Applying the Performance Concepts of Eugenio Barba to the ...

Applying the Performance Concepts of Eugenio Barba to the Stage Direction of The Romance of Erin

by

Brian Marshall, B.A.

A Thesis

In

THEATRE

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree of

MASTER OF FINE ARTS

Approved

Dr. Dorothy Chansky Chair

Dr. Laurin Mann

Fred Hartmeister Dean of the Graduate School

May, 2008

Texas Tech University, Brian Marshall, May 2008

ii

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the many individuals that it took to take The Romance of

Erin from the page to the stage. I thank Jim McDermott for creating a script that

provides its director and actors with so many choices to make and for then handing it

over to me. I thank the Department of Theatre and Dance for producing the play. I thank

the play�s designers: Andrea Bilkey, Cole Cantleberry, Rebecca Conway, and Jacob

Davis, for their hard work and the wonderful worlds they created for me and my actors. I

thank the cast of The Romance of Erin: Mattie Adamson, Daniel Ballard, Josh Jeffries,

Michael Novak, Daniel Rice, and Lauri Wynne, for their extraordinary effort, enthusiasm,

and performances. Finally, I thank Jason Lynch, whose work ethic and positive outlook

as a stage manager has not been matched in my theatre experience.

I would also like to express my gratitude to my thesis committee. I asked Dr.

Dorothy Chansky to chair my thesis and Dr. Laurin Mann to be on my thesis committee

because I knew that with their help I would be proud of the product. Their advice in

guiding my research, organizing my thoughts, and presenting my arguments has been of

great value to me. I thank them not only for helping me to improve as a scholar while

working on this thesis, but also for the benefits with which this experience has provided

me in terms of approaching future scholarly endeavors (particularly in regard to

singular/plural agreement within sentences and thoughts).


iii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments......................................................................................................... ii

Abstract........................................................................................................................ iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................v Chapter

I: Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Plot Synopsis ...........................................................................................................5

II: Application of Barba to the Text .............................................................................9 Theatrical Beginnings ............................................................................................11 Work with Odin Teatret .........................................................................................14 ISTA......................................................................................................................20 Relevance to The Romance of Erin.........................................................................22

III: The Performance Text and the Spectator..............................................................29 IV: The Production Process and Performance ............................................................50 V: Conclusion............................................................................................................73

Works Cited.................................................................................................................80 Appendices

A: Lighting Design (Inspirational Images) .................................................................82 B: Lighting Design (Light Lab Images)......................................................................83

C: Scenic Design .......................................................................................................84 D: Costume Renderings .............................................................................................85


iv

Abstract

In the fall semester of the 2006-2007 school year, I directed James McDermott�s

play, The Romance of Erin, as part of Texas Tech University�s Lab Theatre Season. I

directed the play in order to fulfill the requirements of the Department of Theatre and

Dance�s Master of Fine Arts in Performance and Pedagogy degree plan. I also directed

the play with the knowledge that it would be the subject of a thesis that would be an

additional requirement for the completion of my desired degree. What follows is the

thesis that resulted from my work as the director of The Romance of Erin.

In giving my account of my direction of McDermott�s script, I discuss my

preparations for directing it, an analysis of the script in terms of how I believed it could

be communicated to and received by an audience, and an account of the actual rehearsal

and production process that resulted. More specifically, I detail how I applied the

performance and directing concepts of Eugenio Barba in addressing the challenges with

which the script presented me in both the preparation and actual directing processes. I

also employ the idea of open and closed performances in Marco De Marinis�s essay,

�Dramaturgy of the Spectator,� in order to argue that the intention of Barba�s productions

is to invite a plurality of interpretations among spectators, and that The Romance of Erin

has the potential to also invite this plurality until its final scenes in which it explains itself

to the audience. Finally, I describe how I was able to integrate both the performance

techniques of Barba (who rejects �realism� on stage) with acting techniques associated

with the Method.


v

List of Figures

A.1: Dream World 1 .................................................................................................. 82 A.2: Dream World 2 .................................................................................................. 82 A.3: Hospital Ward.................................................................................................... 82 B.1: Light Lab Images 1 ............................................................................................ 83 B.2: Light Lab Images 2 ............................................................................................ 83 C.1: Ground Plan....................................................................................................... 84 D.1: Erin Act I ........................................................................................................... 85 D.2: Erin Act II.......................................................................................................... 85 D.3: Dr. Mackie......................................................................................................... 86 D.4: Nurse Rivers ...................................................................................................... 86 D.5: John Sr............................................................................................................... 87 D.6: John Jr. .............................................................................................................. 87 D.7: The Lover .......................................................................................................... 87


1

Chapter I

Introduction

In the fall semester of the 2006-2007 school year, I was given the opportunity to

direct an original script, The Romance of Erin, as part of Texas Tech University�s Lab

Theatre season. The play was written by James (Jim) McDermott, a Ph.D. student at

Texas Tech. I had been familiar with drafts of Jim�s play for nearly a year before its first

performance. I was excited to submit Jim�s script for production because it was unlike

anything on which I had previously worked. The plot of the script does not progress in a

manner which seems linear, and the objectives and natures of the characters shift

periodically for no apparent reason. I use the words �seems� and �apparent� in the

previous sentence because episodes and characters from this particular play can be

thought of as puzzle pieces that, once put together in the �correct� way, as explained at

the end of the script, can be understood as working together toward an understanding and

final resolution of the action. Still, because the puzzle pieces did not fit together nicely at

all up to the point of the explanation, there was no guarantee that audience members

would understand the play as Jim had intended. In fact, despite my having read the script

many times prior to our first rehearsal and putting together several read-

through/discussions of the script, I was still unsure of how to approach certain aspects of

the characters and plot.

Despite the fact that our production of The Romance of Erin was its original

production, Jim was not obsessed with it turning out precisely as he had imagined. He

said that this particular play was an �experiment� for him. I think that by referring to The

Romance of Erin as an �experiment,� Jim was saying that it was a structurally different


2

play from what he typically writes, and that he wanted to write something that would

challenge practitioners and audiences to a greater extent than he thought was typical in

the Texas Tech University theatre environment. He created this challenge and wanted to

see what others would do with it. Therefore, in our discussions prior to the production

process, Jim was helpful but not explanatory. He did not provide me with answers to my

questions about the plot or the characters; rather, he wanted to hear my thoughts and we

would discuss from there. It was easy to tell when we were on the same page, when he

had different ideas from mine, and when I pointed out things about his script that he had

not realized before. For the most part, when Jim did express ideas, they were offshoots

from what I had told him I was thinking about doing, and we would then continue to

evolve the ideas together. That is not to say that Jim did not have ideas about his own

text; he was just very good about letting go of the play and handing it over to someone

else�s control. He was very hands-off in the rehearsal process. He did some work with

actors on their singing and, of course, frequently presented us with minor re-writes. He

never told me that the production was not evolving into what he had wanted nor that we

should be working or focusing on particular aspects of the show or ways of doing things

other than the ones we devised. He was involved in casting and I was glad to have his

opinion. When we disagreed in the casting process, however, he never fought me for

final say. In short, I never worried that the production was not in my hands. I felt

confident that Jim had given me his script because he trusted me with it and that I could

approach it from any direction I chose and do with it what I thought was best.

Because the plot and characters in The Romance of Erin are difficult to follow in a

logical progression, I was unsure that the techniques of �realistic� acting with which I


3

had approached dramatic work in the majority of my previous experiences would be

adequate. The motivations and histories of the characters are hidden, ambiguous, and

inconsistent throughout much of the play. The characters are also often immersed in

situations and environments in which normal conceptions of realistic or believable

behavior are altered based on a particular character�s state of mind. I therefore decided

that an alternate approach would be desirable.

Eugenio Barba�s directing theory, with which I had recently become familiar,

seemed to be ideal for work on a non-realistic text. Barba writes that:

If one wants to relate a concrete experience which is not known to everyone, one must shun prefabricated definitions, the verbal networks which are only a parasitic imitation of the languages of other sciences and other learning. The exact languages of the sciences, when transposed in order to give the effect of concreteness or the appearance of seriousness to one�s own arguments, become a screen which is even more opaque than lyrical, suggestive, or emotive images. (Paper Canoe 41)

This statement illustrated for me the appeal and challenge of The Romance of Erin. The

play involves issues that had a profound impact on multiple generations of McDermott�s

family. But rather than telling a straight-forward story of immigration and mental illness,

he chose to reveal the conflict using the lyrical, suggestive, and emotive images of which

Barba speaks in order to give the story a greater depth of understanding. I will explain

the appeal and relevance of Eugenio Barba�s theory to my work on The Romance of Erin

in more detail in the following chapters.

Although I had decided to direct The Romance of Erin with Barba�s theory in

mind, I found that realistic acting techniques kept appearing and making themselves

useful in the rehearsal process. This was surprising to me, but upon reflection made

sense. I had believed that the jumbled nature of the play as represented by the metaphor


4

of the puzzle pieces would make it extremely difficult for the cast to employ Method

acting techniques. But, as I have mentioned before, McDermott, in the play�s final

scenes, explains to the audience (as well as the production team) what the puzzle should

look like once put together. The audience and production team still have the challenge of

putting the pieces together, but they have been given a lot of, and perhaps too much, help.

My primary goal in writing this thesis, then, is to demonstrate that because the

text of The Romance of Erin places the spectator in a position of being completely free to

interpret for the majority of the play and then suddenly constrains the number of valid

interpretations at the very end, it denies the audience as well as the production team the

creative and interpretive opportunities it had at first provided and at the same time allows

an integration of the directing concepts and goals of Eugenio Barba with the �realistic�

acting techniques he rejects. In chapter one I will provide an account of Barba�s career,

accomplishments and theories so that I can explain why his methods were applicable to

my direction of The Romance of Erin. The purpose of chapter two will be to demonstrate,

using Marco De Marinis�s idea of open and closed performances, how The Romance of

Erin invites a multiplicity of interpretations�congruent with the goal of Barba�s

productions�until its final explanatory scenes, in which it drastically reduces the number

of its �valid� interpretations. Chapter three will detail the production and rehearsal

processes and how Barba�s performance concepts and �realistic� acting techniques

coexisted.

In order for readers to follow the arguments presented in the following chapters, I

think it is crucial for them to have a basic familiarity with the characters and plot of The

Romance of Erin. The remainder of this introduction is devoted to supplying the reader


5

with this information. I have tried to keep the synopsis brief but have also attempted to

give the reader enough of a sense of how the play operates so that s/he can appreciate my

arguments.

Plot Synopsis

The Romance of Erin is a play in which the location of the action changes

according the characters� perception of reality. Scenes take place in a hospital mental

ward, in the Irish mythical past, and on Ellis Island. The script also calls for �thin

spaces� in the set where characters from a particular world or reality can look in on and

travel to other worlds. The play�s early focus is on the treatment of Erin (a disturbed

young woman whose identity is a mystery) by Dr. Mackie and Nurse Rivers. Erin at first

believes herself to be Niam of the Golden Hair, a character from Irish mythology. Erin

understands Rivers to be her nurse in the sense of a woman who attends to a young lady.

She believes that Mackie is her father and also a character from Irish mythology. Her

main desire is to find her way to Tir na nOg (the land of forever young) so that she can be

reunited with her lover. Mackie and Rivers decide to engage in cognitive behavioral role

playing with Erin as part of her treatment and in doing so they indulge her fantasies.

Rivers agrees to transform herself and Erin into birds so that they can make the journey to

the dream world that Erin has constructed.

Erin cannot find her lover in the dream world, and when Rivers summons him, he

is accompanied by John Sr. and John Jr., who provide a menacing presence as they mock

Erin and the Lover and claim that Erin is their property. After Rivers takes control of the

session, Mackie escapes to his office where he begins drinking from a hidden bottle and

commenting on the action as though he were still there himself and able to observe. The


6

Lover does not recognize Erin at first, but once the Johns leave he asks her to stay with

him. Rivers decides to end the session at this point and forces Erin to return to the mental

ward.

Upon their return, Rivers confronts Mackie about abandoning her in the middle of

a dangerous session. The Johns appear in the ward and demand that Mackie, as Erin�s

father, hand her over to them as he had promised. Mackie refuses, and although Erin

does not wish to go with the Johns, she becomes angry at Mackie for keeping her to

himself. The Johns leave and threaten that the next time they come there will be violence.

Erin panics and is desperate to escape to the Lover. Rivers sedates Erin, and as she falls

asleep, the Lover comes to watch over her.

Erin and the Lover awake in the dream world as John Sr. sings The Bells of St.

Stephens, an ominous song about war and despair, from a thin space. As they anticipate

the arrival of the Johns, Erin senses the Lover�s fear. He gives her his necklace on which

is a set of stones he collected from the four green fields so that she will be protected. The

Johns finally arrive and beat the Lover to the point of death. Rivers attempts to calm Erin

who is trying to heal the Lover with the stones. Mackie is of no help and is now openly

drinking in front of Rivers. Rivers decides that it is time to call all of the characters

together for a group session. It appears that Mackie is now another patient.

During the group session, Rivers confronts Mackie about his drinking. Mackie

tells Rivers that she coddles Erin too much. The Lover asks that everyone admit that they

are all caught in a cycle and that they should all commit to changing for Erin�s good. The

Johns continue to express their desire to take Erin and thereby reclaim their property.

The Lover then asks Erin to explain where the scars on her wrist came from. She says


7

she does not know. The Johns deny ever hurting her. Mackie then breaks down and

confesses that he is afraid that it was he. The other characters leave Mackie sobbing in

the bed.

When Mackie wakes up, he is told that they are on Ellis Island and that Erin has

become ill from the trip over the sea. The Johns at this point begin referring to Erin as

�Mother.� Once Erin is feeling a little better, the Johns decide to have ceili (an Irish

celebration with music and dancing) in honor of her trip to America. One by one, the

characters fall out of the dance until only Erin is left. She panics when she realizes that

she is dancing alone, and despite the encouragement of the others, she collapses. The

Lover leaves Erin after her collapse, and she lashes out at the Johns for bringing her to

this place and then not knowing what to do with her. Rivers helps Erin away from the

scene and the Johns inform Mackie that it is time for him to face the truth. They inform

him that John Sr. is his grandfather and John Jr. is his father. They tell him that he needs

to move on and get out of the fantasies he has constructed of the past. Mackie blames

them for his problems because they were never willing to talk about or deal with the

unpleasant events of the family�s history.

Erin returns and tells Mackie that she wants to tell him her story. John Sr.

protests but is persuaded to leave. Erin then reveals to Mackie that she is his

grandmother. She tells the story of how she immigrated with her husband to America but

that he could not let go of the old country. He left her alone for long periods of time with

their child. She began to suffer periods of mental instability, as Mackie does in the

present, and at such times she would physically fight with her husband. After a

particularly bad fight, she jumped from a high window and killed herself. The fantasies


8

that Mackie has been trapped in represent fairy-tale versions of the past handed down to

him by his father and grandfather. As Erin tells her story, she begins to relive it in front

of Mackie. At the point when she is about to jump he stops her, thereby symbolically

coming to terms with his family�s past making it possible for himself to begin moving

forward.


