Welcome to my theatre World.
Kandidat speciale af Bjarne B. Stendahl
– Om dramaturgens rolle og arbejdsproces i det postdramatiske teaterfelt
English abstract of the Thesis by Bjarne B. Stendahl, M.F.A.
This paper is an investigation into the role of the dramaturge in the post-dramatic or process orientated theatre.
What is the background? The beginning of the 20th century had made the people lose faith in the big universal solutions on the questions of mankind. Therefore man began to ask questions about the foundation of belief. In theatre this meets the dramatic text and the theatre institutions.
This meets an equilibration of the elements in the theatre, the light, the drama, the set design and so on. And now when the drama was not the base any more, the whole process changes. Now everything is made during rehearsals and the dramaturge is a part of this.
What we have seen in this paper is that this process starts from almost nothing, with a more abstract idea. From here begins the experimentation and the play with it, to collect material, and examine it for dramatic potential. In this way, the performance grows through asking questions (this applies to all scenic elements). We begin to find patterns and fracture what can create the whole. The dramaturge role, as we saw in Wooster Group relate to the text, both written and also the performance text in relation to the montage, what information do we want to give the audience.
This is the biggest characteristic in this paper, the idea of the open work, which allow the audience to participate in creating the piece.
The dramaturge’s part in the postdramatic theatre is the mediator. It is about asking and answering questions, look for patterns, fracture, collision resistance or obstructions that may act as catalysts. It is the act to harmonize and / or combine the many elements that come into theatre collaboration.
I have looked at Time, Space, Body and Text as doorways into the work of a performance. And also looked at how these elements have change in the post-dramatic theatre compared with the dramatic theatre. I have here used Gilles Deleuze theory on cinema and theory on neurology.
I have in the last part, tried to show how and with what effect it is possible to work with the moment before action. The example was a workshop hold in June 2009. The workshop was an investigation into the space of the passionate meeting, tango and Jorge Luis Borges The street corner man. It was also an experiment with working with process orientated theatre. One of the experiences was the difficulty of finding the division between the role of the director and the dramaturge. It also showed us that depending on the level of story in a scene we needed different tools.
Finally in this paper as a line of flight, I have gone into the discussion, about the political aspect of the post-dramatic theatre and see how it is important to have a playful attitude towards everything that seams solid.
(Everyone is free to copy from this paper if it is not for commercial purposes. Please indicate the source.)