For a Phenomenology of the Interval in the Theatre performance. A Semiotic Analysis

Theatre, in the notional complexity to be undertaken, updates and in this update it feels more pronounced the tendencies of increasing the performing spectrum. Writing about theatre inevitably leads you to set on something, on that attribute bringing the conviction that around its analysis the appreciative matters get interesting and reveal assumptions for future analysis. The article we propose approaches theatre in the cardinal ambiguity of meanings, namely in what we call here interval. We assume an approximate delimitation of this range, balancing and improving the center-periphery relationship, and then establish ourselves to turn the performance itself into a phenomenon, with a double implication. Making a connection between the audience and the performance is not something new, but if the significance, the midpoint of this relationship is fractured in the process transmitter-receiver, can we not think of the possibility of the interval/range as a deconstruct refuge of meanings? This paper asserts that if hiding the meaning becomes a phenomenon itself, it will be possible to read the performance by averaging this interval in which will be found, in the articulation of the public’s reception, the association of the cultural and theatrical codes.

Dialogue of Arts in the Contemporary Theatre. The Rhetoric of Expression in Plastic Arts and in Performing Arts

In the plastic art and not only, colors have significant functions with regard to the perception or even to the symbolism of temperament. In many cultures on various geographical coordinates, the reception and the interpretation of colors is taken into consideration only when they are dynamically distinguished. Various types of expression that make us access various levels of perception, of rhetoric, of candidness, of sensation etc. Looking retrospectively on this empathic theory, generations of estheticians struggled with a large amount of pseudo-problems. This plea over expression (be it facial or gestural) in the context of plastic art or of theatrical art has a particular significance and, of course, it steadies both the receptor and the artist. We see nevertheless that, in the day-to-day life, the expression has a primary, unequivocal sense, and above all one takes into consideration the way in which a plastic artist and an actor treat and interpret reality. Let us not forget that the main attributes of communication are the expressive features. The expressive quality presents a real platform that rises the interest of a plastic artist or actor, because it allows him to grasp and to understand his own experience, which does nothing but contribute to the formal configurative that he will draw up.

The Birth and Evolution of Stanislavsky’s Method

The stanislavskian system arises in full development of the realist current. Starting from the word, the actor expresses through gestures, intonations and mimics. The pre-stanislavskian actor is dominated by dilentatism and emotional “accidents”, the balance is tilted to an act full of clichés and crafts. Perhaps the most important lesson that Stanislavsky gives us is that for the actor in his work to reach a credible character, he must go through all states, sensations and feelings required in building a character. We cannot forget, however, that Stanislavsky devised a new method of representation also due to the emergence of Chekhovian texts. To give effect to the new ways of writing, the attention must focus on the actors, without neglecting the scenography. Stanislavsky wants to convince the actor that if he doesn’t want to use tricks to present truth, he should be just like a painter or musician, to devote his whole being, “body and soul especially” in the creative process.

Of Iubirea la oameni (Human Love) and Other Demons

Being a reading performance turned into a stage representation, the text Iubirea la oameni (Human Love) signed by Dmitry Bogosvlavski is a love radioisotope into an oppressive cloister space of a Belarusian isolated community. The show with the same name created by Bogdan Sărătean surprises the stage valence of the emergence, the evolution and the extinction of this feeling, from the sacrificial love of a mother, which often conceals the faults and the sins of the children, to the brutal love that snatches what it believes as deserved, to the strength to believe in love as salvation, as redemption, as many forms to illustrate and to dramatically represent such an old theme, yet always different. The personal approach of the double distribution formed by the young 3rd degree actor students, probing their own interiority and sensibility, nuances and enhances the evolutionary line of characters’ destiny on stage in an extremely profound performance.

The Call of the Dolphin in God’s Ear (or how is the theatre making the invisible, visible)

Starting from the assumption that a dialogue of the means of expression specific to various arts should aspire, in the theatrical representation, to symbiosis, I’m looking at the performance with Job’s Butcher’s Shop, by Fausto Paravidino, directed by Radu Afrim, performance which recently had its openingnight at the National Theatre in Iaşi. I’m referring to the confluence of live music, acting and video images, proposing possible connexions and echoes one might consider.