9

Chapter II

Application of Barba to the Text

In order to explain the relevance of Eugenio Barba�s theory to my work on The

Romance of Erin, it is first necessary to provide an overview of that theory as well as

some details regarding Barba�s theatrical career, methods, interests, and accomplishments.

This overview will cover Barba�s theatrical beginnings, his work and methods with Odin

Teatret, and the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA). Barba�s work is

the result of a search for an answer to the question that has been with him from the

beginning of his career: �Why, when I see two actors doing the same thing, I get

fascinated by one and not by the other?� (qtd. in Watson 164). My accounts of Barba�s

theatrical beginnings, his work with Odin Teatret, and with ISTA are given with this

question in mind.

In answering the question, Barba determined several principles or characteristics

of performance that he believes capture the eye of the spectator. He speaks of these

principles as existing at the �pre-expressive� level, which is the �level at which the actor

engages his own energies according to an extra-daily behavior, modeling his �presence�

in front of the spectator� (Barba, �Eurasian Theatre� 220). Barba also believes that these

principles transcend cultures and traditions explaining that �At this pre-expressive level,

the principles are the same, even though they nurture the enormous expressive

differences which exist between one tradition and another, one actor and another� (220).

There are three main principles that govern the pre-expressive level of performance:

alterations in balance, the law of opposition, and coherence[BM1] and incoherence (Watson

33). Ian Watson states that the first two principles mainly have to do with altering the


10

performer�s center of gravity, normal balance, and transfer of weight and energy. He

writes that �Most daily body techniques tend to a point of inertia which demands a

minimum expenditure of energy . . . Codified forms, on the other hand, distort this

normal equilibrium, calling on the performer to engage additional energy in order to

move, remain still, or even merely to retain balance� (33). Codified forms can be

understood as techniques of extra-daily behavior with established interpretive guidelines

such as ballet, noh theatre, and kathakali. An example then of Barba�s belief in the

principle of opposition is his observation that across codified forms, �for the actor, every

impulse must always be met with a counter-impulse� (De Marinis 110). In other words,

if the performer is to move to her left, she must first make a slight move to her right; if

she is to jump, she must first bend slightly downward. The principle of coherent and

incoherence [sic] calls for consistency of logic in a performance code, regardless of how

removed it is from the logic of daily behavior (33). Marco De Marinis identifies the

additional characteristic of the principle of simplification, which is the omission of some

elements in order to promote other elements which thus appear essential. (110). While

the idea of the pre-expressive itself was not essential to my direction of The Romance of

Erin, the performance and directing theory and techniques, the idea of extra-daily

behavior, and the wisdom that Barba developed through his study of the pre-expressive

were. Therefore I discuss the pre-expressive level of performance because an

understanding of it is necessary to a discussion of Barba�s theatrical beginnings, his work

with Odin Teatret, his work with ISTA, and his writings.


11

Theatrical Beginnings

As a young man in Italy, Barba was attuned to the effects that participating in

activities of group consciousness can have on individuals. In The Paper Canoe Barba

describes his experiences within �the culture of faith� and �the culture of corrosion� (2-3).

Barba describes the culture of faith within a religious context. In the activities performed

in unison during the Catholic mass, Barba felt his individual senses being stimulated, thus

creating within him a profound self-awareness. He describes this heightened state saying,

�I have an image of myself in the culture of faith: singing, or not singing, but involved

with my whole being, on my own but nevertheless in unison with a group, amid singing

women, lights, incense, colors� (3). It was in this culture of faith, through the imagery

and moments of intensity within the mass, that Barba learned to see �moments of truth�

where �opposites embrace each other� such as in his example of being able to see the

young girl still present in his aged grandmother as she brushed her hair in front of the

mirror (2-3).

Barba experienced the culture of corrosion in military school as an adolescent.

Instead of creating a heightened sense of the individual in the course of communal

activity, Barba says that the result of the culture of corrosion was �an impassive and

immobile me, lined up geometrically with dozens of my peers . . . This time the group

swallowed me up� (3). The bitterness that was created within him by his experiences in

the culture of corrosion caused Barba to become disenchanted with belonging to any kind

of group. He decided to leave Italy, travel the world, and forever be an outsider. After

earning his baccalaureate in Italy at the age of seventeen, he immigrated to Norway,

where he worked as a welder in a tin factory for a year and then on a boat for two years.


12

It was, according to Barba, his experiences as an immigrant that provided him with his

earliest training as a director:

The need to decipher other people�s attitudes towards me was a daily necessity which kept all my senses alert and made me quick to perceive the slightest impulse, any unwitting reaction, the �life� which flowed through the smallest tensions, and which took on for me, attentive observer that I was, special meanings and purposes. During my journey as an immigrant, I forged the tools for my future profession as a theatre director, someone who alertly scrutinizes the performer�s every action. (Barba, Paper Canoe 4)

It was not, however, until after he earned degrees in Norwegian and French letters as well

as Comparative Religion that he decided to �take up theatre� (Hagested 55).

In taking up theatre Barba became an apprentice to Jerzy Grotowski, with whom

he spent three years in Opole, Poland. Barba describes this time as a �period of

transition� in theatre. He says that �At first, Grotowski and his actors were part of the

traditional system and the professional categories of their time. Then, slowly, the

gestation of new meaning began, through technical procedures� (Barba, Paper Canoe 5).

Witnessing this period of transition where meanings are created and culture is produced,

Barba realized that he himself was �. . . learning to be in transition. Today I know that

this is not a search for knowledge, but for the unknown� (5).

Ian Watson believes that Barba was influenced by Grotowski in several ways, but

that it did not take Barba very long to find his own methods and procedures. Grotowski

says of Barba that �From the example of the Polish Laboratory Theatre probably he saw

the possibility of highly precise technical work. But from the very beginning he

developed his own technical skills which evolved in a direction different from the Polish

Laboratory Theater� (qtd. in Watson 132). Barba says of Grotowski that �If there is one

man I consider my master it is Grotowski. He brought me into the profession, and I have


13

great respect for what he�s doing . . . You go on being a disciple as long as you

acknowledge that the master still has something to give you, can still stir the development

of your personality toward a greater autonomy� (Hagested 55).

Watson states that the work of the two artists have several similarities, such as the

rejection of linear narrativity, the importance of choreographed physical and vocal scores,

limiting the number of spectators to a small number, structuring the actor-audience

relationship differently for each production, and minimal use of lighting and recorded

sound (132). He also states that Barba installed many of the same acrobatic and

gymnastic training exercises at Odin Teatret that he had observed at the Polish

Laboratory Theatre, but that the company immediately began modifying and creating

their own training regimen (43). Differences that Watson cites between the work of the

two directors includes a greater emphasis on improvisation for Barba, the way in which

Barba creates performance texts from the improvisations of all his actors, and Barba�s

greater insistence on the duality of the actor who is �simply both the actor and the

character� while for Grotowski �the role is the means by which the actor reveals his/her

inner self to the audience� (133).

Watson asserts that not only was Grotowski important to Barba�s development as

a director, but that Barba was instrumental in gaining interest and recognition for

Grotowski�s work. Watson points out that at the time of Barba�s arrival in Poland,

Grotowski worked in isolation and with little recognition. Barba devised and carried out

a promotional strategy which included publishing material about Grotowski�s work in the

West, conducting interviews with Grotowski and having them printed in publications

such as The Tulane Drama Review, inviting influential people from the West to see


14

Grotowski�s work, and arranging with the Polish government for Grotowski and a few

members from his company to be allowed to give lectures and demonstrations in the

West (15-16). Even after returning to Norway, Barba continued to promote Grotowski�s

work. This promotional experience was no doubt very helpful to Barba in Odin Teatret�s

early years.

Barba, it seems, developed a clear idea of the kind of theatre he wanted to be a

part of during his time with Grotowski. Watson suggests that �Barba�s rejection of

realism and his preference for presentational theatre . . . owe a great deal to his time with

Grotowski� (16). Aside from his promotional work, Barba�s main role at the Polish

Laboratory Theatre was as an observer. These observations, together with his interest in

the sensations of being involved in the communal ritual of the culture of faith and the

skills of interpreting gesture and inflection acquired from his experiences as an immigrant,

would shape his conception of the pre-expressive level of performance�those principles

which capture the spectator�s eye in performance.

Work with Odin Teatret

It is clear that Barba was influenced by Grotowksi as well as inspired by him to

create his own meanings. To do this, Barba required his own theatre with his own

company of actors. He accomplished this shortly after returning to Norway from Poland.

He found that in Norway he could not get professional actors to work with an unknown

such as himself (Carreri 53). He says, �I got involved with some young people who, like

me, were intent upon doing theatre but had no access to official channels; they had been

rejected at the conservatory auditions� (Hagested 55). With these young, inexperienced

actors Barba founded Odin Teatret in 1964. Torunn Kjølner characterizes the recruitment


15

of these actors as both brave and farsighted. Brave because in doing so he challenged the

monopoly on actor training by the state run Statens Teaterskole, and farsighted because

these actors, in pursuing theatre even after being rejected, �obviously had a love of

theatre to invest in their work� (181). In 1966 he moved the company to Holstebro,

Denmark, where it has resided ever since. Of his original eleven actors, only two (Else

Marie Laukvik and Torgeir Wethal) made the move to Holstebro, where they would

become his closest collaborators (Hagested 55).

Initially, training at Odin Teatret was designed with an eye to the acquisition of

skills, and was thus seemingly product oriented. There was an emphasis on acrobatics in

the first years of training. This was neither solely due to Grotowski�s influence, nor to a

specific focus on improving performance skills. Rather, Barba believed that acrobatic

training was ideal because of �the psychological benefit of setting them a difficult task

which they could master reasonably quickly� (Watson 44). Gradually, actors began

identifying their own strengths, weaknesses, and areas of interest. The result was a shift

from group training to training in which individuals used improvisation to explore on

their own. The advancement to autonomous training was an important step in the

evolution of Odin�s actors as Barba believes that training is �a process of self-definition�

(qtd. in Mitter, Shevtsova 129). As this transition became permanent, Barba removed

himself from the training process, which enabled him to devote time to his own interests

(Watson 50-53).

While actors at Odin are free to explore and create in both the training and

rehearsal processes, Barba is convinced that �performers should identify the principles

underlying the pre-expressive and make these the basis of their training and


16

performances� (Watson 35). Training at Odin is truly a process-oriented program

designed to teach Barba�s principles of pre-expressivity so that actors can learn to use

them precisely and then build upon them for a personal method of creation. This is

evident in Roberta Carreri�s account of her training at Odin:

I have experienced three different seasons in my actor training . . . the aim of the first season was to discover my presence as an actor, and to free my body from the automatisms of daily life. The second season began when I started to develop my individual training, creating personal principles . . . In the third season, my training was the space in which I started to develop physical scores that already had a dramaturgical cohesion. (Carreri 53)

Carreri, like all Odin actors, learned to discard daily (realistic) behavior in performance

in favor of extra-daily behavior and the principles of the pre-expressive. From there she

was able to explore these principles on her own and create new ones leading to the

production of �physical scores� in the form of improvisations and characters that could

be repeated such as her creation, Geronimo. These principles are applied in all of Odin�s

work, even, as is shown later in this chapter, with a �naturalistic� text such as A Doll�s

House.

Vocal training and physical training, though valued equally at Odin Teatret, have

always been conducted independently of each other so that neither one can drown out the

other (Watson 41). What is important to know about training at Odin is that explorations

of rhythms, impulses, emotions, tensions, balance, and so on, are more important than

naturalism. For example, Iben Nagel Rasmussen, a long time actor with Odin,

�attempted to explore the relationship between expression and reception by focusing on

the emotional and musical potential of the voice, rather than on words as signifiers which

limits them to their need to specify meaning� (Watson 66). This experimentation with


17

expression independent of understood signifiers has extended to performance at Odin.

Odin has created made-up languages for productions such as in Min Fars Hus (1972).

Watson explains that �the musical quality of text and its relation to themes is more

important than how appropriate text is as dialogue that explains physical action as a part

of a narrative� (89). Carreri�s vocal experiments are also an example of an actor giving

an extra-daily quality to performance.

Productions have evolved at Odin just as training has. The first three productions

Barba directed, Ornitofiline (1965-66), Kaspariana (1967-68), and Ferai (1969-70), were

rehearsed using a �deconstructive/reconstructive process similar to that of Richard

Schechner�s work with the Performance Group� (Watson 75). Barba and his actors

would use scripts and scenarios as jumping off points for improvisations that would result

in a final product unconcerned with the vision or purpose that the playwright had

intended. Subsequent productions have not been derived from already existing texts.

Rather, Barba selects a theme or set of themes around which he would like to form a

production and creates a scrapbook of collected materials such as newspaper clippings,

poems, stories, pictures, and so on that he feels are relevant to that theme. He then opens

a dialogue with his actors about these themes and uses his scrapbook in order to get them

started. The actors then individually create improvisations based on the themes and the

scrapbook (77). Physical and vocal improvisations are still done separately. Barba

critiques the improvisations and provides suggestions. The actors continue to refine the

improvisation until they, as well as Barba, are happy with them and until they can be

repeated at will without the actor having to even think about it (80). Barba then puts the

individual improvisations, both physical and vocal, as well as original musical elements


18

into ordered scenes that create a performance text. All these different elements must then

be refined collaboratively so that they complement and enhance each other. This last

phase is referred to as the montage phase of rehearsals (87). The scenes are not causally

connected, so Barba experiments with putting them in different places until he is satisfied

that they are arranged properly. Barba�s productions reject linear narrative, and,

according to Watson, Barba �maintains that dramaturgy should reflect the quality of any

living organism by being a dialectic between order and disorder� (96).

In recent years it seems that members of Odin have returned to using existing

texts as jumping off points for their own improvisations. Elin Andersen describes

Torgeir Wethal and Roberta Carreri�s work with the last lines of A Doll�s House saying:

They work close to the text and as a rule closer than is usually the custom in Odin Teatret. But they insert a metaphor between themselves and the text, an image that they can transform directly into a physical action on which they can continue to work. The metaphor springs from the text, the text is reconnected to the action, and new actions for the text appear in this exchange. (Andersen 97)

Klaus Hoffmeyer, a Danish director, has also observed Odin actors working with a text.

He remarks on Tage Larsen and Julia Varley�s exploration of Othello:

Through seemingly irrelevant physical gestures accompanying the text, they were able to eliminate a great many of the problems that I would have had to face, confronted with the usual psychological approach. With Odin, there was no previous analysis, no intellectual starting point�there was a kind of innocent jumping into action, which might save a lot of time spent on dry discussions about �why� and �what.� (Hoffmeyer 102)

Hoffmeyer goes on to say that television has made society dependent on rationality,

coherence, and immediate recognition (105). What seems apparent from the accounts of

Andersen and Hoffmeyer is that Odin Teatret�s actors have developed techniques that

allow them to quickly establish personal ways of getting inside a text and responding to it


19

so that it seems to speak in new ways. These performances are not meant to coincide

with preconceived interpretations of commonly known materials or to come across

logically (according to daily behavior) and be received in a predictable fashion by

spectators.

