions,
prop lists, and any other published material. He deplores what he calls
decontructionist [sic] directors who deliberately ignore or reverse the
dramatists stage directions, change characters and locations, even shift the
original order of scenes. He argues that to ignore stage directions cancels the
original creators concept14 and cites some important instances, such as the
final scene in Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot15 where the stage directions
in the context of the text drive home the essential point of the play.

However, later in the same online article, he seems to move away from his early
rigid stance, noting that playwrights, too, have an obligation when it comes to
stage directions. He reminds us that dialogue is the primary communicative
tool in the theatre text, and discourages stage directions that take the place
of dialogue or that limit the actors ability to play a scene. Further, he writes
that no theatre-savvy playwright expects director, actors, or designers to

12 Jay Worthington & Lawrence Lessig. Righting Copyright: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig,
Pharmacopia 8 (Fall 2002), www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/8/lessig/php.
13 Copyleft, a play on the word copyright, is a way to make software or other developed material available
without cost, but also freely available without the possibility of a second party pirating and copyrighting
it. Thus copyleft requires that any user must pass along the work free of charge to anyone who wishes to
copy or alter it. See https://copyleft.org.
14 See Catrons online rant, Copyright Law for Directors and Actors at lecatr.people.wm.edu/copy.
htm and his beliefs about stage directions at http://lecatr.people.wm.edu/stagedirections.html. There are
other questions we must ask: to what extent do we honor the playwrights original concept (assuming we
know what that is) by trying to remount the play as it was originally performed and in doing so, to what
extent do we falsify that vision and the impact the original production had within its own time and social
context? How do we recreate the shock of the opening lines of Ubu Roi or even the experience of Richard
Schechners Dionysus in 69 in the very different milieu of the 21st century?
15 In this final scene Vladimir asks: Well? Shall we go?. Estragon: Yes, lets go. The stage direction
follows: They do not move. Curtain.

275
follow stage directions slavishly, citing Lorcas stage directions in The House
of Bernarda Alba that call for two hundred women to cross the stage. He ends
by saying that certainly the playwright has every right to expect the director
and actor to think very carefully about what effect the playwright wants, then
to find ways to achieve the effect, if not the full specifics, espousing a more
flexible stance than his original position suggests.16

Among authors there are many points of view. Samuel Becketts estate is
known for requiring strict adherence to text, including stage directions,
location and gender, and Edward Albee has been known to shut down
productions that violated his description of the cast. The ONeill estate is
famous for its insistence on slavish adherence to text and stage directions.17
Hands on a Hardbody playwright Douglas Wright says that he is generous
about directorial license but could not accept changes made in Houston that
he felt altered the message of the play itself.18

On the other end of that spectrum, contemporary playwright Charles Mee

urges people to take his work and pillage it. He writes:

Please feel free to take the plays [...] and use them freely as a resource for
your own work: [...] [P]illage the plays as I have pillaged the structures and
contents of the plays of Euripides and Brecht, and stuff out of Soap Opera
Digest and the evening news and the internet and build your own entirely
new-piece and then please put your own name to the work.19

Indeed as Mee suggests there is no such thing as an original play.20 He cites

borrowings by playwrights from Shakespeare to Brecht and continues:

Sometimes playwrights steal stories and conversations and dreams and

intimate revelations [...] and call this original. And sometimes some of us write

16 Louis E. Catron, Enter Up Center, Smiling Helpfully, Your Faithful Servant Stage Directions,
accessed March 22, 2016, http://lecatr.people.wm.edu/stagedirections.html.
17 This prompted the New York Neo-Futurists to produce their irreverent 2011 creation, The Complete
& Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene ONeill, Vol.1: Early Plays/Lost Plays. The Neos not only did not
follow the standard contemporary practice of deleting ONeills instructions. Rather, director Christopher
Loar tossed out the dialogue and presented only the extensive stage directions in a comic and frantic sendup.
18 Butler, What Happened to Theatre Under the Stars Production of Hands on a Hardbody.
19 Charles Mee is the creator of The Remaking Project. All quotes are from the website at http://www.
charlesmee.org/about.shtml.
20 The theatre has always in a sense cannibalized itself, rewriting plots and whole plays from previous
work. We remember the happy endings rewritten for Shakespeares plays (notably Lear by Nahum Tate)
in the 18th century.

276
 about our innermost lives, believing that, then, we have written something
truly original and unique. But of course, the culture writes us first, and then
we write our stories [...] the work we do is both received and created, both an
adaptation and an original [...] We remake things as we go.21

Mee, like Catron, however, ends with a codicil than belies his earlier stable
position when he goes on to say that if a company wishes to perform his plays
essentially or substantially as I have composed them they are protected by
copyright and it will be necessary to secure performance rights. Clearly both
positions are more unstable than they first appear and ironically demonstrate
a parallel slippage.

It is important to note that copyright in literature became important at the

same time that novelists like Samuel Richardson were exploring the inner
psychological life of their characters (e.g., Pamela, 1740) and became most
prevalent during the period of psychological realism in the theatre.22 It is not
surprising that Catron, as he acknowledges, bases his argument primarily
on modern playwrights such as Anton Chekhov and Henrik Ibsen who use
stage directions as an insight into the psychological and emotional state of
the characters. He notes that these are also works that employ more realistic
set designs, suggesting the period, social status, and even the interior state
of the characters are all situated in the stage directions as well as in the text.
All the plays he discusses use stage directions and descriptions in an almost
novelistic way to help us understand the turbulent inner life of an inarticulate
character. He refers to stage directions as modern theatres poetry and sets
these plays apart from what he calls poetic plays that use sweeping images
and metaphors.23

Conversely, Mee often works within a very different period, revisiting the
Greeks and recontextualizing the plays by juxtaposing the poetic heightened
language and current events. The period he works in privileged new and
innovative tellings of known stories. Greek comedies are rife with references
to current events, and the tragedies were prized for the way they reworked
known stories, as Catron points out through the use of sweeping images and
metaphors.

21 Charles Mee, The Remaking Project; See also note 13 on the Copyleft initiative above.
22 It is interesting to ask if there a difference between the author of a play and the author of a novel since
the theatre text requires living actors to inhabit it. Qubcoise playwright Marie Laberge has said that her
message reaches her audience more directly through the medium of the novel suggesting that the gap
between text and production had become too great.
23 See Jennifer Jenkins points referenced by note 10 above.

