Experimental theatre

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Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the 20th century as a reaction against the then-dominant conventions governing the writing and production of drama, and against naturalism in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream theatre world has adopted many forms that were once considered radical. It is used more or less interchangeably with the term avant-garde theatre.

Relationships to audience

"… a necessary theatre, one in which there is only a practical difference between actor and audience, not a fundamental one." ^[1]

One thing that was challenged more and more is the role of the audience in performance. Traditionally audiences are seen as passive observers. Many practitioners wanted to challenge this. For example, Brecht wanted to mobilise his audiences by asking them questions and not giving them answers, thereby getting them to think for themselves; Augustin Boal wanted his audiences to react directly to the action; Artaud wanted to affect them directly on a subconscious level.^[2] Peter Brook talked of there being a triangle of relationships within a performance: the performers internal relationships, the performers relationships to each other on stage and the relationship with the audience.^[1][3] Welfare State International talked of there being a ceremonial circle, the cast providing one half, the audience providing another, and there being the energy in the middle.^[4]

Aside from ideological implications of the role of the audience; theatres and performances addressed the audience in a variety of ways. The proscenium arch was called to question, and performances started venturing into non-theatrical spaces, audiences were engaged differently, often as active participants in the action on a highly practical level and in many ways for many reasons. When a proscenium arch was used, it may have been subverted.

Audience participation can range from asking for volunteers onto a stage, to screaming in their faces. By using audience participation, the performer invites the audience to feel a certain way and by doing so they may change their attitudes, values and beliefs in regard to the performance's topic. For example, in a performance on bullying the character may approach an audience member, size them up and challenge them to a fight on the spot. The terrified look on their face will strongly express the message of bullying to that spectator and those around them.

Physically, theatre spaces took on different shapes, and practitioners re-explored different ways of staging performance and a lot of research was done into Elizabethan and Greek theatre spaces. This was integrated into the mainstream, the National Theatre in London, for example, has a highly flexible, somewhat Elizabethan traverse space, a proscenium space and a amphitheatre space (the Olivier) and the directors and architects consciously wanted to break away from the primacy of the proscenium arch. Jacques Copeau was an important figure in terms of stage design, and was very keen to break away from the excesses of naturalism to get to a more pared down, representational way of looking at the stage.^[5]

Social contexts

Some groups have been prominent in changing the social face of theatre, rather than its stylistic appearance. Performers have used their skills to engage in a form of cultural activism. This may be in the form of didactic agit-prop theatre, or some (such as Welfare State International) see a performance environment as being one in which a micro-society can emerge and can lead a way of life alternative to that of the broader society in which they are placed.^[4]

Augusto Boal used the Legitimate Theatre on the people of Rio to find out what they wanted to change about their community, and he used the audience reaction to change legislation in his role as a councillor. Experimental theatre encourages directors to make society, or our audience at least, change their attitudes, values and beliefs on an issue and to do something about it.

Methods of creation

Traditionally, there is a highly hierarchical method of creating theatre - a writer writes a script, a director interprets it for the stage, the performers perform the director and writers collective vision. Various practitioners started challenging this and started seeing the performers more and more as creative artists in their own right. This started with giving them more and more interpretive freedom and devised theatre eventually emerged.

Within this many different structures and possibilities exist for performance makers, and a large variety of different models are used by performers today. The primacy of the director and writer has been challenged directly, and the directors role can exist as an outside eye or a facilitator rather than the supreme authority figure they once would have been able to assume.

As well as hierarchies being challenged, performers have been challenging their individual roles. An inter-disciplinary approach becomes more and more common as performers have become less willing to be shoe-horned into specialist technical roles. Simultaneous to this, other disciplines have started breaking down their barriers. Dance, music, visual art and writing become blurred in many cases, and artists with completely separate trainings and backgrounds collaborate very comfortably.

Physical effects

Experimental theatre alters traditional conventions of space, movement, mood, tension, language, symbolism, and other elements.

Key figures

Writers

• Antonin Artaud (Theatre of Cruelty)
• Bertolt Brecht (Epic Theatre)
• Dario Fo
• Samuel Beckett
• Isabelle Junot
• Bryan Reynolds (Transversal Theater Company)

Directors

• Augusto Boal
• Peter Brook
• Robert Cohen (Transversal Theater Company)
• Richard Foreman
• Andre Gregory
• Jerzy Grotowski (Poor Theatre)
• Elizabeth LeCompte
• Tadeusz Kantor
• Caden Manson "(Real Time Film)"
• Vsevolod Meyerhold (Biomechanics)
• Ariane Mnouchkine
• Ellen Stewart
• Robert Wilson
• Jacques Copeau
• Richard Schechner
• Eugenio Barba

Groups

United Kingdom

• Complicite
• Welfare State International
• The Gecko

United States

• Double Edge Theatre
• The Satori Group (Seattle)
• Big Art Group
• Bread and Puppet Theater
• Neo-Futurists
• Great Jones Repertory Company at La MaMa, E.T.C.
• The Living Theatre
• Mabou Mines
• The Open Theater
• Ontological-Hysteric Theater
• Playhouse of the Ridiculous
• Squat Theatre
• The Tantalus Theatre Group
• The Wooster Group
• Provincetown Players
• Magic Theatre (Omaha)
• Skewed Visions (Minneapolis)
• Performance Space 122 (New York)
• Corner Theatre ETC (Baltimore)

Egypt

• The Holy Stage Team

See also

• History of theatre
• Post-modernism
• Fluxus
• Physical theatre
• Performance Art

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Brook, Peter (1968). The Empty Space. 
2. ^ Bermel, Albert (2001). Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. Methuen. ISBN 0413766608. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1YwMAAAACAAJ&dq=artaud%27s+theatre+of+cruelty&client=firefox-a. 
3. ^ Nicolescu, Basarab (1997). "Peter Brook and Traditional Thought". Contempory Theatre Review (Overseas Publishers Association) 7: 11-23. http://www.experimentaltheatre.org/peter_brook.htm. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Tony Coult, ed (1983). Engineers of the Imagination: The Welfare State Handbook. Baz Kershaw. Methuen. ISBN 0413528006. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oPkCAAAAMAAJ&q=engineers+of+the+imagination&dq=engineers+of+the+imagination&client=firefox-a&pgis=1. 
5. ^ Callery, Dympha (2001). Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre. Nick Hern Books. ISBN 1854596306. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mbEa2gowoFQC&client=firefox-a. 

External links

• Experimental Theatre Organization