Most of the time Barba provides the actors with the themes to be worked on, but

sometimes actors bring to him issues and events that they would like to explore through

performance. One example of such a project was Iben Nagel Rasmussen�s performance,

Itsi Bitsi (1996), which was an autobiographical piece that combines her performance life

with her experiences with a lover who has since committed suicide. Because

performance texts are a montage of improvisations created by individual actors, choices

regarding scenery, costuming, and props are made as a group during the rehearsal process

(Watson 91). The autonomy of the actors creates a sense at Odin that they are not merely

employed by the company, but rather that they are the company (31). And because each

actor has developed her/his own training and rehearsal process, it is difficult to

characterize the Odin Teatret actor. As Kjølner puts it, �To talk about one way of using

the voice and one way of approaching the text in Odin Teatret today would lead us

astray� (185).

Barba characterizes the work that takes place at Odin Teatret as belonging to the

�Third Theatre.� He defines the third theatre in terms of what it is not. He argues that it

neither belongs to the institutionalized theatre that is �protected and subsidized because

of the cultural values that it seems to transmit,� nor the avant-garde theatre that is �in

search of a new originality, defended in the name of necessity to transcend tradition, and

open to novelty in the artistic field and within society� (qtd. in Watson 19). Watson


20

points out that in defining the third theatre in terms of what it is not, Barba has been

criticized in failing to define what the third theatre actually is. Watson does, however,

identify characteristics of the third theatre such as the importance of relationships within

the group, relationships to other third theatre groups, relationship with the audience, and

perhaps most importantly, the observation that �in the third theatre there is no difference

between a personal and professional life, since how theatre is made takes precedence over

what is produced� (21). Barba himself characterizes the third theatre by saying that �the

essential character of the Third Theatre is the autonomous construction of meaning which

does not recognize the boundaries assigned to our craft by the surrounding culture� (qtd.

in Watson 20). The autonomy that Barba speaks of refers both to the autonomy of the

group from expectations and limitations that he argues exist within the institutionalized

and avant-garde theatres, as well as the autonomy that exists within the group, as

discussed above.

ISTA

Barba founded the International School of Theatre Anthropology in 1979 as an

�intercultural and interdisciplinary theatre laboratory to serve as an intermittent and

mobile complement to his more constant pursuits in Odin Teatret� (Risum, 222). The

aim of ISTA has been to teach and compare the basics of various performance traditions

(222). Barba has defined theatre anthropology as �the study of human beings� socio-

cultural and physiological behavior in a performance situation� (qtd. in Watson 165). He

also maintains that theatre anthropology is not a science, but rather �serves to analyze and

inform performance� (Watson 165). In his study of theatre anthropology, Barba brings

together masters of a wide range of performance traditions in order to search for pre-


21

expressive similarities. Watson believes that this �concern with aspects of performance

that underlie expression� is what makes Barba and the work done at ISTA gatherings

different from the work of scholars and practitioners such as Richard Schechner, Irving

Goffman, Peter Brook, and others who were making connections between theatre and

anthropology at the same time (170). It is important to point out that Barba is not seeking

to discover universals in terms of what cultures express in performance, but rather the

common principles that shape the way a performer uses her/his body as dictated by

biological and physiological commonalities that all human beings share (171).

One method of exploring and sharing principles of performance that underlie

cultural expression employed at ISTA gatherings and also sometimes by Odin Teatret

actors when they travel to various parts of the world is barter. In theatrical barter,

performers perform in exchange for performance instead of for money. For example,

when performing in villages in South America or Italy, Odin Teatret would ask their

audience to share their local performance traditions as payment. At ISTA gatherings

barter exchanges culminate in a series of performances for the public called Theatrum

Mundi in which forms are combined to �produce an intercultural spectacle under Barba�s

direction� (153).

It seems, then, that Barba applies the principles of the pre-expressive levels of

performance in his work with Odin Teatret, whereas during ISTA gatherings he

endeavors to explore, discover, and share these principles. The way in which Barba goes

about discovering and sharing his pre-expressive principles is not without criticism,

however, and it is surprising that one of the most cherished characteristics of work at

Odin Teatret�the emphasis on individual discovery�is what work at ISTA gatherings is


22

criticized for lacking. Janne Risum writes that �by its very design ISTA reflects

[Barba�s] views� (222), and goes on to say of ISTA that �some idealize it, others

demonize it or question Barba�s intellectual property right to the notion of theatre

anthropology� (226). Phillip Zarrilli is one scholar who has been critical of Barba. He

states that:

I find myself stimulated by the issues which Barba probes, but troubled by the lack of reflexivity in his workshops and writing . . . Instead of getting a portrait of �performance,� what we get is Barba�s own construction of his own view of performance through the Others [i.e., Asian performers] he studies . . . Barba�s voice remains single, essential, comprehensive, and authoritarian. (qtd. in Watson 167-169)

Whether or not Zarrilli�s complaints are valid (Barba has defended himself against them),

others have pointed out the benefits that ISTA gatherings have provided them.

Ferdinando Taviani, for example, has praised ISTA for providing an atmosphere in which

theatre practitioners and scholars can work together as they research common principles

(Watson 172).

Relevance to The Romance of Erin

When confronted with the challenge of directing The Romance of Erin, I was at

first paralyzed by a need for meaning�perhaps a victim of Kjølner�s previously stated

effects of television on society. I was reading and re-reading a script that contained

characters that periodically shifted identities as well as functions, Irish symbols and codes

that would not be familiar to the audience I envisioned at a university production, and

story lines that went in and out of Irish myths and legends that 1) seemed to have little to

do with the main story line even after the �true� identities of the characters were revealed,

2) were unfamiliar to me, and 3) had been combined and manipulated by the playwright


23

so that researching them was not very helpful. While the play was appealing to me

because it was unlike anything I had ever worked on previously, as the reality of its

production sank in, it seemed that the likelihood of �failure� (in the sense of the audience

not being able to interpret, appreciate, or even determine some relevance of the

production) was high. I also feared that cast members, designers, and other production

team members would expect that I have all the answers to their questions as they went

about their work of transmitting meaning. It seemed that I must know ahead of time, or

at least determine with collaborators early in the process, all the meanings that were

imperative to the script�s �proper� production.

It was at about this time that I read a book and an article by Eugenio Barba.

These two works, The Paper Canoe and �Eurasian Theatre,� respectively, changed my

approach to the script and my direction of it. Barba was describing concerns exactly like

mine and calling them unnecessary. He was describing characters and storylines like

those found in The Romance of Erin and explaining what must be done to make them full,

vibrant, and meaningful. In the remainder of this chapter I will make connections

between the concerns stated above and specific passages from Barba�s two works that

inspired me.

The concern that all collaborators working on the production would require a

unified vision and comprehension of meanings of the script was perhaps the most

unnecessary of my worries. It is, however, a concern that Barba believes is widespread

and actually harmful to a script�s potential for satisfying a diverse range of spectators.

He writes in The Paper Canoe that:


24

Theatre artists, obliged to create in a way which nearly always involves the collaboration of many individuals, are often impelled by a fetishism for meanings, by the need to agree at the outset on the results to be achieved . . . The collaboration is thereby jeopardized as the director seeks to eliminate the distance which separates her/him from the performer. The director demands too much, and in reality, too little. S/he demands a consensus, an agreement about intentions, a meeting on the surface. (87-88).

An over-zealous commitment to a predetermined meaning to be transmitted by a

production stifles not only the script, but also the creative process of actors in rehearsals,

designers in their work, the spectators in the process of active reception, and the director

her/himself. This notion, of course, is not held uniquely by Barba. Anne Bogart, for

example, writes in A Director Prepares that �most artists would agree that their work

does not proceed from an idea of what the finished product will be; rather it emerges out

of a passionate excitement about the subject matter� (58). Despite this consensus, my

encounter with Barba was timed in a way that the message began to sink in for me. I also

believe that for many young directors, the lesson of trusting their ability, their

preparations, the process, and the surrounding talent is not truly learned until experienced

with actual actors and designers in a production setting.

Barba�s writing also spoke to my concerns regarding shifting identities and

functions of characters. The character of Erin, for example, shifts from a suicidal patient

under full-time psychiatric care, to the mythological Irish character�Niam of the Golden

Hair�with whom the psychiatric patient identifies, to an immigrant on Ellis Island

suffering through menopause, to her final �true� identity as Dr. Mackie�s grandmother

who did commit suicide years before he was even born. Erin also goes from being the

main object of the play to a secondary object when it is revealed that she is an illusion of

Dr. Mackie�s. The other characters in the play go through transformations as well. In


25

readings of the script prior to casting and rehearsals, participants had a very difficult time

following these transformations, identifying the reasons for them, and in the end realizing

what had happened and who was who. Interpretations varied, I was not confident in a

�correct� interpretation myself, and the playwright did not wish to provide answers.

Barba writes in �Eurasian Theatre� that it is �only the Western public which is not

accustomed to leaping from one character to another in the company of the same actor�

(222). I should point out that Barba makes a distinction between the public and

individual spectators. He defines the public as ordaining �success or failure; that is,

something which has to do with breadth,� whereas �spectators, in their uniqueness,

determine that which has to do with depth�they determine to what extent the

performance has taken root in certain individual memories� (�Four Spectators� 96). I

certainly wanted the play to resonate with more than a few spectators, and I was

concerned about the ability of the general audience to be able to follow the characters and

the story.

What was helpful to me was Barba�s description of the nature of the character

work that he enjoys engaging in, saying:

The actor does not remain yoked to the plot, does not interpret a text, but creates a context, moves around within the events. At times the actor lets these events carry him, at times he carries them, other times he separates himself from them, comments on them, rises above them, attacks them, refuses them, follows new associations, and/or leaps to other stories. The narrative is shattered through constantly changing the point of view . . . (�Eurasian Theatre� 221)

Because the characters in The Romance of Erin engage in all of the activities listed above,

it seemed that there was no reason that the actors should not do the same. In fact, it

would be essential that they do engage in all of those activities. It became clear that


26

approaching the characters with any sense of unity or consistency would not work for

very long, and that it would not reflect their varying dimensions from moment to moment.

When Barba speaks of shattering the narrative �through constantly changing the

point of view� (�Eurasian Theatre 222), the changing nature of Erin and her point of view,

the shift to an understanding that these are Dr. Mackie�s delusions, and the changing

locations of the action seem particularly relevant. The action of The Romance of Erin,

like Barba�s work, is not linear. Rather, there are a series of episodes which lead to a

climax and resolution. While I do believe that the episodes are arranged in the most

logical order, I do not think that the play could not work were they rearranged somewhat.

For example, if Dr. Mackie were confronted by John Sr. and John Jr. regarding their

identities as his grandfather and father before he admitted that he was not in charge of the

situation and that he had been the one hurting Erin, it would not make less sense or cease

to be playable by the actors. It would, however, create more conflict in the characters

and for the audience.

Barba�s writing was helpful to me in preparing for obstacles such as the Irish

codes, symbols, and intertwining myths in The Romance of Erin. He writes that �It is

only the Western public which is not accustomed to . . . entering into a relationship with

someone whose language it cannot easily decipher� (Eurasian Theatre� 222). I am

extending language here beyond the spoken word to cultural signs and codes such as the

healing stones and the four green fields that are so important to McDermott�s characters.

It was clear that no matter how informed I or anyone in the cast became about these

things, there was no way to educate the audience so that they could immediately

recognize and interpret them in the moment of encounter. The information provided by


27

the dramaturg was interesting and informative, but it was up to the actors to provide their

actions with significance. Barba�s writing further helped to clarify my directorial

objectives stating that:

What the theatre says in words is not really very important. What counts is to disclose the relationships, to show at one and the same time the surface of the actions and their internal parts, the forces which are at work and in opposition, the way in which the actions are divided into their polarities, the way in which they are executed, the ways in which they are endured. (Paper Canoe 95)

This disclosure of relationships, exploration of the opposing forces at work on the

characters, both internally and externally, became my focus and objective as the director

going into the rehearsal process. This was not done for the purpose of sending a

predetermined message, but rather for its own sake, allowing effects to develop on their

own.

I do not wish to seem to argue that The Romance of Erin is a script that is similar

to the work Barba has produced or that it would be an appealing script to him. As I stated

earlier, Barba is more interested in exploring themes than scripts. Whether or not he

would be interested in exploring the themes of The Romance of Erin I cannot know. I

merely mean to suggest that much of the directing theory and advice given in the The

Paper Canoe and �Eurasian Theatre� were particularly relevant to the challenges I saw in

directing The Romance of Erin, and that certain characteristics of the The Romance of

Erin�changing characters, a non-linear plot, and a rejection of the logic of realism, for

example�seemed to be in line with what he was describing. He writes in The Paper

Canoe that:

If one wants to relate a concrete experience which is not known to everyone, one must shun prefabricated definitions, the verbal networks which are only a parasitic imitation of the languages of other sciences and other learning. The


28

exact languages of the sciences, when transposed in order to give the effect of concreteness or the appearance of seriousness to one�s own arguments, becomes a screen which is even more opaque than lyrical, suggestive, or emotive images. (41)

It is through such lyrical, suggestive, and emotive images that McDermott was trying to

relate an experience that was real and meaningful to him. It is precisely these images,

employed with and through an extensive use of the metaphors of the Irish mythological

past, that make the script a challenge for performers and spectators to comprehend as a

whole. But Barba maintains that �It is impossible not to use metaphors. To do so would

be to renounce the transmission of experience� (138).

I also do not want the reader to believe that I went into production meetings or

rehearsals without any kind of plan, or that Barba advocates such an approach. I had

ideas as to how I wanted the play to look on stage, ideas of how to explore the

relationships and conflicts of the play, and particular aspects of the script that I thought

were important to emphasize. A detailed account of my directorial objectives, how the

production evolved throughout the rehearsal process, Barba�s influence on the production

process, and the results of that process will be given in chapter three. Before doing this,

though, I would like in the next chapter to further discuss the nature of the text of The

Romance of Erin, what that nature means in terms of audience reception and

interpretation, and then compare my findings with analysis of the interpretive reception

of Barba�s productions. This will further explain Barba�s influence on my direction of

The Romance of Erin.


29

Chapter III

The Performance Text and the Spectator

In chapter one I explained why Eugenio Barba�s theory seemed to speak to my

concerns as I prepared to direct The Romance of Erin. I also stated that even though

Barba�s writings were valuable for work on a text like The Romance of Erin, it is unlikely

that a production of the text would resemble a production directed by Barba, or that

Barba himself would be interested in producing this particular play. In this chapter I will

discuss how I believed the text of The Romance of Erin should communicate and be

received by the audience and how that reception is related to Barba�s goals for the

reception of his production work. This will, I believe, further justify Barba�s influence

on my direction of The Romance of Erin. I will use the theory in Marco De Marinis�s

article �Dramaturgy of the Spectator� as a tool and reference point in making

dramaturgical comparisons between the nature and communicative potential of Barba�s

performance texts and the performance text that I envisioned and created from The

Romance of Erin. De Marinis�s article is particularly useful and applicable because he

references Barba�s work with Odin Teatret in making his arguments. The understanding

of the dramaturgical similarities and differences between Barba�s work and the text of

The Romance of Erin that should result from this application will be beneficial to the

reader in chapter three, which discusses how Barba�s writings were useful to me in the

rehearsal process, in what areas they were not useful to me, and how the text�s

dramaturgical nature determined the methods employed in the rehearsal and production

processes.