277
I find this difference significant for several reasons since we are clearly talking
about two kinds of texts. The possibility of wide-spread printing changed the
face of theatre and gave playwrights a new luxury: to emulate novelists and to
communicate psychological backstory and subtext that was not present in the
spoken text. Previously scripts were used primarily by performers and were
not widely distributed or read. Backstory and subtext were the sole province
of the director and actors. With the mass production of scripts made possible
by the industrial revolution and the wide popularity of the novel that ensued,
for the first time, perhaps, playwrights relied on the text as much as on the
actors to communicate with the audience, perhaps more in the tradition of
the novel than the drama.

While not even Lessig believes that copyright should be abolished, ideas
about the appropriate extent of its power differ widely. Catron appears to
be a fierce advocate for the play text in all its aspects: for him to eliminate
the playwrights stage directions [is to do] away with how the dramatists
imagination heard and saw the characters to create a stage-worthy piece.
It eliminates a vital part of the playwrights vision.24 He is equally adamant
about character descriptions, which seems to deny the possibility of color-
blind casting, cross-gender casting, contemporizing, or setting the play in
an alternative location, all popular approaches for todays directors and
producers, and often necessary in educational theatre where budgets are
limited and student populations are increasingly diverse. While Catron seems
to imply that texts are copyrighted while the manner of directing them is not,
he is clear that current copyright disallows even the slightest deviation from
the published text to an extent that may be extreme.

How then does a university theatre program negotiate these competing

perspectives and the strictures of copyright given the responsibility to help
young artists develop their own creative processes, find their own voices, and
contribute to the relevance and continued health of the theatre? I return to
Garons analysis of the situation where he makes a clear distinction between
what he calls the various interests involved in the controversy. He suggests
that copyright must be viewed differently for each of the following interests:
the author, the contributing artists, and the theatre itself, under which
heading he includes community and educational theatre. While he insists
on protection for the first production (278), he believes that in future
productions the [economic] purpose [of federal copyright protection] may
be lost if protection is overbroad since the audience has an interest in seeing

24 Louis E. Catron, Enter Up Center.

278
both accurate reproductions and new interpretations (283). He admits that
the problem of artistic interpretation is a real one and fears that small
companies will continue to be discouraged from experimentation (305)
since there is no clear legal precedent for the extent of copyright protection.25

Particularly important, however, are Garons thoughts on educational theatre,

where he argues that a play performed in a university setting needs a great
deal of artistic flexibility because the interpretive process is an educational
experience for the students involved in the production (284). In our
program this means that we want to offer students challenging roles that will
necessarily require some color-blind and cross-gender casting and even some
internal cuts when appropriate. In other words, we seek out texts that offer
flexibility and openness.

This need for openness was directly addressed by publisher Emile Lansman
in his keynote address at the 2014 AITU/IUTA Congress, where he noted his
criteria for publishing a play and discussed his work with the playwrights he
publishes. An important question he asks is will it have a life elsewhere?. He
speaks of working with authors to write stage directions that do not close
the text, but allow the actors to make it their own. For Lansman, it seems that
the reason to publish a play lies with its potential longevity and its capacity
to appeal to as wide a population as possible.26 If todays publishers influence
playwrights to make their work as open and available as possible, it is to make
the printed work more financially viable, for the publisher and for the author,
ironically the original reason that copyright emerged.

With the Internet in some sense replacing the printing press, I see a shift in
thinking about the role of the theatrical text. Today we think across borders of
time and space, with a hyperlink mentality that may demonstrate a return to
an earlier view of the play text, one that seeks a certain timelessness and, most
importantly, the capacity to appeal to a wider and more diverse audience.
The theatre seems to be returning to a different mission. As Maria Porter,
who has been creating devised theatre work for over twenty years, points out,
devised theatre is the oldest form of theatre, since early itinerant performing
troupes travelled widely, needed to appeal to vastly different populations both
socially and linguistically, and had to shape their performances to be both
entertaining and engagingly relevant to whatever local audience was theirs.27

25 All references from Jon Garon, Directors Choice.

26 Emile Lansman, Keynote address at the International University Theatre Association congress in
Lige, Belgium. June 2014.
27 Conversation with Maria Porter, March, 2016.

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We remember that the theatergoing audience of the 19th century that Catron
evokes was rather different from todays audiences and were of a more
homogeneous social, racial, and cultural milieu. Today, as we seek to serve
a wider population, we also need to adapt the universal dilemmas posed in
most plays to a wider group of spectators. This might mean that playwrights
and their estates who limit creative changes will find their work produced less
and studied more as literature than as performable theatre. Mary Beth Quirk
reminds us, copyright law was written during a bygone era that doesnt have
much to do with the reality were living in now.28

I see the repertoire of our program moving more toward new plays that reflect
contemporary concerns and, perhaps more importantly, the connectivity of
an Internet mentality. I see the rise of devised and collaged work as a clear
response not only to the strictures of copyright but also to a new openness
to connectivity. We also seek out plays that pass the test of time, and those
do seem to be plays that have a certain openness and that both survive and
are enriched by alternative interpretation. Our current fascination with the
Greeks and Shakespeare testifies to the continued pertinence of these texts,
since although the context has radically changed, the urgent questions remain
the same. I suggest that the poetry of the text, in Catrons terms, opens a
discursive space in which to explore. It is not surprising then that we can
imagine transposing such a play to another time period or looking at the
plays dilemma from another point of view.

In conclusion, I return to the question of repertoire in the context of a

university artist training program, and this seems to speak to the slippage
that we see in both Catron and Mee, suggesting that there is no single answer
to this dilemma and that we must maintain a balance between historical
precision in the classroom, respect for a playwrights text, and preparation
of actors to create new and innovative work through exploration and process
building. Peter Brook reminds us that the only way to find the true path to
the speaking of a word is through a process that parallels the original creative
one. We must depend on texts that respond to this need.

I believe that the theatre has the capacity to transform the world, and that to
achieve this, it must always reach out to a public who can see itself reflected
in some way in the characters on stage. Perhaps then, the plays that Catron
mentions are best read and performed as important historical and social
documents, to understand how people were, while other, more flexible works
will be produced in universities to explore who we are and who we might
become.

28 Quirk. Fairly Used.

280
References

Barthes, Roland. The Death of the Author.Art and Interpretation: An Anthology

of Readings in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Eric Dayton.
Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 1998. 383-386.

Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. New York: Atheneum, 1968.

Butler, Isaac. What Happened to Theatre Under the Stars Production of Hands on
a Hardbody. American Theatre online, October 2014. http://www.
americantheatre.org/2014/09/17/hands-on-a-hardbody-creative-team-
blindsided-after-unwarrented-changes-made-to-songs-dialogue/

Cantatore, Francina. Authors, Copyright, and Publishing in the Digital Era. Hershey,
PA: IGI Global, 2014.