In memoriam Elena Saulea. Something about Hamlet…

Theatre, just like life, is not and could never be a purpose in itself. It is a part of living, of learning how to live. There is only one matter we can be dogmatic about in regard to any kind of theatre: it cannot exist in a state of boredom. Theatre has to be lively in order not to become unbearable. Far from being superficial, the dialectics of interest and boredom is very much active, and the question “What causes interest?” is definitely profound. One could easily give theoretical answers, stating “this should arouse their interest.” Unfortunately, most of the time this “should” does not match the reality of the stage, so we finally settle for “this should have aroused their interest, but…”

Mihail Sebastian and the Intimist Writings. From Theatricality to the Illusion of Reality

Writing his work, Sebastian had to confront a world thrown into history in the making, being forced to see what was happening around him, namely to privilege the sight and the entelechy which it animates. We almost dare to say that only in this manner - through a terrible aggression against the sight - Sebastian had the possibility to reflect, in his intimist writings, the contingent reality, for himself and for the others, with minimal styling effects. On the other hand, Sebastian’s texts reveal a purely phenomenological intention of the author. Thus, the author is no longer using the pen to fill with meaning a state of the facts or to transform everyday fiction into a significant dramatic discourse. In his case, the emphasis is on a continuous present and on the ontological message of the ideas, we would say, on the message which was freed from constraints of the past or future aspirations. Thus, Sebastian gives the events total freedom to express themselves - to utter themselves! -, with all the risks and the mortifying consequences of the decision taken. Sometimes the author reaches hidden humour areas, such as the one practiced by Pirandello.

The Symbolism of Light in the Play Lait by Magdalena Barile

Magdalena Barile is a young, but already appreciated and well known playwright, some of her work being translated and performed outside Italy. Her play Lait was played in Italy and then translated and played in England. The symbolism of light, heralded since the title, marks the whole text which can be interpreted as a metaphor of talent, of the creative energy we all possess in various degrees and shapes. Sometimes it is so pronounced it is hard to disguise, some other times it is so flimsy, it is almost unrecognisable. The purpose it is put to and the way it is used make the real difference.

The Dialogue of Arts in Romanian Contemporary Drama

The beginning of the 21st century is characterized in Romania by the emerging of a new generation of playwrights. Numerous actors or people coming “off the stage” begin to write drama, so that the playwrights become authors of the texts played on the stage. Thus, the playwrights join a trend that is common in Europe, being part of a category named by Bruno Tackels “les écrivains de plateau” - the writers of the stage. Nowadays, we witness a change in the way the young artists view drama - they do not only want to change the way of writing and performing drama, but they also want to change the world they live in. The contemporary performance has gradually lost its specificity by blending itself with visual arts, dance, music, technology, becoming a project. In our modern society the artists do not look for something meant to last forever, so the work of art becomes a continuous work in progress. Therefore, a bridge is being shattered - the bridge between nowadays and posterity.

Beckett and Joyce. Dialectical Reciprocity

Beckett’s literary beginnings are undoubtedly linked to his friendship and worship of James Joyce, his fellow Irishman, also established in Paris, whose literary work he enjoys and thoroughly studies. There are many similarities between James Joyce’s work and Samuel Beckett’s, taking into account the fact that the latter has been, in his youth, a sort of literary apprentice, their friendship being one of the main reasons in the dialectical study of their creations. What interests us most is the critical aligning of some fractures from their writings, in order to find the junction of themes and structure, the way in which Beckett takes Joyce’s leitmotivs and transforms them, filtering them into personal marks of his style.Although Beckett detaches himself, in a way, from the influence of his master, by adopting French as his primary language of creation, but also by channeling his efforts into playwright, instead of prose, there are recurrences from Joyce now and then, especially in his late writings. Theoretical studies emphasize a common preoccupation for limit in their maturity works, perceived as a climax of the author’s experience with his work.That is to say these Irishmen’s creations are, in a way, complementary, becoming proof of the literary transgression of the first half of the XXth century, from the canonized form and structure of realism, existentialism or naturalism, to a personal and free way of seeing the world, materialized into postmodernism.