30

At this time it may be advisable for the reader, if s/he feels it necessary, to review

the synopsis of The Romance of Erin provided in the introduction so that the following

argument can be followed more easily. It is also now important to make the distinction

between a text and a performance text. De Marinis defines the performance text as going

beyond the dramatic, literary text. Rather, the performance text �is conceived of as a

complex network of different types of signs, expressive means, or actions, coming back

to the etymology of the word �text� which implies the idea of a texture, something woven

together� (De Marinis 100). In other words, the performance text is what the literary text

is transformed into once the various production choices and elements are enacted. When

I refer to the performance text of The Romance of Erin throughout this chapter, I am

referring to the type of performance text that I envisioned in my preparations based on

the impressions made on me by the text. Also, as I write this chapter after the completion

of the text�s production, I cannot help but have the performance text that resulted in mind.

De Marinis�s aim in �Dramaturgy of the Spectator� is to point out that there are

two modes of reception that a spectator can be in when receiving a performance text: the

active (subjective) mode and the passive (objective) mode (100-101). He states that the

spectator takes on a passive role when s/he is conceived of as �a dramaturgical object, a

mark or target for the actions/operations of the director, the performers, and if there is

one, the writer� (101). The spectator is involved actively when s/he engages in activities

such as �perception, interpretation, aesthetic appreciation, memorization, emotive and

intellectual response, etc.� De Marinis goes on to say that these actions, when carried out

by the spectator, should be considered dramaturgical because �it is only through these


31

actions that the performance text achieves its fullness, becoming realized in all its

semantic and communicative potential� (101).

When referring to active and passive modes of reception, one is speaking of

degrees of autonomy. De Marinis writes that:

An active dramaturgy of the spectator means his/her understanding of the performance is not a mechanical procedure that is predetermined�by the performance and its producers�but rather as a task the spectator carries out in relative independence, or, as Franco Ruffini has recently suggested, in conditions of �controlled creative autonomy.� (101)

So while the director, actors, and designers have a function in shaping reception, the

active spectator has a degree of autonomy in shaping that reception as well. In chapter

one I explained how important the autonomy of the actors is in the training and

productions that take place at Odin Teatret. Barba also identifies the independence of the

spectator as being a goal of his productions. He states that �The people who attend our

performances are actually speaking of themselves when they speak of the production.

Those who talk about �religious resonances� are referring to religious depths within

themselves that they refuse to recognize, and which they project onto our productions�

(Hagested 56). Barba and his company provide the audience with material that they may

then interpret based on their own perceptions and predispositions.

De Marinis argues for a relative autonomy of the spectator. He states that it is not

possible to cause the spectator to take on a completely active or passive role, saying,

�only in theory can the passive (objective) and active (subjective) dramaturgies of the

spectator be separated� (101). He therefore warns against both constraining spectators�

interpretive processes too much and allowing them total freedom. He believes that a

balance between constraint and freedom for the audience �is the essence of the aesthetic


32

experience and the source of its vitality� (De Marinis 101). The result of the balance

between constraint and freedom, active and passive reception, is the condition necessary

for the �Model Spectator,� who is the ideal spectator for a given performance (103).

In explaining his idea of the Model Spectator�which is an extension of Umberto

Eco�s �Model Reader� (1979), De Marinis defines the two levels of reception. These

levels of reception are different from, but related to, the two modes of reception. They

have to do with the interpretive strategies that the spectator employs regardless of

whether s/he is being active or passive in reception. The first level of reception that De

Marinis speaks of is the intra-textual level of the real (empirical) receiver which consists

of �the reading strategies which are effectively activated during the comprehension of a

text� (102). The second level of reception is the extra-textual level of the implied (the

hypothetical, ideal, virtual) receiver. This level �comprises the strategies within the text,

the manner of interpretation anticipated by the text and written into it� (102). Both of

these levels, then, are used to help the spectator make sense of a performance. The intra-

textual level, however, involves the strategies activated regardless of the performance

text, whereas the extra-textual level has to do with the strategies unique to a text which an

ideal spectator would employ in the interpretation of that text. It seems, then, that when

the spectator is passive, the performance text primarily induces her/him to be engaged at

the intra-textual level of reception. Conversely, when the performance text requires the

spectator to be active, the strategies of the extra-textual level of reception must be

employed to a greater extent.

De Marinis does not give examples as to what strategies belong to the realm of

either level. Because strategies at the extra-textual level vary from performance (text) to


33

performance (text) and among individuals, it makes sense that one could only

consistently identify strategies common to the intra-textual level such as understanding a

linear plot or a character�s consistent nature in order to anticipate events to come. De

Marinis indicates, however, that not even the intra-textual level of reception is consistent

in all texts or for all spectators. He writes that �The idea is not to see the receptive

processes of the empirical receiver as being rigidly preset nor to indicate a normative

reading that is somehow optimal, relevant, or correct, and to which every real receiver

should try to conform� (102). The important thing to understand is that a spectator is a

Model Spectator of a performance text in so far as s/he is capable of carrying out the

receptive strategies necessary to come to an interpretation of the performance text

regardless of how directly a �correct� interpretation is transmitted from it. It is important

to note that the Model Spectator is not an actual spectator; rather, s/he is a �hypothetical

construct . . . an attempt to remind us that production and reception are strictly linked,

even through they obviously do not altogether coincide� (102).

An understanding of De Marinis�s idea of open and closed performances clarifies

the notion of the Model Spectator. A performance is open or closed according to the

range of spectators who are capable of receiving the production and deriving an

interpretation from it. The more a production limits itself to a specific type of spectator,

the more closed it is. On the other hand, the more a production allows itself to be

received by a broad range of types of spectators, the more open it is. De Marinis writes

that �Closed performances anticipate a very precise receiver and demand well-defined

types of �competence� (encyclopedic, ideological, etc.) for their �correct� reception� (De

Marinis 103). He goes on to say that closed performances are typically genre based. He


34

cites examples such as political theatre, women�s theatre, gay theatre, and children�s

theatre in which one must either belong to the targeted group of people or at least agree

with the performance�s point of view to appreciate it. Other examples De Marinis lists

include mime and musical theatre for which one simply does or does not have an

appreciative predisposition.

Because these examples demonstrate that closed performances have a specific

type of spectator in mind, De Marinis points out that �the performance only �comes off�

to the extent that the real audience corresponds to the anticipated one, thus reacting to the

performance in the desired way. If, however, a closed performance is performed for a

spectator far removed from its Model Spectator, then things will turn out rather

differently� (De Marinis 103). One example of a production and its spectator not being

properly aligned for a �correct� interpretation that De Marinis provides is that of an

�unprogressive male who finds himself at a feminist performance� (103). One such

spectator in a house of one hundred would be no cause for concern for the producers.

However, producing a feminist play would be a catastrophe for a theatre that typically,

and for whatever reason, brings in a house comprised primarily of unprogressive males.

In defining open performances De Marinis writes that they:

. . . make a point of addressing themselves to a receiver who is neither too precise, nor too clearly defined in terms of their encyclopedic, intertextual, or ideological competence. In a successfully open performance, the perception and interpretation for which the theatre producers call upon the spectator are not rigidly preset. Rather, aside from unavoidable textual constraints, the performance will leave the spectator more or less free, though still deciding the extent to which this freedom ought to be controlled . . . . (103)

An open performance allows for spectators from various different backgrounds and

perspectives to view the same performance and take something from it. The feminist and


35

the unprogressive male can find themselves seated next to each other appreciating the

same production, though possibly for different reasons. This is what Barba was speaking

of when he said that people who talk about his productions are actually talking about

themselves. In the same way that he said that people who speak about religious

resonances within a production of his are actually projecting their own religious depths

onto the production, he says that a different spectator can watch the same production and

�detect a dialectical approach to the problems we treat in our productions and come up

with a �Marxist interpretation�� (Hagested 56).

There is clearly a link between how active a spectator is when viewing a

production and how open the production is. The more activity the performance text

requires of the spectator at the extra-textual level, the wider the potential range of valid

interpretations of that text will be. De Marinis does write that with a truly open

performance, particularly those performances that are from non-Western traditions such

as kathakali, Balinese dance-theatre, and others, �all . . . readings are equally legitimate

or relevant, though not always of equal importance or value, since they can all trade what

is actually there, in the performance, in exchange for some sort of emotional or

intellectual gain� (De Marinis 103). It should be noted that De Marinis speaks of non-

Western forms as a Westerner and that the forms he speaks of are often coded in a way

that people of the same cultures as the forms can easily receive and interpret them. The

main idea, though, is that if a performance is open, there is not one or a few �correct�

interpretation(s), and a spectator should not feel that one either gets it or s/he does not

when thinking about the production�although I am sure that the most open productions

are the ones that most often cause the average spectator to feel confused, as it seems that


36

a departure from the Western notion of �realism� is often a characteristic of open

performances.

In addition to many non-Western forms of theatre where�again, from the point

of view of a Westerner with a limited knowledge of the forms��the normal practice is to

leave plenty of interpretive freedom to the audience and not to impose fixed readings�

(De Marinis 103), De Marinis writes that �the experimental theatre or �theatre of

research� in all its various forms from the historical avant-garde on down� can also be

categorized as open (103). He seems to find many examples within these Western forms

less desirable, however, than the, from De Marinis�s point of view, more reliably open

non-Western forms. Therefore, he has defined two types of open performances. The first

type demonstrates Umberto Eco�s statement that �There is nothing more closed than an

open work� (qtd. in De Marinis 104). This type of open performance consists of avant-

garde and experimental theatre performance texts. De Marinis writes that the openness of

these performance texts and their �highly indeterminate makeup and loose fixing of

reading strategies does not correspond to any real increase in the range and type of

desired spectator, but leads to a more or less drastic reduction in range� (104). These

performances are open because the spectator is required to be active in �filling in the

�gaps� in the performance text�thus, actualizing the text�s semantic and communicative

potential� (104). However, in order to fill in these �gaps,� the spectator is required to

possess �a range of encyclopedic, intertextual, and ideological competence which is

anything but standard� (104). So in one sense these performance texts are open because

of the activity required of the spectator in order to interpret them. In another sense,

however, the text can be defined as closed because certain competencies are required of


37

the spectator in order to effectively interpret them. De Marinis chooses, however, to still

categorize such performance texts as open rather than defining them as being closed or as

belonging to a third, in-between open and closed, category. De Marinis�s example of

James Joyce�s Finnegan�s Wake as being such an open work demonstrates his attitude

that extra-textual activity is a more important factor when determining openness than the

factor of increasing the range of spectators able to interpret the text. He says that while

Finnegan�s Wake �is one of the most �open� texts in world literature because of the great

mass of work its countless �blanks� leave for the reader to fill in� it �also drastically

limits the number and type of readers able to successfully join in its semantic and

communicative actualization� (104).

The Romance of Erin is a play that I believe, because of its nature, would be

considered an open text no matter what production choices and elements were enacted

upon it�until the final scenes in which the text explains itself to the spectator. The

Romance of Erin�until the end�falls most closely into the category of the first type of

open performance in that it requires a great deal of activity of the spectator at the extra-

textual level but at the same time, the spectator with a knowledge of Irish history, culture,

and mythology has a definite interpretive advantage over the spectator who does not.

Even the play�s title includes a sign designed to attract a person who possesses such

competencies because such a person would know that �Erin� is another name for Ireland.

The Irish codes within the text, however, are not the only �gaps� to be filled in by the

spectator. De Marinis writes that what makes the first type of open performance open is

the �highly indeterminate makeup and loose fixing of reading strategies� (De Marinis

104) that they employ. Normal intra-textual reading strategies provide limited help in


38

reception of The Romance of Erin not only because of the Irish signs and codes which are

likely to have been unfamiliar to the majority of Texas spectators, but also because of its

non-linear plot construction and shifting character identities, as discussed in chapter one.

These aspects of the play provide obstacles for spectators to overcome in order to sit back,

watch, listen, and be able to understand the motivations of the characters and make

predictions about events to come. Spectators are, however, free to make their own

inferences about the characters and what the events mean in relation to one another. For

this reason, even spectators who possess knowledge of the Irish codes at play in the text

are likely to come up with a wide range of interpretations and understandings of the

performance text. Such an environment allows for multiple �valid� interpretations of the

same performance text.

De Marinis seems to prefer the second type of open performance, for which he

believes anyone can be a Model Spectator. In this type of open performance, �the

opening up of interpretive possibilities does correspond to a real openness of reception;

the openness leads to a real increase in the number of �authorized� spectators in the types

of reception allowed for and compatible with the performance text� (De Marinis 104). In

addition to non-Western performance texts, De Marinis mentions the Third Theatre and

specifically the work of Eugenio Barba as belonging to this second type of open

performance. He distinguishes Barba�s performance texts from the theatre of the avant-

garde saying:

The theatre of the avant-garde, while staunchly opposing the passive and standardized means of consumption found in mainstream theatre, has often ended up producing esoteric works reserved for a select band of �super-competent� theatergoers. However, in Barba�s �Third Theatre� the aim�though not always


39

achieved�has been to create performances which might allow a real plurality of reception or viewings which are equal to one another. (104)

De Marinis goes on to state that Barba has demonstrated in his work a mastery of

structuring his productions in such a way that there is a balance between the active

(subjective) and passive (objective) dramaturgies of the spectator. He quotes Barba on the

communicative nature of the performance as saying, �The more the performance allows

audience members their own experience, the more it must also guide their attention so

that, in all the complexity of present action, the spectator does not lose the sense of

direction, the sense of past and future action�the history of the performance� (qtd. in De

Marinis 106). Both Barba and De Marinis believe that in order for the spectator to have a

personal experience through a performance, that performance must be guided carefully so

that the essential elements are not missed or forgotten. An open performance is not

simply a series of random events and stimuli to which people then attach meaning. The

conditions in which spectators achieve dramaturgical autonomy are not derived from

chaos, but rather from careful planning and structuring. The achievement of this balance

is the director�s greatest challenge.

In speaking about audience members having their own experience while actively

viewing a performance text, Barba further demonstrates that he, like De Marinis, believes

that a performance text cannot have a single �correct� meaning. It is hard to imagine any

text, no matter how closed it may be, having only one possible meaning. It is, therefore,

fruitless and even harmful to the production for those involved to force such a perspective

onto it. Barba even suggests that in producing a text, one should not worry very much

about conveying meanings. He states that �Making it possible for the spectator to


40

decipher a story does not mean making her/him discover its �true meaning,� but creating

the conditions within which s/he can ask her/himself about its meaning. It is a question

of exposing the knots of the story, the points at which extremes embrace� (Paper Canoe

95). This perspective may be the surest method that either De Marinis or Barba provides

or suggests for guiding the spectator�s attention so that there is a balance between

objective and subjective reception.

Barba speaks more about making a performance communicate to a wide range of

spectators, and, therefore, indirectly about open performances, in his article, �Four

Spectators.� Much of what he writes in �Four Spectators� echoes what De Marinis says

in �Dramaturgy of the Spectator.� Both articles were published by The Drama Review,

and Barba�s article was published three years after De Marinis�s.