Catron, Louis E. Enter Up Center, Smiling Helpfully, Your Faithful Servant - Stage
Directions, accessed March 22, 2016, http://lecatr.people.wm.edu/
stagedirections.html.

------. Stage Directions for Directors and Actors: Your Faithful Servant - Stage
Directions. http://lecatr.people.wm.edu/stagedirections.html.

Foucault, Michel. What is an Author, trans. Donald F. Bouchard & Sherry Simon
in Language, Countermemory, Practice. Ed. Donald Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1977.

Garon, Jon. Directors Choice: The Fine Line between Interpretation and
Infringement of an Authors Work. The Columbia VLA Journal of Law and the
Arts 12, no. 2 (1988): 277-366.

Hudon, Edward G. Literary Piracy, Charles Dickens and the American Copyright
Law. American Bar Association Journal 50, no. 12 (December 1964): 1157-60.

Lansman, Emile. Keynote Speech. AITU/IUTA Congress. Lige, Belgium. June 2014.

Mee, Charles. The Remaking Project. www.charlesmee.org/about.shtml.

Quirk, Mary Beth. Fairly Used: Why Schools Need to Teach Kids the Whole Truth
about Copyright. Last modified February 26, 2016. https://consumerist.com.

Woods, Byron. Chaunesti Webb, Her Play at Manbites Dog Theater and the Woman
Accusing Her of Artistic Theft. Indy Week, January 15, 2014, http://www.
indyweek.com/indyweek/chaunesti-webb-her-play-at-manbites-dog-
theater-and-the-woman-accusing-her-of-artistic-theft/Content?oid=3804090

Worthington, Jay & Lawrence Lessig. Righting Copyright: An Interview with

Lawrence Lessig. Pharmacopia 8 (Fall 2002). www.cabinetmagazine.org/
issues/8/lessig/php

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282
 Contribution spciale

283
284
Entretien entre Maurice Durozier et Franoise Odin
En ouverture du Xme Congrs Mondial de lAITU, Lige, 30 juin 2014

Franoise Odin

Franoise Odin: Nous avons le privilge et le grand honneur daccueillir

le Thtre du Soleil en la personne de Maurice Durozier qui nous consacre
sa journe de relche, puisquil joue dans le dernier spectacle du Soleil:
Macbeth, dans lequel il est le roi Duncan. Comme Alain Chevalier la rappel,
nous avons pris langue, ou plutt courriel avec le Thtre du Soleil il y a
plusieurs mois en esprant que nous aurions un reprsentant de cette troupe
magnifique qui elle-mme fte ses 50 ans. Sans tre ftichiste des vingt ans
de lAITU et des cinquante ans du Thtre du Soleil, il y avait quand mme
une jolie rsonance. Nous avons rencontr Ariane Mnouchkine il y a deux
mois lorsque nous sommes alls voir Macbeth. Elle stait alors engage ce
quil y ait quelquun pour reprsenter le Thtre du Soleil aujourdhui, elle-
mme peut-tre. Elle nous a finalement fait savoir quelle prfrait rester
Paris parce que a bouge beaucoup dans le monde de la culture en France
(dbut juillet 2014) et ce quon appelle les intermittents du spectacle. Nous
avons donc le grand bonheur daccueillir aujourdhui Maurice Durozier.
Nous allons dabord aborder, si vous le voulez bien, le thtre universitaire
puisque cest notre terreau, notre terrain et tout le monde sait (ou ne sait pas)
quAriane Mnouchkine a fait ses dbuts au thtre universitaire. Nous allons
tout dabord projeter un extrait du film intitulAriane Mnouchkine, laventure
du Thtre du Soleil dans lequel apparat ce lien quelle a entretenu avec le
thtre universitaire. Nous rendrons ensuite la parole M. Durozier qui a
beaucoup de choses nous dire sur la question du rpertoire, la thmatique
de notre congrs.

Projection de cet extrait

- Pendant la crmonie o Ariane Mnouchkine reoit lHonoris Causa

Oxford (2007), elle commente sa dcouverte du thtre universitaire.

L o je me suis dit: je vais faire du thtre, cest quand jen ai fait, puisque
jai eu la chance de pouvoir aller un an Oxford pour apprendre langlais, et
l il y avait un trs bon thtre universitaire. Jai commenc faire du thtre
amateur, et je me souviens trs bien du jour o je suis sortie du Play House,

285
petit thtre o on rptait. Je suis monte dans lautobus et je me suis dit:
Cest ta vie, cest a que je vais faire. Je me souviens encore aujourdhui de
la faon dont mon cur battait, mais vraiment. Ctait un coup de foudre. Je
ne savais pas encore si ce serait en tant que metteur en scne ou comdienne,
mais jai trs vite compris que ce ne serait pas en tant que comdienne, que je
ntais pas une bonne comdienne. Je pense que ce soir-l quelque chose a d
me montrer que ce que je cherchais depuis ma petite enfance, cest dire une
action sur le monde, la possibilit de transformer le monde, ctait possible
au thtre.

- Sur un autre extrait vido des annes 60

Question: pourquoi avez-vous cr lAssociation Thtrale des Etudiants de

Paris en 1961?
Je voulais faire du thtre mon mtier, en tant que metteur en scne bien sr.
Question: combien de comdiens avez-vous?
Nous sommes, je crois, 42.
Question: comment les avez-vous choisis?
Je les ai choisis par rapport leur personnage. Jai essay de trouver des gens
qui ressemblaient aux personnages quils allaient devoir interprter. Au point
de vue de leur apparence.
Question: Pourquoi cela?
Dabord ce sont des amateurs et ils ont un norme travail faire pour atteindre
la hauteur de leur personnage. Et en plus moi je naime pas la composition,
mme pour des professionnels.

(quelques 40 ans aprs, retour la premire vido, elle se regarde dans cet
extrait et commente):

Quelle arrogance! Ce que joublie de dire cest que moi aussi jtais amateur
et donc moi aussi jallais avoir beaucoup de travail. Cest lignorance qui
sexprime. Une certaine innocence aussi, je suppose.
Si ce que jesprais se passait, cest dire des amitis, un groupe solide qui
se forme, ce moment-l on pourrait se dire: on a cre une troupe. Ce
mot magique. On part ensemble, on monte sur le bateau. Je ne voulais pas
lappeler comme lpoque Compagnie Machinchose. Donc on cherchait,
et au bout dun moment on avait mis la beaut, la vie, la chaleur, la lumire.

Grard Hardy: et cest quand mme Ariane qui a dit: quest-ce quon prfre
dans la vie? quest-ce quil y a de trs agrable?. Tout le monde a dit moi jaime
bien le soleil. On va sappeler Thtre du Soleil.

