Love's Labors Lost: Japanese aesthetics and Black American theatre

January 30, 2010

Japanese aesthetics and Black American theatre

Something I want to talk about: applying Japanese aesthetics to Black American theatre.

I'm intrigued by the possibilities of making theatre from a non-Western (or, to be more precise, non-Aristotelian) aesthetic. Of course, contemporary American theatre diverges from Aristotle's Poetics to the point that non-Aristotelian drama could be considered mainstream. Yet there is still something unmistakably Western about it, especially compared to the Japanese theatre I've seen - and I don't mean just the spoken words.

There seems to be no . . . space in Western theatre. And I mean this as an observation, not a criticism. Every moment has to be filled with sound or activity - always something to look at or listen to. Don't get me wrong, it can make for some exciting theatre. But for me, it can also make for exhausting theatre. Sometimes I want something more like what I talked about in my "Bonsai theater" post.

And yet . . . I'm also creating Black theatre - to be specific, Black American theatre. It's not just because I talk about race or include Black characters or endorse non-traditional casting. Without going so far as to endorse racial essentialism, Black people I've come across have a distinct way of relating to the world that's very different from what I've encountered in White people. I've talked about it before, but I can't put my finger on exactly what that is. However, it is something that makes understanding and applying Japanese aesthetic concepts instinctive for me, something that has a tremendous reflection in my style.

Like I mentioned way back when, my style is layered and subtle - there are powerful undercurrents to everything I write. At this point in time, it's likely that I have neither the skill nor the tools to adequately bring them to the surface without ruining the effect. Unfortunately, I'm not blessed with a great deal of cleverness. I'm more of a term paper than pop quiz sort of person. In all likelihood, I'm one of those writers who has to be closely involved with the actors and directors to make my pieces work, at least for the time being. Ironically, this seems to be the sort of thing the Homing Project is about.

2 comments:

Tony Adams1/30/2010 2:53 PM
If you haven't already, you might check out the work of Arianne Mnouchkine and Helene Cixous at the Theatre du Soleil. A lot has been written about them, but they're not as well known over here. (They're based in France, but travel to NYC every couple years.)

They do a lot of that, fusing eastern forms with western textual work into something new. They do some pretty incredible stuff. (They also have a pretty incredible way of working.)
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RVCBard1/30/2010 3:11 PM
Tony,

You need to stop playing on my xenophilia like that.
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Words, Words, Words

. . . a lot of it [fostering rather than smothering students' playwriting] has to do with finding a way to construct a dialogue about ongoing work that empowers the writer. A lot of it has to do with making sure there's a diversity of voices around you. A lot of it has to do with thinking of the writing program as a brain trust for writers, not as some infantilization in which the dramaturg gets the power. And basically trying to find a place where everyone's aesthetic in the room grows larger rather than smaller. There are many ways to do that. It's really not a hard thing to do.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

Here is what seems to me an elementary truth that must precede any other: namely, that the theater, an independent and autonomous art, must, in order to revive or simply to live, realize what differentiates it from text, pure speech, literature, and all other fixed and written means.
--Antonin Artaud, letter, 9/15/1931

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all I need for an act of theatre to be engaged.
--Peter Brook, The Empty Space

My work is characterized by one thing above all --- invention. In theatre we imagine the world, we do not record it, we are not documentary makers. I hold all social realism and journalistic theatre in contempt. It is a sordid habit. And the social realists have the impertinence to pretend they are 'telling the truth…'
--Howard Barker, interview

Women and writers of color are still seen as threats because, in essence, when a woman or writer of color is defining a play world, there's another definition of what our society is, and that's very threatening.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

Through this experience [working on " . . . and last week it was a mountain"] I learned the importance of the life and the dynamics under the words, and began to see the power of working from the silent space within - the emotions, the images, the experience and the feelings - rather than relying on the words.
--Sande Shurin, Transformational Acting: A Step Beyond

How does it happen that . . . the Occidental theater does not see theater under any other aspect than as a theater of dialogue?
--Antonin Artaud, Theater and Its Double

All conventions are imaginable, but they depend on the absence of rigid forms.
--Peter Brook, The Open Door

I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'. Nor do I claim to tell the truth or enlighten people. We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share secrets. That is also its politics, if it has any politics at all. And modern democracies hate secrets, they want everything transparent. Obviously the critics collaborate in this desire to expose everything to the light of day, they are the police force, after all.
--Howard Barker, interview

I think that form is content . . . I've always been more interested . . . in the formal devices and the structure rather than in the subject matter . . . I really am a follower of Viktor Shklovsky, who said that in some ways the subject matter doesn't even matter. It's whether or not we see the subject matter anew that matters.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

I am well aware that the language of gestures and postures, dance and music, is less capable of analyzing a character, revealing a man's thoughts, or elucidating states of consciousness clearly and precisely, than is verbal language, but who ever said the theater was created to analyze a character, to resolve conflicts of love and duty, to wrestle with all the problems of a typical and psychological nature that monopolize our contemporary stage?
--Antonin Artaud, Theater and Its Double

The mediocre artist prefers not to take risks, which is why he is conventional.
--Peter Brook, The Open Door

"Transcendence became my life theme. I wanted to be lifted beyond everyday circumstances and everyday reality."
--Sande Shurin, Transformational Acting: A Step Beyond

I actually think of writing for the stage as not writing . . . It's about structuring, about gaps between the language that are really filled in by the collaborators and the process. It's all about indirection rather than a direct statement . . . It's like a three-dimensional chess game in a way. If I say this, will the director go in this direction? If I say this, will the actor respond? And one of the delights of the process is actually not having your intention fulfilled, but finding out at times that other people's interpretation or intention is actually more interesting than you originally thought of.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

The person who has an idea of what this language is will be able to understand us. We write only for him. --Antonin Artaud, letter, 9/28/1932