Like De Marinis, Barba believes that the spectators have a role in the creation of

meanings. He writes that �In part, the actors and director are also spectators: they are

active in the composition of the performance; they are not, however, the masters of its

meaning� (�Four Spectators� 97). Barba defines the director�s role as spectator as being

the spectator�s representative. This goes beyond merely making sure that the show looks

and sounds good from the seats. Barba states that the director has both loyalties to the

actors and the spectator:

Loyalty to the actors consists essentially of creating conditions which allow them to find a personal meaning in the performance without being totally subjected to the demands of spectators. Loyalty to the spectator consists of assuring that each spectator is not patronized by the performance, does not feel treated like a number or like �a part of the public,� but experiences the performance as if it were made only for her/him, in order to whisper something personal to her/him. For a director to be loyal to the spectators does not just mean to interest them, to excite them, to entertain them, to move them. It means to master the techniques necessary to break up the unity of the public on the mental level. (98)


41

These quotes suggest that for Barba, the spectator has just as great a role as, or likely a

greater role than the director and performers do in shaping the performance. It certainly

is important for Barba�and it makes sense that it should be important for any director�

that the spectator�s experience be just as personal as that of the performers.

This point of view is compatible with that of Roland Barthes, who in his essay,

�The Death of the Author,� writes that �Once the Author� (in our case the playwright,

director and performers) �is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes quite futile.

To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final

signified, to close the writing� (149). He goes on to say that �a text�s unity lies not in its

origin but in its destination� (150). Barthes also has his own terms that can be considered

equivalent to De Marinis�s ideas of �open� and �closed� performances. He writes in his

book, S/Z, that there are two types of texts: the �readerly� and the �writerly.� Barthes

writes that in the case of the writerly text, the goal is to:

[M]ake the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text . . . the writerly text is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world (the world as function) is traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by some singular system (Ideology, Genus, Criticism) which reduces the plurality of entrances, the opening of networks, the infinity of languages. (4-5)

Clearly Barthes believes that the writerly text invites the reader to be active in reception

and that such texts allow for a wide range of individuals to receive and interpret them.

Readerly texts are, however, �Opposite the writerly text . . . its countervalue, its negative,

reactive value: what can be read but not written . . . they are products (and not

productions)� (4-5). The readerly text is closed. It is something meant to be received and

understood in the way that it was intended to be by its Author. Still, despite the existence


42

and abundance of readerly texts, it is reasonable to assume that for Barthes, any text or

performance text is an open (or writerly) one once considerations of the Author�s intent

are discarded and that there is no such thing in such circumstances as a closed

performance text. It seems that at least in Barba�s work�and that of the Third Theatre in

general� this is indeed the intent.

In terms of allowing or helping a performance text to speak to the greatest number

of people, Barba warns that the objective is not to try to create one voice that speaks to

everyone. He writes that:

[E]ven though some or many reactions can be unanimous and common (these are the public�s reactions), communion is impossible . . . Instead of trying to construct a performance as an organism which speaks to all spectators with the same voice, one can think of it as being composed of many voices which speak together without each voice necessarily speaking to all spectators. (�Four Spectators� 97)

He further suggests that when one pays attention in production to the ��knots� of images

that arouse the attention of every spectator,� that �The real difficulty does not consist in

guaranteeing the presence of multiple voices, but in safeguarding the organic integrity of

the performance� (97). Barba�s description of what happens when the organic integrity

of the performance is compromised is a description of De Marinis�s idea of a closed

performance and also potentially of the first type of open performance. Barba states,

�There must be a technique which prevents [the performance�s] fragmentation or its

degradation into a message which is coded, insensate, and inert for those who do not

possess the key� (97).

Also, when one is in a position to focus on the �knots� of the story and the �points

at which extremes embrace� as well as realize that one is not a �master of meanings,�

then Barba writes that �one is in position to cross barriers of language, of social and


43

cultural divisions, of different levels of education�not because the performance is

�universal� and says something acceptable to everyone, but because at some moments it

speaks to all while at other moments it speaks differently to each individual� (�Four

Spectators� 97). This is exactly the kind of reception that De Marinis is advocating in

�Dramaturgy of the Spectator� and that Barthes believes is possible when the A[BM2]uthor

is eliminated from consideration.

At this time the reader is likely demanding to know who these four spectators are.

Barba states that there are four �basic� spectators and that they are 1) �the child who

perceives the actions literally,� 2) �the spectator who thinks s/he does not understand but

who, in spite of her/himself, dances,� 3) �the director�s alter ego,� and 4) �the fourth

spectator who sees through the performance as if it did not belong to the world of the

ephemeral and of fiction� (�Four Spectators� 99). Barba further explains that �Every

moment of the performance must be justified in the eyes of every one of these four

spectators� and that the objective of the director should be �to harmonize the four

different spectators so that what permits one of them to react does not block the

kinesthetic or mental reactions of the others� (99).

Because I was not aware of Barba�s idea of the four spectators at the time I

directed The Romance of Erin, it did not affect my direction. I was aware of his advice

regarding the focus on the knots of the performance and the points where extremes

embrace. Further discussion of Barba�s theory that is specific to working with actors and

other members of the production team as opposed to for the spectator will take place in

chapter three.


44

Having explained that The Romance of Erin more closely resembles the first type

of open performance that De Marinis describes and that the work of Eugenio Barba is

classified by De Marinis as belonging to the second type of open performance, I would

now like to establish the elements of open performance that I believe link or make

relevant the The Romance of Erin (as I interpreted and directed it) to the work of Barba.

De Marinis writes that �The openness of any given performance text might even be

related to, and if possible measured by, the number of performance signs which are based

on codes not shared by the spectator� (103). An initial reading of this quote might lead

one to think that texts such as The Romance of Erin and Finnegan�s Wake should be

considered among the most open of works. But again, both De Marinis and Eco seem to

regret, but also accept, the view that the greatest single determining factor of the

openness of a text is the degree to which the audience lacks the receptive competencies to

fill in its gaps. If the greatest achievement of an open performance text is the creation of

a true plurality of interpretations, then perhaps a better way to phrase the above quote

would be to borrow from Barba�s terminology and say, �the openness of any given

performance text might even be related to, and if possible measured by the degree to

which it physically, vocally, and logically goes beyond daily behavior and establishes its

own systems and techniques of extra-daily behavior.� This is what I believe De Marinis

means when he speaks of performance signs based on codes not shared by the spectator.

It is the extra-daily behavior (from the point of view of the uninformed Western

spectator) of kathakali, of noh theatre, of Balinese dance-theatre, and of Barba�s theatre

that he seems to value and view as the key to the creation of a plurality of interpretations.

If this is the case, then Finnegan�s Wake is not the most open of works, it is simply a


45

puzzle to be solved by those knowledgeable enough to do so, and Eco no longer has to

lament that �there is nothing more closed than an open work� (qtd. in De Marinis 104).

As for The Romance of Erin, the one place where there is a necessity for a physical

display of extra-daily behavior is the moment in which Erin and her nurse must transform

into birds so that they can fly to the mythical land of Tir na nOg to be with her lover.

This was accomplished with a fairly simple dance.

Although The Romance of Erin lacked for the most part (and in my production)

the extra-daily physical behavior characteristic of noh, kathakali, and of Barba�s theatre, I

do not believe that it is a requirement that an open performance text must be completely

stylized so that characters move and speak in an extra-daily way. Characters might also

find themselves in an extra-daily situation that goes beyond normal conceptions of reality.

Suzan-Lori Parks�s play Betting on the Dust Commander is an example of such a play

that I believe cannot be considered to be anything other than an open text. The play

repeats itself and consists of two characters dressed to be married, who reminisce about

the past, and struggle to find a way to be constructive in the present. Though they both

move and speak in a realistic manner (with the exception of the beginning and end of the

play which consists of a slide show and the voices of the actors coming from offstage),

their situation and their logic are not realistic, but rather seem to go beyond daily

behavior. Plays such as this allow for a plurality of interpretations. The Romance of Erin

is similar to this type of play in that with the exception of some songs, lines are delivered

realistically and characters move realistically, but their shifting situation and much of

their behavior is not explainable in the terms of realistic logic.


46

What links Third Theatre performances, Betting on the Dust Commander, and The

Romance of Erin is that there is something in each of them that is not immediately

recognizable�at least in the way it is �normally� recognized or treated in daily behavior.

Jean Piaget, a theorist of cognitive development, provides a theory of how individuals

adapt and organize new or unrecognized stimuli. Piaget stated that the basic units of

knowledge are schema. The mind uses schema to adapt to and organize its environment

(Wadsworth 14). A child, for example, might have a schema for dogs in which

everything the child knows about dogs is stored. When that child first encounters a cat, it

might assume that a cat is a dog because it has four legs until evidence is provided that

proves that cats and dogs are not the same. The �dog� schema is altered, and a �cat�

schema is created. This is what Piaget calls the equilibration process in which new

stimuli must be either organized through the process of assimilation or a new schema

must be created through the process of accommodation. The mind is in a state of

disequilibrium until the unrecognized stimuli is assimilated or accommodated

(Wadsworth 14-20).

This theory is useful in explaining why The Romance of Erin and the other

performance types and texts listed above are considered open. They challenge the

spectator�s prior mental organizations of the world (daily behavior) putting her/him in a

state of disequilibrium without providing a predetermined set of interpretive codes which

are outside of daily behavior. The spectator must assimilate and accommodate the

stimuli of these performances into her/his own experiences so that they can be understood

and interpreted. Because each mind is organized with subtle and major differences (when

it comes to schema more complex than �cat� or �dog�), each spectator will organize the


47

performance differently so that individuals truly are speaking of themselves when they

speak of an open performance. The processes of assimilation and accommodation are at

the center of the successful reception of an open performance for any given spectator.

Regrettably, my argument for The Romance of Erin�s status as an open text at any

level is weakened considerably at the point when the play is explained by the characters

to the spectator. The text provides all the makings of an open performance throughout

the entire first act and into the second act, but at the points where the knots of the story

provide the spectator with the most freedom to trace the rope�s path on their own, the

playwright chose to unravel them all. The characters reveal their �true� identities to

Mackie and there is no longer any doubt as to whom the play is really about. We now

know for a fact that Mackie is the one trapped in a fantasy world and that the world he

creates is meant to represent his family�s past. Erin is his grandmother. John Jr. and

John Sr. are his father and grandfather, respectively. His grandmother did commit

suicide, and so on. Spectators are still free to speculate about what role Nurse Rivers

played throughout the action and what it is that the Lover is supposed to represent, but

they now can assume that there are correct answers to these questions. Views on the

play�s �message� might vary from spectator to spectator, but not to the same extent as if

certain information had not been given to them and a �correct� understanding of the main

characters and events had not emerged. Spectators who had been actively engaged at the

extra-textual level, developing interpretations of the performance that they themselves

might not even fully realize, suddenly had those interpretations verified, or, much more

likely, had them proven �wrong.� In this way, The Romance of Erin ended in a manner

less like an open performance than a murder mystery in which spectators gather clues and


48

follow the twists and turns of a story trying to determine who the murderer is�all the

while knowing that all will be revealed in the end.

I am not sure why McDermott chose to end the play this way. Perhaps he

believed that explaining it was the best way to satisfy the audience. Perhaps he wanted to

challenge the spectators but at the same time guarantee that they understand his play the

way he does. Perhaps he just did not give the spectator enough credit and felt that he

owed her/him an explanation after an hour and a half of challenging her/him. McDermott

said throughout the production process that this play was an experiment and that he

wanted to see how people reacted to it. It was for this reason that he did not even discuss

the significance of many things within the play with members of the production team. He

would have gotten a wider range of reactions had he not explained the play to such an

extent in the final scenes. I believe that he missed an opportunity to tell his story in a

way that would, as Barba put it, contain �many voices which speak together without each

voice necessarily speaking to all spectators� (�Four Spectators� 97).

I do not mean to suggest, however, that the performance became completely

closed or that such a thing is possible. The text simply put a large limitation on itself. In

addition to the speculations a spectator could make regarding the significance of the

Nurse, the Lover, and the overall message of the play, s/he is still confronted with the

challenge of trying to reconcile the events as they were explained at the end to the

representations of them as seen in the earlier scenes of the play. There is still a lot of

room for interpretation here, though not as much as if the spectator had been allowed to

create her/his own interpretations of what s/he had seen. Also, though it has already been

said that the spectator with a knowledge of Irish history and mythology would understand


49

more of the signs and codes of the performance text, I do not believe that McDermott�s

intention was to write a play and have it produced specifically for such people; rather, he

intended that it should be a moving story with relevance for anyone who could follow it

to the end.

It is my hope that De Marinis�s theory in �Dramaturgy of the Spectator� has

helped to further clarify how The Romance of Erin and the productions of Barba are

similar as well as how they differ dramaturgically. The elements of The Romance of Erin

that are consistent with De Marinis�s description of open performances are the reasons

that Barba�s theory was appropriate and applicable in my approach to it. The differences

between McDermott�s play and the work of Barba�in terms of the play explaining itself,

its physical and vocal style, and according to distinctions made regarding the types of

open performance�contributed significantly to the limitations of how applicable Barba�s

directing techniques and methods could be for me in the actual production process. The

same interpretive constraints that the text places upon the spectator are placed upon the

production team. The challenge of reconciling the explanation of the story to the

representations of the events is the same for the actors in rehearsals as it is for the

spectators in reception�just as limiting and confusing at the same time. The following

chapter will explore how the play�s shift from allowing the spectator to be an active

creator of meanings to a more passive receiver shaped the rehearsal process and the

psychological approach to the text and characters that resulted in the actors and in me.


50

Chapter IV

The Production Process and Performance

The previous chapters have been devoted to establishing the ways in which

Eugenio Barba�s writings were encouraging and inspirational to me in preparing to direct

The Romance of Erin, how his writings spoke to my concerns regarding the challenging

nature of the script�s characters and plot construction, and how I saw potential for our

production of The Romance of Erin to invite a multiplicity of interpretations among

spectators as Barba�s production work does. Because Barba�s advice on directing did

seem relevant as I was preparing to direct The Romance of Erin, I thought it would be

interesting and helpful to apply some of his directing methods and concepts. In chapter

one I explained Barba�s production process and that there would be no way for me to

mirror that process because of several factors, including the fact that we were working

from a pre-existing script, that we only had four weeks in which to rehearse, and that the

actors available to me did not have experience, training, or ability levels comparable to

those of Barba�s company. For these reasons, my use of Barba�s directing theory was

restricted to the employment of general guidelines and principles.

While keeping these principles in mind during rehearsals was, I believe, very

effective, I found that my actors and I continued to draw from the techniques of

�realistic� acting which were more prevalent in our previous stage experiences. I thought

it interesting that I was attempting to use the directing theory of a man who had rejected

�realism� on the stage but that at the same time �realistic� techniques persisted in our

work. Somehow, Barba�s principles and �realistic� acting techniques seemed to be

coexisting harmoniously as the production progressed toward its final product. In this


51

chapter I will detail the themes and ideas that I wanted to explore in our production of

The Romance of Erin, how Barba�s theory helped me in those explorations as well as in

the overall handling of the production, how Barba�s theory relates to the Method, and

how the Method was useful to my actors and me in rehearsals.