Ariane Mnouchkine: chercher la beaut, mais dans la vrit de la vie.

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Franoise Odin: Ce que montrait cet extrait, cest la passerelle entre le thtre
universitaire et le thtre professionnel. Il y a videmment bien dautres
cheminements comme par exemple celui de M. Durozier qui, il me semble,
est diffrent. Pourquoi? Eh bien parce que vous tes issu dune famille de
brleurs de planches ce qui est dailleurs le nom dun de vos spectacles
en 1995. Brleurs de planches cest--dire une famille de comdiens
ambulants qui exera ce mtier durant quatre gnrations. Vous avez rejoint
le Thtre du Soleil en 1981 et on vous a vu dans les grands Shakespeare
ainsi que dans dautres spectacles (sur lesquels nous reviendrons peut-tre
plus tard). Vous en tes un moment parti pour crer votre propre compagnie.
Jai dj cit un de vos spectacles, mais avant celui-ci existait dj Kalo, sur
le thme des gitans. Maintenant un spectacle qui tourne encore, et qui sera
peut-tre une invitation prochaine pour notre association, spectacle intitul
Paroles dacteurs o il est question de lacteur. Je vais maintenant vous
laissez la parole sur comment entre-t-on au Thtre du Soleil?, ce quon y
fait et comment on donne corps ce nom de troupe, quon entend dans la
bouche dAriane Mnouchkine. Je me permets de relever une information que
jai pointe dans une interview que lon vous avait consacre, par rapport la
question de transmission. Cest une chose qui nous intresse beaucoup au
sein de notre association. Alors (vous me dites si je me trompe), trs jeune
homme vous avez dcid de quitter Perpignan, o vous avez vcu. Vous vous
mettez sous un pont pour faire du stop et monter Paris, et l, vous vous
rendez compte que cest lendroit prcis o votre grand-pre avait laiss sa
roulote de comdien ambulant. Un peu la manire du film Molire que tout
le monde connat, o lon voit le thtre ambulant se rpandre dans lensemble
de la France. Simplement pour dire quil existe dautres cheminements mais
qui vous amnent aussi au thtre professionnel. Alors pouvez-vous nous en
dire plus quant au rpertoire qui est le vtre, qui a t le vtre, qui sera le
vtre?

Maurice Durozier: Si vous le permettez je voudrais quand mme revenir sur

lextrait du film que vous avez vu, et parler un peu de la jeunesse dAriane
avant de rpondre vos questions. A cette poque-l, Oxford o elle tait
trs jeune tudiante, elle a commenc faire du thtre et tait troisime
assistante du metteur en scne Ken Loach. Ensuite, elle est arrive Paris, la
Sorbonne et je voulais vous raconter cette histoire pour vous dire quel point
les choses ne sont jamais simples, surtout pour une femme, mme Ariane
Mnouchkine. Elle tait donc tudiante la Sorbonne, avec sa longue robe
fleurs, il y avait l un groupe de thtre. Elle sest prsente une de leurs
rptitions en leur disant: Bonjour, je mappelle Ariane, je mintresse au
thtre, je voudrais faire partie de votre groupe. Les tudiants lont regarde

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puis lui ont rpondu: Bienvenue au groupe du Thtre Antique de la
Sorbonne, ici les femmes, la couture!. Elle les a regards, remercis... Puis
elle est alle directement rencontrer Sartre pour lui demander de participer
une confrence quelle organisait la Sorbonne. Sartre a accept et il est venu
parler du thtre. La salle tait pleine, videmment. Elle a encaiss les entres
et avec largent quelle a rcolt elle a pu avoir une petite base pour monter son
premier spectacle qui tait Gengis Khan dHenry Bauchau. Je voulais ainsi
rappeler quen France linstitution universitaire na pas toujours t simple
pour la cration, mais que cest pourtant comme a que lhistoire du Soleil a
commenc. Cest en effet autour de cette aventure quun premier noyau sest
form. Je continue un peu lhistoire du Soleil, cela me semble important. Ils
ont fait un spectacle, deux spectacles, a commenait fonctionner, alors
ils se sont dit Ah, on va faire une troupe!. Ils ont eu la sagesse lpoque
(a devait tre au tout dbut des annes soixante) de se dire: mais dabord,
avant de faire une troupe, on va se donner deux ans durant lesquels on va
raliser ce quon a faire, individuellement, parce que ensuite ce sera peut-
tre plus difficile. Chacun a donc fait les histoires quil voulait faire et Ariane
en a profit pour voyager pendant deux ans en Asie et en extrme Orient.
Ce voyage a t dterminant car il fut une source dinspiration dont nous
bnficions encore au Thtre du Soleil. Lorsquelle est revenue, les neuf
personnes taient l. Ctait il y a 50 ans et cest l quils ont dpos les statuts
de la socit cooprative du Thtre du Soleil.

F.O.: Si cela vous convient, la thmatique de notre congrs est celle du

rpertoire et je suppose que vous avez vous-mme un rpertoire trs large en
tant que comdien au Soleil et en tant que metteur en scne de votre propre
compagnie?

M.D.: Le Thtre du Soleil nest pas un thtre de rpertoire, dans le sens

o nous ne conservons pas un rpertoire dans lequel nous pouvons puiser.
Nous sommes plutt un thtre de cration, un collectif autour dAriane
et notre question est quest-ce que faire du thtre aujourdhui?, Pour
raconter quoi?. Cela ne nous empche pas de revenir au rpertoire et de
puiser dans les textes magnifiques de nos matres, Molire, Shakespeare,
les Grecs... Parce quon a limpression, quand on sattaque ces grandes
uvres, que tout a dj t dit. Par exemple, en ce moment nous jouons
Macbeth de Shakespeare. Cest incroyable la faon dont cette pice raconte
lhistoire ternelle du monde, de la dictature, du pouvoir et donc ds quil y a
dictature, il y a rsistance. Ce texte aujourdhui a un cho trs particulier par
rapport ltat actuel du monde. Donc, le rpertoire, nous en avons besoin,

288
cest notre nourriture, notre source. Nous ne pouvons nous passer de lui et
cela mme si la plupart du temps le Thtre du Soleil ralise des crations
collectives. Nous travaillons partir dun thme. Il y a eu 1789 bien sr, sur
la Rvolution franaise, LAge dOr, Le Dernier Caravansrail - qui traite du
thme des rfugis Les Ephmres (notre avant-dernier spectacle), Les
Naufrags du Fol Espoir... En encore dautres crations collectives. A partir
de nos improvisations, nous inventons une histoire, un monde. Mais parfois,
pour retrouver la route du thtre, nous revenons, toujours avec un grand
plaisir, au rpertoire du thtre parce que au fond, laventure quon vit a dj
t vcue au cours des sicles par dautres inventeurs, dautres quipes. Que
faisait Shakespeare, que faisait Molire? Ctaient des hommes de thtre, ils
travaillaient avec leur troupe, ils crivaient pour leurs acteurs. Les textes que
nous connaissons aujourdhui, surtout ceux de Shakespeare, taient remanis,
expriments avant de trouver leur forme dfinitive.

Maurice Durozier et Franoise Odin.

F.O.: Cration collective, cest aussi un terme qui a un sens pour nous
puisquil y a certaines troupes lAITU qui ont travaill sur la cration collective
et qui continuent le faire. Il y a dailleurs un volume des ditions de lAITU
consacr la cration collective avec les tudiants et par les tudiants. Vous
avez parl du rpertoire au sens des grandes uvres universelles qui sont
joues dans beaucoup de pays, dans de nombreuses langues. Il y a aussi une

289
originalit au Thtre du Soleil: la cration de textes crits sur commande par
un crivain, en loccurrence Hlne Cixous. Ces textes sont soit en rsonance
avec elle, (la formule est souvent assez prudente), soit compltement crits.
Quest-ce que cela signifie pour le Thtre du Soleil de faire appel une
crivaine contemporaine directement en lien avec le travail des comdiens?
Comment lavez-vous ressenti? Parce que vous avez vous-mme particip ce
genre de pice nest-ce pas?

M.D.: La premire fois que nous avons travaill avec Hlne Cixous, ctait
aprs un grand cycle Shakespeare. Nous avions explor et jou les pices
historiques de Shakespeare. Quand on sattaque au rpertoire, pour nous cest
toujours un thtre-cole. Nous voulions comprendre comment Shakespeare
avait fait pour crire des pices sur les histoires des rois dAngleterre et
comment ces pices pouvaient toujours nous parler aujourdhui, demeurer
universelles. Comment avait-il atteint ce niveau de thtralit, dmotion,
pour nous toucher encore aujourdhui? Nous avions pass trois ans avec
Shakespeare, et ensuite Hlne Cixous est intervenue car nous voulions crer
des spectacles plus contemporains sur lhistoire du monde. Nous avons ainsi
cr une pice de thtre sur le Cambodge, sur la tragdie qui stait passe
la fin de la guerre du Vietnam, et le gnocide perptr par les Khmers rouges
sur leur propre peuple. Cest galement une constante dans Shakespeare,
ces histoires des rois, de rbellions, de coup dtat, de guerre des clans... Au
fond, il y a un thme central que nous avons abord au cours de ces annes
antrieures: cest la guerre intrieure, la guerre fratricide, la guerre civile. Cest
donc sur le modle shakespearien quHlne Cixous et Ariane, aprs des
recherches, des voyages dans cette zone, ont propos une pice fleuve de huit
heures et demie et que lon reprsentait le week-end en intgrale. Ctait des
spectacles marathons extraordinaires. On partait dans une aventure avec le
public, vraiment exceptionnelle. Les gens adoraient a, ctait toujours plein.
Ctait la mme poque o Peter Brook prsentait Le Mahbhrata. Voil, je
ne sais pas si ce serait toujours possible aujourdhui mais cest vrai quil y a
avait un engouement, un enthousiasme de la part du public. Jespre quon
aura aussi loccasion daborder ce thme du public qui est essentiel pour nous.
On ne peut pas exister sans public.
Au fond que nous travaillions des pices contemporaines dHlne Cixous ou
du Shakespeare, nous improvisons tout le temps, texte en main. Nous avons
une mthode trs particulire. Il ny a pas de travail la table au Thtre du
Soleil. On fait une lecture de la pice, une seule car nous ne sommes pas
des lecteurs, le texte nest pas notre spcialit, donc cest assez prouvant, en
gnral, la lecture. Nous nous mettons tout de suite au travail, on se runit
chaque matin et puis lun dentre nous dit je voudrais travailler telle scne,

290
jai une vision. On parle un petit peu de la scne, on tente de la situer, de
trouver quel moment la scne se droule, dans quel lieu, on se prpare, on
se costume, on parle notre musicien... La musique est en effet un aspect
important de la mise en scne; nous avons Jean-Jacques Lemtre, le musicien
de la troupe, toujours l pendant les rptitions. On se costume, on se prpare
et on se lance! On prend le texte, on lit une phrase, et on la joue. On lit, on
joue. Cest--dire quau moment o on dcouvre le texte, on le dit, on le vit.
On napprend jamais le texte au Thtre du Soleil. Mais, lorsque, petit petit,
la distribution se dessine et que le chemin intrieur du personnage est l,
lorsque les motions du personnage sont lintrieur de lacteur de manire

Maurice Durozier et Sbastien Brottet-Michel dans Les naufags du fol espoir du Thtre du Soleil, mise en
scne Ariane Mnouchkine.

claire, le texte sinscrit presque de lui-mme. La mmoire de lacteur nest pas

uniquement crbrale mais physique et affective.
Nous travaillons beaucoup, neuf, dix heures par jour et durant de longs
mois Le Macbeth par exemple, nous lavons rpt sept mois. Cest notre
privilge; nous avons un lieu, nous avons un espace magnifique, et nous nous
donnons le temps. Il est parfois arriv quand on travaillait sur LHistoire
terrible mais inacheve de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge, quune
scne propose par lauteur ne fonctionne pas totalement. Que se passe-t-
il? Lacteur est un tre organique. La matire dAriane, cest nous, cest notre
imagination, notre sensibilit, notre intriorit. Lorsque les personnages

291
sont l, nous r-improvisions cette scne qui a dj t crite. Finalement, on
saperoit que tout est l dans le texte crit, mais que le dbut doit passer au
milieu, que le milieu doit passer la fin et la fin au dbut. En fait, lacteur peut
rtablir la thtralit de la scne. Quand a se produit, cest extraordinaire de
pouvoir collaborer de cette faon la cration dun texte, la cration dune
uvre. Chacun est sa place: lauteur qui est au commencement de tout, le
verbe, Ariane, la metteuse en scne, en images, en vie et donc, en ralit, le
premier regard, le premier public qui va, la fin, dcider dans quel sens les
choses vont aller, et nous les acteurs, des sortes de mdiums, ballots par les
vnements, les passions que vivent les personnages dans lhistoire. Il faut
galement ajouter la musique qui est toujours prsente. De cette alchimie,
(nous lesprons) nat le thtre.