When I refer to �the Method� in this thesis, I am speaking of the beliefs and

techniques that were evolved from the acting theory of Constantine Stanislavsky first by

actor and director Lee Strasberg, and then further by other practitioners including Stella

Adler, Robert Lewis, and Sanford Meisner. David Krasner provides a basic description

of Method acting. He writes that:

While the Method actor creates a believable performance in numerous ways, the technique relies principally on the following ideas: justifying every word of the text, where justification comes from motivation, which in turn leads to actions, intentions, and objectives. The actor�s actions and objectives acquire a sense of urgency; they are supported by subtext and sense memory; they are based on a belief in the given circumstances of the play; and they become particularized within a broad range of emotions. The actor emphasizes actions and emotions through real behavior. (Krasner 5)

In Method acting, then, there is an effort to portray as close to an honest, truthful

representation of the character as possible by experiencing the circumstances of the play

using the above techniques. Later in this chapter, I will attempt to make connections

from Barba to both the Method and Stanislavsky. It is important to understand that while

Stanislavsky�s acting theory and the Method are not the same thing, they are related;

therefore, making connections between Barba, the Method, and Stanislavsky is helpful in

rationalizing an integration of Barba�s concepts with Method techniques. This will be

explored further later in the chapter.


52

Because the text of The Romance of Erin seemed to be more difficult to follow

and was inhabited by characters whose identities and backgrounds were looser than the

majority of texts my actors and I had worked on previously, I decided that I should

establish a few simple points of focus to explore. My hope was that by simplifying what

the text was communicating, it would be more approachable for my actors. In my first

production meeting as well as in my first meeting with the cast, I told both groups that I

wanted to examine with them four things during the production process: 1) the layers of

reality at play in the script and why one surfaces at any given point, 2) the lasting effects

of one generation�s actions on subsequent generations and of a mysterious family history,

3) the theme of wholeness vs. �unwholeness� and the �struggle to mend that unmends�

that McDermott alludes to through his characters at the beginning and end of his play,

and 4) the relationships, opposing forces, and points at which extremes embrace (Paper

Canoe, 95) within the text. Obviously, the fourth objective comes directly from Barba�s

writing. In the actual rehearsal process, the themes of the layers of reality and of the

relationships, forces, and points at which extremes embrace were explored to a greater

extent than the other two.

The four points of focus listed above led me to request that my designers simply

design with the different realities of the play in mind. I wanted the lighting of each of the

realities (the hospital ward, the dream world, Ellis Island, and the hospital ward with the

new understanding that Dr. Mackie is the patient) to reflect the mood or feel of each of

those places. Jacob Davis, my lighting designer (see Appendices A and B), was able to

aid the set in transforming quickly from one reality to the next. He captured the cold

sterility of the mental ward, provided the dream world with a more colorful feel that was


53

yet more dark and ominous than the ward, gave Ellis Island a greater sense of natural

light than the other realities, and was able to focus the spectator�s attention with his

design.

I wanted the set (see Appendix C) to be made up of multifunctional pieces with

the power to transform and evolve. The script also called for �thin spaces� on the set

from which characters from the dream world could be understood to be present but not

present; places where different worlds could look in on one another. Cole Cantleberry,

the set designer, came up with a rather larger and more permanent set than anything we

had discussed prior to his completion of the design. It seemed to me, at first, to be a set

more appropriate for a production on the Mainstage (Texas Tech�s 400-seat proscenium

space) rather than for the more intimate, 100-seat thrust configuration of the Lab Theatre.

Because The Romance of Erin was the first production of the fall semester, the design had

been approved by the time I saw it at our first production meeting and construction of it

needed to begin. There was not much I could do. The set was able to transform more

than I had thought it would because the flats were constructed from cheesecloth stretched

over steel frames so that they appeared opaque when lit from one direction and

transparent when lit from another. This created a rather nice effect for the thin spaces.

Also, an entire wall with a French door unit was removed at intermission to reveal a New

York City skyline backdrop for the Ellis Island scenes.

My only regret about the set now is the placement of the �staircase to nowhere.�

Because the set was so wide, it extended beyond the normal width of the stage, taking up

much of the backstage area of the space. The curtains were removed so that these

playing spaces could be seen, but people sitting in the closer rows on either side of the


54

stage would have to look awkwardly over their shoulders at times to see the action taking

place. The �staircase to nowhere� was placed in the extreme house right area of the stage.

Unfortunately, the play climaxes at the top of this staircase as Mackie (played by Michael

Novak) prevents Erin (Lauri Wynne) from jumping from it, thereby symbolically coming

to terms with her suicide and its effect on his family. At this moment, about a quarter of

the audience had to make a significant effort just to see the action.

I wanted different things for different types of characters in terms of the costumes

(see Appendix D). Because I believed that Dr. Mackie and Nurse Rivers (Mattie

Adamson) were the only characters who did not belong to Mackie�s fantasies, I wanted

them to wear the same hospital scrubs throughout the performance. I did, however, want

Mackie to have costume pieces and props associated with being a doctor (a white coat for

example) that could be shed progressively as he went from being in charge to patient

status. I wanted the costumes of John Sr. (Daniel Ballard), John Jr. (Daniel Rice), and

the Lover (Josh Jeffries) to be fixed because they were understood to be illusions

throughout the play. Also, the script called for John Jr. to appear slightly older than John

Sr. This was accomplished through casting and the growth by John Jr. of some facial hair.

The costume designer, Rebecca Conway, and I decided that the only thing that should

suggest that John Jr. is younger than John Sr. (aside from their titles and the fact that they

address each other as father and son) would be the period from which their costumes

were inspired. The reason for the confused or backward appearance of John Sr. and John

Jr. was to illustrate how Dr. Mackie reconstructed them in his mind based on how he

knew or did not know them in life and on when specific events from his family�s past

with which he is subconsciously attempting to come to terms took place. I wanted Erin�s


55

costumes, however, to reflect her changing character as much as possible. I believe that

Ms. Conway did an excellent job of this. Erin first appeared in a hospital gown, but at

the point when she entered the dream world for the first time this gown took on the

appearance of an everyday skirt simply by having Erin put a sweater on over it. On Ellis

Island, she wrapped a sheet around herself as called for by the script and then changed

into clothing appropriate to the period.

Overall, I was very pleased with the work of all of the production�s designers.

With the exception of Ms. Conway, I knew all of them personally prior to the production.

I had worked with Mr. Davis and Mr. Cantleberry in the theatre�s scene shop and had

seen their work, as well as sound designer Professor Andrea Bilkey�s, on stage before. It

did not take long for me to realize that all of the designers knew what they were doing,

and for the most part I simply shared my ideas about the play with them and let them be

creative in doing their work. I believe that all of the pieces fit together nicely and that the

show looked and sounded coherent and appropriate to the text as well as our objectives..

Barba writes in The Paper Canoe that work on a performance involves a process

of what he calls �launching and wrecking.� He explains that �You have to plan your

performance, know how to construct it and steer it towards the whirlpool where it will

either break up or assume a new nature: meanings at first not thought of and which its

�authors� will look upon as enigmas� (38). In order to launch my direction of The

Romance of Erin into the rehearsal process, I established the four points of focus I wanted

to explore and some methods and guidelines for doing so. These methods and guidelines

are the specific principles of Barba�s directing theory that I attempted to apply. It is

important to note that, except for possibly a few times in passing, I did not discuss with


56

or explain to my cast that I was directing the production with Barba�s theory in mind.

The reason for this was that it seemed to me that my cast was, at first, overwhelmed by

the material. I did not want to add to their struggle to come to terms with the story and

their characters with additional concepts that might have been difficult for them to grasp

quickly. I believed that it was not as important for them to know that I thought of Barba

as a pretty important director who could help with this material as it was for me to help

them with whatever worked from my directorial knowledge and arsenal. In other words,

I believed that Barba�s methods could help regardless of whether or not my cast was

aware of them in action.

The concept of launching and wrecking encouraged me to develop a plan but also

to not be afraid to stray from it when other possibilities presented themselves. I came up

with ideas about what the play could mean, how the actions of the characters could be

interpreted or played out, and thought out general blocking ideas and stage pictures that I

hoped might communicate well to the audience. For example, when Erin fell down from

exhaustion during the ceili (an Irish celebration with music and dancing), I had Nurse

Rivers step toward her and join her on the floor and had the men remain standing while

taking a step back or holding their position, thereby forming a circle around the women to

further demonstrate the history in Erin�s life of the men who care for her being unable to

understand or help with her problems. Despite any plans that I made ahead of time,

however, Barba�s idea of launching and wrecking kept me open to other ideas. I knew

that many of my cast members had as much or more theatrical and directorial experience

as I, were no less intelligent than I, and that their ideas were just as valid as mine.


57

Barba did not originate the line of thinking that a director must be open to

changes in her/his plans as the performance takes shape, and he would not take credit for

it. I simply enjoyed his variation on explaining it and my reading of it was timely to my

work on this production. I also believe that Barba�s standpoint on the director and her/his

actors agreeing on the meaning of every word and gesture was well timed for my work on

The Romance of Erin. He writes that:

It can happen that the director, who is the performer�s first spectator, does not know how, on the basis of their common interpretation of the performance, to explain rationally the meaning of what the performer is doing. The director can fall into the trap, show the difficulty s/he has in accepting this spark of unknown life, ask for explanations and demand coherence from the performer. The collaboration is therefore jeopardized as the director seeks to eliminate the distance which separates her/him from the performer. The director demands too much, and in reality, too little. S/he demands a consensus, an agreement about intentions, a meeting on the surface. (Paper Canoe 87-88)

Because I was familiar with this element of Barba�s theory, I believe I was significantly

less distracted or concerned by performers having different ideas about the motivations or

meanings of their characters� actions than I would have been were I not familiar with it.

At times I would question an actor if her/his performance seemed out of sync with what I

had expected. But as long as her/his idea seemed rational to her/him and was not in

complete disharmony with the other actors in the scene, I would do my best to accept

her/his position (as often it did indeed make more sense than mine) or to at least not force

my ideas upon her/him.

Much more often, actors would want me to tell them their motivation, or what

their actions meant, or how to perform certain actions. I cannot say that I was able to

resist obliging them in every case, but, for the most part, in such circumstances I did my

best to help them discover their own answers to these problems. In some cases I even


58

told them that they were thinking too much. The decision would sometimes be made to,

as Barba suggests, focus less on the meaning of an action and more on the quality of its

energy. He explains that, �In general, if one says to a performer that her/his action can

remain intact while its context (and therefore its meaning) is completely changed, then

s/he is being treated as inert matter, manipulated by the director. As if it was the sense

that made the action real and not the quality of the action�s energy� (Paper Canoe 87). I

took this to mean that the intent of the actor is not as important as whether or not her/his

actions are appropriate, effective, and meaningful. It was necessary for my actors to

understand that their actions might not be received by the audience in the ways that they

had intended, and that this would not be a failure so long as the actor found the �right�

energy for the material, themselves, and fellow actors. Actors in our rehearsals might run

through a sequence of actions a number of times experimenting with energies in a search

for the one that �felt best.� Finding the way of accomplishing an action that felt right

would then help the actor to think more clearly about the feelings and motivations

underneath the action. Examples of these kinds of moments in the script include when

Erin and Nurse Rivers transform themselves into birds and fly to the dream world; Dr.

Mackie�s physical behavior during his confession that he was the one hurting Erin; Erin�s

various character physicalizations in the different realities; and John Sr.�s entrance during

his song, The Bells of St. Stephen�s. Each of these examples was repeated with different

qualities of energy until the �right� quality was found. While I always chimed in with

what I thought seemed best, and maintained final say, I took the actors� opinions into

consideration. They insisted, for example, that the fight between the Lover and the Johns

would come off best were it done �realistically.� So we approached it that way. I also


59

agreed to keep and refine the first variation of the transformation into birds that Erin and

Nurse Rivers said they were comfortable with.

In working with energy at a more detailed level, Barba explains that when

working with his actors he only needs two words: �sats� and �kraft.� He explains that

kraft is equivalent to force, or power, and that sats can be understood as an �impulse,

preparation, the moment in which one is ready to act, the instant which precedes action,

all energy is present but suspended� (Paper Canoe 40). Again, Barba does not claim to

have discovered these principles. He writes of them that �I find the same technical

content with the same operative precision in the terminology of other masters, in

apparently very different words: �second nature�, �bio-mechanics�, �cruelty�, �Uber-

Marionette�. . . � (41). Barba believes that for every action the actor must find the correct

kraft and sats. Rather than having my actors work from sats to sats throughout the

performance as Barba does�as opposed to the �conventional� method of working from

the beginning of an action to the end of an action�(Watson 36-37), I paid particular

attention to sats and kraft when I felt strongly that the actor(s) was/were not playing

particular actions appropriately or precisely enough. Josh Jeffries, who played the Lover,

was particularly challenged because of the fact that the character is at first perceived as

the strength to which Erin can escape but is revealed to be inadequate in performing this

function. I also wanted him to be seen as a coward with all the outward signs of strength.

I worked a lot with Josh in order to get him to play with different levels of force so that

he could be powerful at times but crumble as pressure and conflict mounted. In his case,

I wanted his sats�his built up energy in the moment before an action�to at times be far

greater than his actual kraft, so that the audience might see a willpower that dies in the


60

moment of the actual action. I think I may have tried too hard in this case and wound up

making matters too complex. I likely set Josh up to appear to be strangely macho at one

moment and feeble in the next. Perhaps this was one time when things would have been

clearer had I just acquainted him with the theory I was attempting to use.

The main idea of Barba�s directorial advice that I wanted to focus on in my

direction was his belief that one should focus on relationships, opposing forces and points

at which extremes embrace, and the knots in the story that arouse the attention of every

spectator (Paper Canoe 95). It was in this way that I hoped to get beyond the loose plot

structure and inconstant characters so that unexpected meanings might manifest

themselves. Paying attention to these things is a useful practice when working with any

text. I think that paying attention to them when working on a non-realistic text is even

more essential. Barba explains that:

In the same way that the performer�s extra-daily behavior can reveal the tensions hidden within the design of movements, the performance can be the representation not of the realism of the story, but rather of its reality, its muscles and nerves, its skeleton. It can lay bare that which is seen only when the flesh of the story is stripped away: the power of relationships, the socially centripetal and centrifugal forces, the tension between freedom and organization, between intention and action, between equality and power.� (Paper Canoe 95)

In trying to expose the reality of this particular non-realistic text, I was not attempting to

uncover the germ of the play that had originated in McDermott�s mind; rather, I wanted

for my actors and myself, as a group and as individuals, to get underneath the skin of the

story and find our own personal ways of expressing the reality that we might find. This

was not an easy task. In fact, I believe that we only accomplished this goal in a few

moments rather than throughout the entire performance. These were the moments of the

performance, though, of which I am most proud.