F.O.: Juste pour prciser pour le public, la pice dont vous parlez, date de 1985.
Ctait aprs le cycle des Atrides. Cette pice (dites moi si je me trompe) a t
reprise par un des comdiens de la troupe qui est all travailler au Cambodge
quelques annes avec une troupe de comdiens locaux qui jouaient en khmer.
Et cette pice a tourn en France. Je voulais simplement souligner que le
Thtre du Soleil est aussi une ouverture dautres pays, une transmission,
terme auquel vous tes particulirement sensible.

M.D.: Tout ce quon nous a transmis doit tre retransmis. Jai appris cela en
Inde. Cest vrai quau fond, on ne sait jamais o le thtre va nous mener. Il y a
eu cette exprience avec le Cambodge. Ces jeunes khmers dirigs par Georges
Bigot et Delphine Cottu, ont fait un spectacle magnifique, et ce qui tait
vraiment magnifique, cest quils ont appris une histoire, occulte par le rgime
actuel du Cambodge. Le thtre leur a permis de dcouvrir leur vritable
histoire. Nous avons eu une autre aventure extraordinaire; nous avions fait une
pice sur le thme des rfugis, intitule Le Dernier Caravansrail. Lorsque
nous lavons cre, il y avait beaucoup de rfugis dAfghanistan en France et
tous ces rfugis voulaient se rendre en Angleterre. Ils se retrouvaient donc
tous Calais o il y avait un centre de la Croix Rouge qui tait pour nous une
sorte de Caravansrail, ces tapes des voyageurs et des marchands au temps
des caravanes. Dans le spectacle, il y avait beaucoup de personnages afghans.
Un jour, quelquun est venu de Kaboul et nous a dit: Vous devriez venir faire
du thtre Kaboul, je suis prsident dune fondation, nous serions heureux
de vous inviter. Nous sommes donc partis Kaboul quarante et nous avons
donn un stage de trois semaines. Les acteurs tous assez jeunes et quelques
actrices trs courageuses dAfghanistan, un pays en guerre depuis 24 ans,
ont pu voir une troupe au travail, des hommes et des femmes qui travaillent

292
ensemble, se parlent, se regardent, se changent ensemble. Dans leur culture
cela tait inconcevable, et l, ctait vrai. Le thtre passe par la cration mais
aussi par le concret de ce quest laventure thtrale. A la suite de ce stage,
une troupe sest forme: le Thtre Aftaab qui signifie soleil galement en
dari, la langue dAfghanistan. Voil, maintenant cette troupe existe et fait des
spectacles magnifiques. Ils taient rcemment Barcelone, ils sont alls jouer
au Piccolo thtre de Milan et ils sont pour linstant avec nous Paris. Ils
vivent dans des roulottes la Cartoucherie, des couples se sont forms, il y a
des enfants qui sont ns. Le thtre a rejoint la ralit et a vraiment compt
dans le destins de ces jeunes gens. Si le Thtre du Soleil existe encore depuis
50 ans; cest parce que depuis quAriane a commenc, elle na drog aucune
de ses valeurs. Et cest a qui est important.

F.O.: Vous pouvez nous les rappeler?

M.D.: La gnrosit, lamour et le respect du public, lhumilit, le travail, (et

on sait que sans lui on ne peut arriver rien). Il y a une chose qui est trs
importante aussi, qui est trs matrielle mais il faut quand mme le rappeler,
cest lgalit totale des salaires au Thtre du Soleil. Ce nest pas tout fait la
tournure que prend le monde aujourdhui. Je pourrais en citer dautres mais
je pense que celles dont je parle ici sont les valeurs universelles du thtre.
Beaucoup de crateurs, lorsquils sont jeunes commencent avec le mme
dsir de travailler pour un monde meilleur, mais ils sont pris tout coup
par le succs et sgarent de leur chemin. Cest dur de rsister au succs. Ou
bien, ils sont rattraps par le systme. On leur donne des moyens, mais on
leur impose un cahier des charges tellement important quils narrivent plus
prendre le temps quil faut de gestation et de cration de spectacle.

F.O.: Dans votre propos vous avez parl du public. Est-ce que a vous
intresse de dvelopper ce sujet? Ou ce qui mintresserait galement, cest
votre propre travail de metteur en scne et dacteur puisque vous ntes pas
que comdien au Soleil. Comment concevez-vous le travail de votre propre
compagnie? Est-il trs influenc par vos passages au Soleil ou allez-vous vers
dautres choix, dautres horizons?

M.D.: Oui, le public comme je disais est ce qui nous fait vivre et jen sais
quelque chose. Comme vous lvoquiez, jai une histoire particulire, je
viens dune famille de thtre ambulant, mon grand-pre, ma grand-mre,
mes oncles, ma mre... taient tous des acteurs. On vivait dans les roulottes

293
quils fabriquaient eux-mmes Ils savaient tout faire, leurs dcors, leur
scne dmontable, leurs costumes... Ils voyageaient dans toute la France
(particulirement dans le Sud) en faisant du thtre, depuis cinq gnrations.
Parfois, ils arrivaient dans une petite ville et y restaient un mois ou deux. Ils
jouaient tous les soirs et changeaient de pices. Ils avaient, eux, un rpertoire
incroyable. Ils jouaient surtout des mlodrames et des comdies. Mais cest vrai
qu cette poque-l, la socit ntait pas la mme, le sens de la communaut,
de la collectivit devait tre plus prononc. Et aprs la guerre, petit petit,
une mutation profonde bouleverse la socit, les gens deviennent de plus en
plus individualiste, la tlvision apparat, et le public diminue. Le public ne
venant plus les voir, ils narrivent plus vivre. En dix, quinze ans toutes les
troupes familiales itinrantes arrtent. Mon grand-pre arrte sa troupe, jai
deux ans et jai vcu dans un clan dartistes devenus des ouvriers. Ma mre est
embauche comme ouvrire dans une usine de poupes, dautres deviennent
mcaniciens, chauffeurs, maons... Alors quils avaient t artistes toute leur
vie! Je sais donc limportance du public pour nous, pour les gens du thtre.
Le Thtre du Soleil est un thtre populaire dans le sens o lemployait Vilar,
ou Vitez, cest--dire un thtre litaire pour tous. Il ne sagit pas de faire de
la dmagogie mais de toucher un public o toutes les strates de la socit
sont reprsentes. Un peu comme au temps du thtre lisabthain. Cest un
bonheur pour nous de jouer devant un public aussi nombreux, aussi divers.
Le public du Soleil a sa propre histoire. Les enfants qui taient venus avec
leurs parents pour 1789 ont grandi, ils viennent avec leurs enfants, puis les
grands-parents viennent avec leurs petits-enfants et leur font dcouvrir le
lieu o ils ont eux-mmes dcouvert le thtre. Pour nous, laccueil du public
est une chose essentielle. Dabord, nous prsentons des spectacles longs de
quatre heures, cest du thtre pique et a prend du temps, les popes.
Donc, les spectateurs quittent leur travail et courent jusqu la Cartoucherie,
qui nest pas trs loin de Paris, mais cest tout de mme un voyage. Ils doivent
manger, boire, on leur prpare donc leur repas. Finalement, on a appris faire
un thtre total o tous les sens du public doivent tre combls et je pense
que cest cette dimension que le public vient chercher au Thtre du Soleil.
Ils viennent, voient Macbeth, qui est une des pices les plus noires, les plus
terribles du rpertoire mondial et quand Ariane est la porte et dchire leurs
billets ils lui disent: Ah! On vient chez vous, cest la fte!. Cest quand mme
un paradoxe incroyable. Ils savent ce quils viennent voir mais ils nous disent:
Cest une fte. Dailleurs, durant cette longue priode de gestation qui a lieu
entre nous, un moment nous nous disons: Voil, maintenant, nous avons
besoin du public!. Le public nous manque et pour une raison bien simple,
cest lui qui termine le spectacle dans son imagination. Le spectacle nexiste
pas tant quil na pas t vu, reconnu par le public. Donc, cest pour nous un

294
Maurice Durozier dans Les naufags du fol espoir du Thtre du Soleil, mise en scne Ariane Mnouchkine.

besoin, et les dieux du thtre font que nous avons la chance davoir un public
et de pouvoir jouer longtemps. Il y a une rserve de public incroyable qui
vient la Cartoucherie!

295
Jai t amen un certain moment quitter le Thtre du Soleil. Ce nest pas
quelque chose que javais prvu. Cest parfois le thtre qui dcide pour nous,
qui dcide quon va se rencontrer ou quand on va se sparer. En tout cas je
vois les choses comme a. Par moment, la vie nous rclame et dans ces cas-l,
il faut choisir la vie, afin de ne pas devenir un artiste frustr et passer ct
de choses essentielles. Cest un peu ce qui mest arriv. Jai quitt le Thtre
du Soleil et jai fond ma propre compagnie, car il tait videmment hors de
question que jarrte de faire du thtre et que, pour moi, il tait trs difficile de
travailler avec un autre metteur en scne aprs avoir travaill avec Ariane. Je
crois mme que je ne lai jamais fait en tant quacteur. Je ne sais pas pourquoi,
mais cela ne ma jamais tent. Jai prfr raconter ce que javais raconter. Jai
donc eu ma propre troupe pendant onze ans. Ensuite, sans lavoir prmdit
non plus, je suis retourn au Thtre du Soleil. Je suis avant tout un acteur et
javais besoin de jouer. Cest vrai que cest ma place, ma maison. Depuis que
je suis revenu, je dis aux plus jeunes que ce sont des vacances. Je joue et je
nai plus moccuper de trouver la production, largent destin monter des
projets et faire vivre les membres dune quipe. En tant quartiste, cest cela
qui tait puisant, ce poids, cette pression, javais beaucoup de mal cumuler
les deux. Depuis que je suis revenu, malgr le rythme de travail insens du
Soleil, il se trouve que, finalement, le fait dtre en scne me donne encore
plus dnergie. Cest impressionnant comme le fait de jouer tous les soirs nous
recharge. Je continue donc crire des histoires en dehors de mon travail
dacteur. Cela marrive aussi de transmettre mon exprience en donnant des
stages lorsque je suis invit, mais pour linstant je suis surtout dans une phase
de rflexion sur le travail de lacteur. Jai cr un texte intitul Paroles dActeurs
dans lequel je raconte mon exprience personnelle. Cest une aventure que je
poursuis un peu partout, en plusieurs langues.

F.O.: Voil, ce nest pas tomb dans loreille de quelques indiffrents. Vous la
jouez en franais, en espagnol, en portugais, en catalan et en anglais. Peut-
tre est-il temps de demander au public sil a des questions?

Public: Merci dtre avec nous, merci de reprsenter le Thtre du Soleil.

Vous avez voqu tout lheure limportance du public pour le comdien en
gnral et pour le Thtre du Soleil. Est-ce que vous pourriez nous prciser
ce que vous en pensez?

M.D.: Toutes les grandes formes de thtre sont venues nous parce quelles
taient destines un public. Les grandes expriences en aventures thtrales,
comme je le disais, ont t possibles grce au public. A la fois rellement mais
aussi dun point de vue financier. Par exemple au Thtre du Soleil nous avons

296
une subvention mais elle ne reprsente que 40% de recettes. Les 60% restant,
ce sont nos entres. Cest le public qui nous fait vivre. Il y a un pays o le
thtre est trs important... Je ne sais pas sil y a des reprsentants dArgentine
ici, mais on ma racont que pendant la premire crise financire en Argentine,
pour sen sortir, il fallait ouvrir un thtre, parce que les gens savaient quen
faisant a, ils auraient au moins le nombre de spectateurs pour avoir de
quoi manger le soir. Les gens adorent le thtre l-bas. Jai t trs frapp
par cette histoire que lon ma raconte et je la crois. Le thtre nat du dsir
mme du spectateur. Comme le disait un moment Ariane, Au fond cest le
spectateur qui nous envoie, qui vous investit de cette mission daller chercher
un personnage, chercher un monde. Vous ne faites ensuite que restituer ce
que vous avez vu, ce que vous avez appris au cours de cette qute. Le thtre
est une ncessit, comme on le dit, le thtre est un miroir. Lhomme a besoin
de se voir autopsi, dvoil. Je ne sais pas quand on peut faire remonter
les premires reprsentations dans lhistoire de lhumanit, mais lhomme a
toujours eu besoin de se reprsenter, que ce soit par des peintures, par des
jeux, par des transes, des danses ou des histoires. Le public est la fois notre
but et ce qui nous fait exister.

Intervention de Shafi Ahmed du Bangladesh: Sur la question du public, je

voudrais mentionner cette anecdote: en 1984 Macbeth a t jou Dacca, mis
en scne par un artiste anglais, mais dans la langue nationale de notre pays.
Ctait lpoque de la dictature et de la loi martiale qui, bien sr, taient hostiles
au monde du thtre. Jtais lun des spectateurs de cette reprsentation et
je mtais dlibrment assis ct dun personnage important le numro
deux de larme. En entendant certain passage de la pice, cet homme sest
mis trembler, il a quitt la salle et a a t la fin de la reprsentation. Parmi
le public il y avait des spectateurs favorables au rgime politique en vigueur
lpoque et dautres, opposants. Maintenant dans le contexte de notre pays,
en retard dans le domaine de lducation et perturb par le fondamentalisme,
nous avons travailler crer un vritable public.