61

An example of such a moment in our production was when Erin was pressured

into dancing on her own during the ceili. The ceili took place shortly after the play shifts

unexpectedly to Ellis Island, where the audience learns that Erin became sick during her

journey and that she is beginning menopause. Erin suddenly feels better and the Johns

decide that a ceili is in order. Eventually, Erin is dancing by herself for the entertainment

of the others. She panics when she realizes this, begs the others to rejoin her, and

eventually collapses. It is from this moment on that the text gradually explains and closes

itself. In the moment when Erin�s panic begins to build, there is an extreme point where

all of the play�s relationships and forces are gathered together simultaneously and

confronted by one character. She is confronted with her past life in Ireland and with her

new life as an immigrant. She is surrounded by people who care for her but cannot

understand her. In the moment when she seems truly free from the sickness and misery

that find her even in her fantasy world where she should be happy, she is more disturbed

and in more peril than at any previous point in the play. She tells the others that she

needs help but they treat her as though she were well. For my cast and me, this moment

of the play, which lasted only a few minutes, became understood as the play�s reality�

the entire play revealed in one part. The moment became a reference point for other

moments where meaning seemed hidden. Erin�s feeling of coldness upon meeting the

Lover in the dream world could be related back to her simultaneous elation and fear

during the ceili and his abandonment of her that followed. The hostility between the

Johns and the Lover, their references to her as property and within the riddle of �the four

green fields� could be related to Erin�s feeling, as she bounced between the characters

while dancing, that she is stuck between two worlds�the romantic notion of the old


62

country which she was forced to let go of and the new hostile world to which she was

brought without consideration of whether she wanted to go. Mackie�s constant protests

to Erin�s involvement in the ceili and his inability to help her when she falls make up an

illustration of his behavior throughout the play�he wants to help her but is too afraid to

address her problems directly and personally because, after all, they are the causes of his

own distress and problems. Finally, Nurse Rivers�s pushing Erin to her limit during the

ceili can be understood as her pushing Mackie to face the issues that haunt him,

something she is actually doing throughout the play.

Would this moment have had the same significance in our production had I not

been looking for moments where extremes embrace and where the relationships and

opposing forces seem particularly ripe for exploration? I think that it is very possible that

it would. Barba�s theory, however, caused me to seek out such moments rather than just

stumble upon them, thereby expediting the process. As for my regret that we only

succeeded in getting underneath the play�s skin in a few moments rather than throughout

the entire play, I think that time constraints were a factor. The rehearsal period was four

weeks and it seemed like a lot was crammed into every rehearsal so that some things�

the knots of the story�were explored in more detail than others. Deb Margolin writes

that �Acting is an emergency, and in an emergency you do whatever works� (129). In

such emergencies, I believe that �what works� is what feels right�the quality of the

action�s energy, as Barba would say. In such instances one might not fully understand

why something feels right, but the feeling is enough. The feeling might come from

acting in a way that is cohesive with the approach to the work as a whole or deliberately

going against that cohesion. Hopefully, the example of the ceili illustrates how


63

discoveries made rehearsing certain parts of the play created cohesion in the overall

production and created a reference point in determining �what worked.�

It became evident from the first discussions that I had with the cast that they were

approaching the script and the characters from a �realistic� standpoint. They were

challenged and frustrated that it was so difficult to see the characters� motivation(s), to

understand their histories and backgrounds, and to justify their actions. My initial

thinking was that because this was a non-realistic text and because of the fact that I was

attempting to use the theory of Barba (who rejects realistic techniques), that the attempt

to use these techniques associated with the Method was only going to hinder the progress

of my cast in the rehearsal process. This feeling did not last long, however, as they kept

trying to find ways to employ the techniques and I began to join them in doing so as we

asked each other questions. This did not prevent me from employing the methods of

Barba or from keeping his words of wisdom in mind, but I did begin to focus more and

more on the applicability of the Method to our work.

The inclination to turn to the Method was impossible to suppress. While I am not

sure that all of the actors that made up my cast would claim to be Method-trained actors, I

do think that the Method is still very much in the air that actors and even spectators

breathe in this country and at this time. David Krasner writes in his essay titled, �I Hate

Strasberg: Method Bashing in the Academy,� that �From its inception in the Group

Theatre in the 1930s and extending into the late twentieth century, Method acting has

been the most popular yet controversial form of actor training in America� (6). He goes

on to say that although the Method has come under considerable criticism in academic

circles, �a glance at acting schools in New York and in other urban centers suggests that


64

Method acting refuses to go away. In fact, notwithstanding the academic trend, it

flourishes among real-world performers� (8).

Despite the fact that our production of The Romance of Erin took place in an

academic setting, it was clear that my performers had a desire for �authenticity� in their

performances, and that they were concerned about being able to execute techniques

related to the Method in their performances. I am also confident that �Method bashing�

is not prevalent at Texas Tech University. Barba himself, though rejecting realism, is not

a �Method basher.� In fact, Ian Watson points out that �Barba describes his professional

heritage in familial terms, seeing himself as a descendent of Stanislavsky, the �father� of

modern Western theatre� (11). Again, while the Method is not equivalent to

Stanislavsky�s acting theory, it did evolve from said theory; so, when Barba claims to be

a descendent of Stanislavsky, it follows that he is relating himself�however distantly he

may choose�to the Method. Watson disagrees with Barba�s account of his own heritage,

however, saying:

Barba has rejected the very basis of Stanislavsky�s system�psychological realism�embracing instead a theatre that explores language of its own rather than one that simulates daily life on stage. He has developed a theatre in which the performance text takes precedence over a faithful interpretation of the author�s words, in which causal connections between scenes have been rejected in favor of an episodic montage, and in which the actor-audience relationship and the performance space is adjusted for each production�all ideas more often associated with Meyerhold than Stanislavsky. (11)

It seems to me that Barba could still trace his lineage back to Stanislavsky through

Meyerhold, but the important thing is that Barba does identify with Stanislavsky.

Torunn Kjølner addresses Stanislavsky�s influence on Barba�s theory in his essay,

�Searching for Differences.� He explains that neither man advocates copying exterior


65

forms of acting. He explains how Barba descends from Stanislavsky as well as where he

differs from Stanislavsky, saying:

. . . we owe Stanislavsky the idea that acting requires an ability to master oneself as artistic material in a fictitious role�and to be present as a living person at the same time. Barba�s organic approach and his focus on physical personal presence is a heritage from his master Stanislavsky. Nature, however, seems to play a more central role in Barba�s conception of acting. It is not enough to consider nature as involved in acting. Nature�or in Barba�s version�the organic, is acting. (184)

In further explaining how Barba and Stanislavsky differ, Kjølner writes, �To Stanislavsky,

acting relies on craftsmanship, but craft alone does not make a great actor or actress . . .

Barba does not talk about acting as a craft one can learn, but about the principles of

acting inherent in different theatre cultures� (184-185). Here Kjølner refers to Barba�s

fascination with the pre-expressive�those traits underneath performance that recur

across multiple performance traditions such as the principles of alterations in balance, the

law of opposition, and coherence and incoherence which were described in the first

chapter.

Kjølner also introduces another aspect of Barba�s theory that sets him apart from,

but also ultimately reunites him with, Stanislavsky and the Method that evolved from his

theory. That factor is Barba�s deterministic outlook. Kjølner writes, �To Barba, the

actor�s psycho-physical possibilities are his or her voice and body. In other words, the

nature of social life is not really natural because it is culturally determined. Realistic

acting can be acting in some cases, but there is not real bios in representation as such�

(184). Kjølner uses the term �bios� to refer to �life itself� (183) and uses the term to

refer to that which is natural or organic. He states that bios is beyond a fixed form of

acting and that �To find . . . bios, the actor has to look for something that makes the


66

actions stand out as something different from our commercialized and culturally meager

everyday life conventions�something �extra-daily� in Barba�s terminology.� (183-184).

Krasner further explains that �Rather than spirituality, determinist actors look to

material form�the body�for inspiration. They no longer create inwardly but simply

express their causal relation to space� and that Method actors �follow the path of their

creative will� (Krasner 21). However, Krasner states that in an effort to distance

themselves from Lee Strasberg and his conception of the Method, Stella Adler and

Sanford Meisner attempted to integrate determinism into their branches of the Method.

Adler did so by emphasizing social conditions and given circumstances as motivating

forces, whereas Meisner did so by emphasizing relationships and the ways in which

individuals communicate with others (23). It is these aspects of the Method that seem to

further enable Barba to trace his heritage through practitioners who lead him back to

Stanislavsky. While Barba may have been speaking primarily about physical and spatial

relationships when advocating exploring relationships, opposing forces, and points at

which extremes embrace, I do not believe, based on my knowledge of his productions

and the definite presence of character(s) in them, that he was completely excluding the

motivating forces of Adler or the personal relationships that Meisner stresses.

I do not mean to suggest that there are obvious elements that can be observed in

Barba�s work that connect him to Stanislavsky or the Method. Certainly a production

directed by Barba and one directed by Stanislavsky would have very few similarities.

Barba�s work involves a great deal of extra-daily physical stylization whereas

Stanislavsky sought to reproduce daily behavior on stage. And whereas Stanislavsky

sought to create a unified interpretation of character and events within the actor, Barba


67

invites a plurality of interpretations. Barba does, however, admire Stanislavsky as an

innovator of theatre traditions, and seems to believe that he would not have the same

achievements in his own career had it not been for the steps taken by Stanislavsky.

My efforts to this point in discussing Barba and the Method have been to

demonstrate that a link between the two existed and was acknowledged by Barba and

Barba scholars prior to my work on The Romance of Erin. I would now like to further

detail how Method work was challenging yet achievable when working with actors on

The Romance of Erin. Employing techniques associated with the Method in their work

with The Romance of Erin was challenging to my actors for a number of reasons. What

most challenged the performers was the difficulty they had in relating what their

characters were going through to personal experiences. Krasner explains that �Method

actors create art from real-life experiences, struggling to find the underlying meaning of a

role from their personal viewpoint� (Krasner 9-10). My actors had a difficult time

understanding why their characters would do many of the things they do in the script

because they could not imagine doing them in real life. They felt silly at times and

struggled to justify their actions. Mattie Adamson (Nurse Rivers), for example, could not

understand why her character, a medical professional training to become a psychiatrist,

would agree to lie on the floor pretending to be a bird with her patient. She did not know

how to be a bird, had a difficult time keeping a straight face as a bird, and was visibly

embarrassed. There was clearly a rather large gap between Mattie�s behavior and the

character�s behavior. The idea of the �magic if� and the notion of Mattie imagining her

behavior if she was a bird seemed counterproductive to handling her embarrassment.

Deb Margolin explains that in understanding the behavior of a character, the �Method is


68

all about the problem of redistributing autobiography. We cannot perform what we do

not imagine, and we cannot imagine that which is not within us to be conceived�

(Margolin 132). We needed to discover a circumstance in which Mattie could imagine

herself as a bird. I eventually had to explain to her that becoming a bird with her patient

did make sense to Nurse Rivers and that this knowledge is all that was necessary to

justify the action. Personal experiences were ultimately able to simplify the scene for

Mattie and allowed her to find a way to approach the material. I suggested to her that

Erin�s behavior in the scene is very much like a child�s behavior when playing and

imagining with another young person or with an adult. Erin tells Nurse Rivers what to do

and how to play the game. All Nurse Rivers needs to do is indulge Erin and more of the

fantasy will be revealed. By using any experiences Mattie had in playing with young

people, I believe she made the scene work. She found a way to be a bird as well as the

nurse/adult figure.

Another challenge my actors faced in creating �authentic� performances was the

shifting nature of the given circumstances of the play. Doug Moston explains the

importance of an understanding of a play�s given circumstances to the successful creation

of a �realistic� performance stating:

The objective of actors is, in part, to match their own truth to the truth of characters . . . The first element of this formula is to believe the play�s circumstances. These include place, time, relationship to other characters, illnesses and/or physical restrictions, past, present, future, fears, challenges, dreams, and the psychological characteristics involved. The second element is a strong personal choice, a stimulus that impels actors toward theatrical action, actively doing what the characters would do. (Moston 138)

The elements listed by Moston that make up a play�s given circumstances are not only

unclear in The Romance of Erin, but they also change suddenly and without obvious


69

cause throughout the play. My performers attempted to find consistency in their

characters where it often did not exist. They had a hard time �knowing what the

characters would do� from scene to scene. For example, the Johns wanted to know why

they were sitting around telling jokes with the Lover ten minutes after beating him to the

point of death. We handled this problem mainly through the idea of the layers of reality

within the play. The play, as we came to understand it, would take on a new reality as Dr.

Mackie�s mind came to a new representation or understanding of the events of his

family�s past. Therefore, a character�s given circumstances were only consistent within a

particular reality that, for whatever reason, was at the surface of Mackie�s mind at that

particular moment. If the Lover can be understood as the romantic memory of the old

country, then it is possible to understand how Mackie might believe that the men in his

family might have wanted to destroy such a memory in one construction of the past and

get in touch with it in another.

Two other things helped to provide my actors with a limited ability to develop an

overall understanding of their characters� natures and objectives throughout the play.

The first of these was the insight we gained from our digging underneath the flesh of the

story at the ceili. The second, even more illuminating thing that aided my actors in

understanding their characters throughout the play was the play�s explanation of itself at

the end. In chapter two I explained how The Romance of Erin fits the criteria of an open

performance that Marco De Marinis provides in his article, �Dramaturgy of the

Spectator� until the play�s final scenes, which explain it. At the moment of explanation,

audience members lose their ability to create their own interpretations and understandings

of what they had witnessed in the previous hour and a half. Not only does the audience


70

lose a degree of interpretive power at this moment, the director and actors do as well.

Knowing that John Sr. will be revealed as the representation of Dr. Mackie�s grandfather

and Erin�s husband can be referenced and made influential throughout the various layers

of reality. I could say, for example, �Remember, Nurse Rivers, you are the actual doctor

in charge. Keep this in mind during your argument with Mackie regarding the course of

Erin�s treatment.� I found that I resisted referring to the explanation of the play as much

as possible in the other realities. I wanted each reality to have its own �truth� and for

each to remain somewhat unconnected from the others so that audience members and

performers could bridge some gaps on their own in transmitting and receiving the

performance(s). It was, of course, impossible to avoid attempting to justify the earlier

scenes at all times in relation to the final explanatory ones. However, this was often more

challenging than attempting to rationalize the scene as an independent unit. I am,

therefore, hopeful that spectators did maintain interpretive freedom in that regard.

A criticism of Method acting is that �it is almost always aimed at the self-

absorbed �stewing in the emotional juices� or playing the problem� (Pope 153-154).

Looking back on our production, I think we may have at times fallen into this trap. The

Romance of Erin is, as most plays are, full of conflict. Characters are unhappy, they do

not understand each other, and horrible events from the past are being brought back to

life all the time in this play. Brant L. Pope explains that �Conflict arises as a result of

action and cannot be the action itself� (156). It is possible that my actors, when without a

complete understanding of the reasons and significance behind their actions, relied on

playing the problem. The result was that at times the actors and I went for emotional

highs too early and too often rather than finding appropriate levels and endeavoring to


71

understand how the characters wanted to change their circumstances. At such times, the

actors and I failed to establish what it was that their characters wanted to achieve, what

they wanted from each other, and how they wanted to overcome obstacles. These

moments are the elements of our production that, were I able to go back in time and

counsel my former self, I would most want to improve.

The guidelines and principles from Barba�s theory that I attempted to follow and

implement were the product of his work with non-realistic performances over decades. I

now understand through employing them that, because they are simply guidelines and

principles, they could easily be applied to work on any text, even a �realistic� one. His

actual production process, however, could not be applied to a �realistic� text without that

text becoming something very different. I am sure that I will keep these guidelines and

principles in mind as I continue to direct scripts of various different natures. Indeed, the

theme of �the relationships, opposing forces, and points at which extremes embrace, the

knots in the story that capture the imagination of every spectator� will likely be one that I

introduce to many more casts and production teams. It certainly did prove essential in

my work on The Romance of Erin.

Equally essential was the presence of Method-related practices in our rehearsals.

The inclusion of these practices in my direction of The Romance of Erin serves as an

example of me �wrecking� my original plan for the show�s rehearsals that I believe paid

off. Paul S. Kassel states that �The actions in both realistic and nonrealistic theatre

coincide through similar activities: purposeful accomplishment of specified goals. An

action, whether arising out of character motivation or not, is in fact, intentional. The

actor�s job is to fulfill that function� (224). At times, Method techniques and habits


72

provided us with a way to establish functions for the actions performed in The Romance

of Erin. At other times Barba�s methods helped us find the appropriate energy for an

action which illuminated its function. I now have experience that begins to support

Kassel�s statement that �any single approach can serve a single actor, no matter the form

or genre� (220). I look forward to further testing the statement in future productions. I

do think now, though, that it is likely that Method techniques are applicable to any

performance just as Barba�s principles are. Even if McDermott�s play had not closed

itself, the experience with �realistic� techniques that made up the bulk of our previous

work would have manifested itself and proven useful in the rehearsal process of The

Romance of Erin. It seems obvious, then, that the more a director has in her/his

methodological repertoire, the more likely s/he will be to reach different actors in

different situations. I do not think that I will again approach a production from a

�realistic� or �non-realistic� perspective or with a single theorist in mind. Instead, I will

approach every production with the knowledge and benefits of past experiences in mind,

face the emergency, and do what works.


73

Chapter V

Conclusion

In the first chapter of this thesis, I described the concerns I had when preparing to

direct The Romance of Erin. I explained that the play�s non-linear plot construction, the

shifting nature of the play�s characters, and the unfamiliar (to me and my anticipated

audience) Irish codes and signs that are present throughout the play all seemed to be

obstacles to the play�s �success� in a west Texas university setting. I have endeavored to

detail how my reading of Eugenio Barba�s works The Paper Canoe and �Eurasian

Theatre� addressed my concerns and helped to focus my direction of The Romance of

Erin. I also attempted to utilize some of Barba�s directorial and performance concepts in

my direction of the production. The result of my work on The Romance of Erin was an

integration of Barba�s performance concepts with techniques commonly associated with

Method acting. The fact that Barba�s concepts (as I used them) and �realistic� Method

techniques worked together so well was interesting and surprising to me because of

Barba�s rejection of realism in his work. The fact that the two separate approaches to

performance material did not inhibit or interfere with one another in our production can

be explained in several ways: 1) our employment of Barba�s principles was necessarily

done in a very general way, 2) the Method proved more applicable to work on �non-

realistic� material than I had originally thought it would be, and 3) The Romance of Erin

is a play that can be thought of as open to a plurality of interpretations until its final

scenes in which it explains itself and thereby reduces its reception to a smaller set of

interpretations. This narrowing of interpretations provides actors with a more concrete

idea of their characters� identities and histories.


74

My original concerns made me question whether or not it was possible for The

Romance of Erin to be a �successful� show at Texas Tech University. I believe that a

successful show is one in which productivity is maximized during the production process

so that the director and actors meet the challenges of the script, the actors reach their full

potential in interacting with, creating, and presenting their characters, and the audience is

entertained, provoked to take some course of action, or stimulated to thought. I think our

production was a success for a number of reasons. First, our production was the original

production of the script. The playwright, Jim McDermott, took a very hands-off

approach after the show was cast except for doing a lot of work with the actors on the

songs in the show. Jim gave his play to us and let us do our work. The fact that he

expressed to me, the cast, and the entire production team how pleased he was with the

result indicated to me that we met the challenges of his script and therefore gave the

production a degree of success.

There is also the factor of the artistic growth that occurred in the cast and in me

throughout the production process. This was the first full-length production I had ever

directed. I felt challenged by the text but found a way to work with it. I was pleased by

the fact that I was able to deal quickly with problem areas in a way that seemed to be

agreeable to my actors. When there was a question or problem, we always found a

solution. I am proud of the fact that, at least from my vantage point, morale was always

high. It seems to me that keeping actors happy without compromising one�s own control

of the production is half of the battle for a director. I believe I was able to push my actors

in every rehearsal of every scene in an atmosphere that was friendly, energetic, and

productive. We did not get bogged down in disputes about the material, failed attempts


75

to perfect a sequence of actions, or petty personal differences. Everyone enjoyed

working with and being around each other. As the director, I do not think I am beyond

my bounds in taking some credit for this. In this positive environment, my actors, in a

four week period, developed a text that at first confused them into a production that they

were confident in and proud to be a part of. I have no reservations in saying that each

actor reached her/his potential in acting her/his role given the amount of time we had to

work on the production. This fact also gave the production a degree of success.

There is no doubt that Barba�s theory contributed to the �successes� I have

described. It helped me to get past my concerns and develop an approach to the material

and in working with actors. The area of Barba�s theory which I had hoped would be most

beneficial to me was that of audience reception. It is difficult for me to measure our

production�s success in terms of audience reception. Unfortunately, there was no review

of the production and it was never evaluated in detail by anyone from the department.

The production respondent, Dr. Shawn Watson from the University of Texas-Permian

Basin, had many nice things to say about the production as well as suggestions about how

it could have been improved. She said that the show reminded her of quantum mechanics

in that she saw the characters as �leaping electrons reconfiguring.� She said that the

show seemed to be written for actors and commended the performers for their work. She

praised my �eye for the stage� and the symbolic quality of much of my blocking. She did

say though, that she would have liked to see more distinction between the levels of reality.

She thought that more stylized movement would have been useful and that we could have

gone further with the magical qualities of the �mythical and fantasy folk.� Finally, she

thought that the play would be better suited for a larger space and that perhaps the order


76

of the acts and scenes might be better in a different arrangement. I greatly appreciated

her opinion and believe that she raised many valid points.

In terms of general audience response, it seems to me that the primary goal of

most performances is to please an audience or to have some kind of impact on it. The

Romance of Erin is not, at least in my mind, a play designed to move an audience to some

course of action. My hope, therefore, was that the play would cause the audience to

become immersed in it so that, as Barba says, an audience member could �ask

her/himself about its meaning� (Paper Canoe 95). Our production would be successful,

then, if we could capture the mind of the spectator and provoke her/him to thought. I do

not believe that we achieved this goal in all spectators, but certainly we did in some. We

performed for houses that were consistently at least close to full, and as I scanned the

audience during the show I could see that most spectators were paying close attention to

the action.

It is difficult to gauge the sincerity of comments received about one�s work, but

comments that were made to me or that I overheard ranged from, �the most post-modern

work I�ve seen in a long time,� �I saw it three times,� and �restored my faith in theatre,�

to �what was the point of that?,� �that was just a bunch of people yelling at each other for

an hour and a half,� and �so . . . was that girl even real?� When all was said and done, I

was pleased to hear that an individual had enjoyed or appreciated the production, and not

surprised to hear that s/he had not. Our success in terms of audience reception, therefore,

varied from spectator to spectator.

I believe that our production did give spectators the opportunity to ask questions

about the play�s meaning�including whether or not it had one; and without discrediting


77

all negative criticisms made about our production or making the claim that our

production was of the same quality as Barba�s work, I am confident that Barba�s

productions draw an audience that is, for the most part, more ready to be confronted by

challenging, open works than the typical audience of a Texas Tech production. People

who attend Barba�s productions, for the most part, are likely to be familiar with his

previous work, or are theatre enthusiasts who go into a Barba production knowing the

general nature of his work and that they will be challenged in terms of interpreting what

they see and hear. When one looks at the other plays being produced at Texas Tech in

the same season as The Romance of Erin (Company, Boy Gets Girl, The Servant of Two

Masters, The Pillowman, and To Kill a Mockingbird), one sees classics and mainstream

pieces. Someone who regularly attended Texas Tech productions without even knowing

much about them ahead of time would be thrown off balance�in a pleasant or not-so-

pleasant way�by an open work. There simply are not many open theatre texts produced

in the Lubbock community; therefore, Lubbock audience members, in my opinion, are

generally not prepared for or expectant of such works.

The production was, of course, not without its flaws. I talked in chapter three

about how I would like to have been able to communicate more clearly with Josh Jeffries

about his character, the Lover. I also mentioned that at times my actors fell into the trap

of playing the problem, resulting in performances that tended to go for emotional highs

rather than discovering what it was that the characters were trying to accomplish and then

finding an appropriate strategy and tone with which to accomplish the discovered

objective(s). Beyond these things, I would have liked to be able to give the actors�

performances a greater level of precision. This was particularly the case for moments


78

such as when Erin and John Sr. attempt simultaneously to tell their side of the story

resulting in a fight between the Johns and Erin�s threat to commit suicide, and the

moment when Mackie runs up the �staircase to nowhere� in order to prevent Erin from

jumping from it. These moments, even in performance, always seemed to be in danger of

falling apart if the timing was not just right. And though they never did fall apart, I

cannot say that I was ever confident that they would not.

The main value of Barba�s influence on my direction of The Romance of Erin was

that it stimulated me to find my own way through the project. His theory got me started.

From there I made my own decisions and guided the production. I now know that I can

direct a challenging, full-length play as I had wanted to do for several years. Barba�s

writing encouraged me to take the first steps in facing the challenge rather than allowing

insecurities to take hold. I am not sure that my direction of The Romance of Erin would

have been disastrous without my familiarity with Barba�s theory. Such concerns are not

really relevant. What is important to me is that I grew artistically through the encounter

with the text and that I had the resources within me to do so. Barba�s theory will

continue to influence my direction of future scripts, as will countless other artists and

theorists.

My hope is that The Romance of Erin is a play that I will look back on someday

as the beginning of a long, productive career as a director. As proud as I am of my work

on The Romance of Erin and the production that resulted from that work, I am confident

that I will continue to improve as a director and that I have many productions ahead of

me that will build upon what I have learned. I want to improve in all areas. I want to get

better at communicating with actors. I want to learn how to manage a production so that


79

it operates with a great deal of precision. I would like to become better able to

communicate with designers in their terminology. Finally, I would like to get to the point

where I feel as though I have a wealth of experiences to offer students of directing. For

me, The Romance of Erin represents a huge step toward the accomplishment of these

goals.


80

Works Cited

Andersen, Elin. �A Doll�s House: Odin Meets Ibsen.� Odin Teatret 2000. Ed. John

Andreasen and Annelis Kuhlmann. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2000. 92-101.

Barba, Eugenio. �Eurasian Theatre.� Trans. Richard Fowler. The Intercultural Reader.

Ed. Patrice Pavis. New York: Routledge, 1996. 217-222. ---. �Four Spectators.� Trans. Richard Fowler. The Drama Review 34

(Spring, 1990): 96-101. ---. The Paper Canoe: A Guide to Theatre Anthropology. Trans. Richard

Fowler. New York: Routledge, 1993. Barthes, Roland. �Death of the Author.� Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed.

David Lodge. New York: Longman, 1988. 145-150. ---. S/Z. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1974. Bogart, Anne. A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre. New York:

Routledge, 2001. Carreri, Roberta. �Traces in the Snow.� Odin Teatret 2000. Ed. John


De Marinis, Marco. �Dramaturgy of the Spectator.� Trans. Paul Dwyer. The Drama

Review 31 (1987): 100-114. Hagested, Bent. �A Sectarian Theatre: An Interview with Eugenio Barba.� Trans. James

R. Hewitt. The Drama Review 14 (Autumn, 1969): 55-59. Hoffmeyer, Klaus. �Directing Shakespeare.� Odin Teatret 2000. Ed. John


Kassel, Paul S. �Random Acts: The Method and Non-Realistic Theatre.� Method Acting

Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. Ed. David Krasner. New York: St. Martin�s Press, 2000. 219-228.

Kjolner, Torunn. �Searching for Differences.� Odin Teatret 2000. Ed. John



81

Krasner, David. �I Hate Strasberg: Method Bashing in the Academy.� Method Acting

Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. Ed. David Krasner. New York: St. Martin�s Press, 2000. 3-39.

Margolin, Deb. �Mining My Own Business: Paths between Text and Self.� Method

Acting Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. Ed. David Krasner. New York: St. Martin�s Press, 2000. 127-134.

Mitter, Shomit, and Maria Shevtsova, eds. Fifty Key Theatre Directors. New York:

Routledge, 2005. Moston, Doug. �Standards and Practices.� Ed. David Krasner. Method Acting

Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. New York: St. Martin�s Press, 2000. 135-146.

Pope, Brant L. �Redefining Acting: The Implications of the Meisner Method.� Method

Acting Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. Ed. David Krasner. New York: St. Martin�s Press, 2000. 147-158.

Rasmussen, Iben Nagel. �Fragments of an Actor�s Diary.� Trans. Julia Varley and Nigel

Stewart. Odin Teatret 2000. Ed. John Andreasen and Annelis Kuhlmann. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2000. 132-142.

Risum, Janne. �ISTA�What�s in a Name?� Odin Teatret 2000. Ed. John Andreasen

and Annelis Kuhlmann. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2000. 222-226. Wadsworth, Barry J. Piaget�s Theory of Cognitive and Affective Development:

Foundations of Constructivism. NewYork: Longman, 1996. Watson, Ian. Towards a Third Theatre: Eugenio Barba and the Odin Teatret. New

York: Routledge, 1993.


82

Appendix A

Lighting Design (Inspirational Images)

Figure A.1: Dream World 1 Figure A.2: Dream World 2

Figure A.3: Hospital Ward


83

Appendix B

Lighting Design (Light Lab Images)

Figure B.1: Light Lab Images 1

Figure B.2: Light Lab Images 2


84

Appendix C

Scenic Design

Figure C.1: Ground Plan


85

Appendix D

Costume Renderings

Figure D.1: Erin Act I

Figure D.2: Erin Act II


86

Figure D.3: Dr. Mackie

Figure D.4: Nurse Rivers


87

Figure D.5: John Sr. Figure D.6: John Jr.

Figure D.7: The Lover


PERMISSION TO COPY

In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master�s

degree at Texas Tech University or Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, I

agree that the Library and my major department shall make it freely available for research

purposes. Permission to copy this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the

Director of the Library or my major professor. It is understood that any copying or

publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my further

written permission and that any user may be liable for copyright infringement.

Agree (Permission is granted.)

Brian Marshall 4/16/2008 ________________________________________________ ________________ Student Signature Date Disagree (Permission is not granted.) _______________________________________________ _________________ Student Signature Date

Applying the Performance Concepts of Eugenio Barba to the ...

Documents

Transcript of Applying the Performance Concepts of Eugenio Barba to the ...