Robert Germay: Je pense quon va devoir terminer, mais je voudrais dabord

vous remercier dtre venu. Je voudrais aussi simplement rappeler ceci: Cela
fait des annes que je montre 1789 mes tudiants du Thtre Universitaire.
Evidemment, ce quon voit jou sur la scne par le Thtre du Soleil na
plus rien voir avec un thtre tudiant. Et pourtant je trouve que cest
immanquable, que cest un exemple pour un type de thtre tudiant parce
que la manire dont tout se passe sur ce plateau, men par cette compagnie
collective dirige par Ariane, on a limpression que tout le monde peut le
faire. Tout le monde doit pouvoir le faire tellement a a lair daller de soi,

297
tellement a a lair collectif. Cest en cela que je suis heureux de vous avoir ici,
parce que ce type de production professionnelle reste pour moi exemplaire
dune mthode de travail qui peut nous servir. Voil, je pense que cest tout ce
que javais dire.

Alain Chevalier: Je voudrais remercier Maurice Durozier davoir t avec

nous et de nous avoir initis ce travail du Thtre du Soleil. Je vous incite
vraiment, si vous passez par lEurope et plus particulirement par Paris pour
voir la tour Eiffel, pousser un peu plus loin, jusquau chteau de Vincennes
et la Cartoucherie; a vaut vraiment la peine. Il y aurait beaucoup dautres
choses dire; je vous invite donc prendre connaissance des crits dAriane
Mnouchkine. Moi-mme lorsque je lis ses crits je bois du petit lait, il y a
beaucoup de passages que je peux reprendre dans mon travail. Elle dit par
exemple quelque part que, pour faire du thtre, il faut avoir la cl, il faut
pouvoir entrer dans les btiments toute heure du jour et de la nuit. Nous
avons cette libert ici, au Thtre Universitaire de Lige, ce qui est assez
remarquable. Voil monsieur Maurice Durozier je vais vous remettre un petit
cadeau en souvenir de notre universit et galement la mascotte ligeoise que
nous remettons aux troupes qui viennent jouer chez nous, Tchantchs. Je
vous prie de transmettre toute notre amiti Ariane Mnouchkine ainsi qu
votre troupe.

M.D.: Merci, je le ferai, merci beaucoup.

Robert Germay (Prsident fondateur de lAITU), Alain Chevalier (Directeur du TURLg) et Maurice
Durozier.

298
299
300
 Contributors

301
302
Contributors
Dennis Beck
James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia / USA
Anne-Frdrique Bourget
Universit de Lille 3 / France
Nathalie Duplain Michel et Anne Sophie Meyer
Universit de Neuchtel / Suisse
Elka Fediuk
Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz / Mexico
Anne Fliotos
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana / USA
Isabel Cristina Flores
Universidad de Puebla / Mexico
Karin Freymeyer
Ruhr-Universitt Bochum / Germany
Cara Gargano
Long Island University LIU Post, New York / USA
Sotiri Haviaras et Hlne Routier
Universit de Lille 3 / France
Maria S. Horne and Chelsea L. Horne
University at Buffalo and American University, New York and
Washington DC / USA
David Hugo
Long Island University, New York / USA
Dalia Kiaupaite
Vilnius University Theatre, Vilnius / Lithuania
Angela Konrad
Trinity Western University, Vancouver / Canada
Vito Minoia
Universit di Urbino Carlo Bo / Italia
Franoise Odin
Universit de Lyon / France
Nadezda Ruzaeva
Moscow State University of Culture and Arts, Moscow / Russia
Anatoly Safronikhin and Elena Illarionova
Lomonosov Moscow State University / Russia
Pia Salvatori Madonado
Universidad Pontificia de la Catolica de Chile / Chile
Margarida Torres
University of Coimbra / Portugal

303
 AITU-IUTA
President: Jean-Marc Larrue

The International University Theatre Association was established at Universit de

Lige, Belgium in 1994 (Robert Germay, President Founder) to develop and promote
recognized post-secondary activity in theatre training, creation, research and
theoretical and practical research, throughout the world, at the level of university or
higher studies. The IUTA is present in every continent and has members in over fifty
countries.
Designed by and for people from universities and other types of post-secondary
learning institutions, the IUTA is a unique forum where teachers, practitioners,
creators, scholars and theorists can share discoveries and discuss common concerns.
The IUTA provides a space for both exchanges and services (through the presence
of festival organizers), and is open to all members of the academic community with
an interest in theatre. The IUTA holds a World Congress every two years (www.aitu-
iuta.org).

Edizioni Nuove Catarsi / Theatres of Diversities

President: David Aguzzi

The Publisher Edizioni Nuove Catarsi was established at the Urbino University, Italy.
With the European magazine Catarsi Teatri delle diversit (Theatres of Diversity)
founded in 1996 by Emilio Pozzi (Milan, 1927-2010) and Vito Minoia, current
editorial director, it publishes various editorial series (Alterit, Dalla pagina alla
Scena, Sentiero di(f)forme, Destini Incrociati, I quaderni della Scuola Sperimentale
di Teatro di Animazione Sociale, Theatre & University) and aims to achieve further
objectives: to increase information, research and critical reflection on Theatre of
Social Inclusion and on International University Theatre. All publications and books
are produced by the Associazione Culturale Cittadina Universitaria Aenigma at the
Urbino University (www.edizioninuovecatarsi.org, www.teatroaenigma.it).
 Edizioni Nuove Catarsi
AITU / IUTA
ISBN 978-88-905373-9-4 / ISSN 1594-3496
Publisher of the European Review Theatres of Diversities
2016
University Theatres
and Repertoires
Edited by Vito Minoia, Maria S. Horne
Elka Fediuk, Franoise Odin, Lucile Garbagnati
Dennis Beck, Aubrey Mellor

The new collection Theatre and University published by Edizioni

Nuove Catarsi wishes to provide information on the study and research
projects by the International University Theatre Association in the
most accurate way and following both recognized and innovative
research criteria. The association was founded in 1994 and can count
today on the participation of members from more than fifty nations
on five continents.
This first volume of the collection deals with the specific features
of the repertoires of university theatre through a selection of works
(commissioned after the 10th World Congress of University Theatre
held at the University of Lige, Belgium, in 2014).
This book is a step forward that demonstrates the value of the idea
that we are dealing with a phenomenon that should not be considered
marginal or worthy of only low historical consideration. University
theatre itself constitutes a field that serves important functions for
culture and theatre phenomena tout court.