Yesterday my friend N. and I went to see the play Prometheus - Landscape II by Jan Fabre (and Jeroen Olyslaegers), which was errrr... Well, let me tell you about it.
Prometheus is the story of an ancient Greek titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals. In Fabre's interpretation this resulted in a school exercise in postmodern theatre. Complete with ironic dialogue, paradoxical body language, and people masturbating on stage. Now don't get me wrong. I can handle that. In fact, the image of one person trying to make fire by rubbing a stick between his hands on one side of the stage and another tugging feverishly away at his cock on the other side, was quite a good visual expression of the kind of metaphysical masturbation Prometheus' hybris stands for. But while watching the play, I couldn't shake off the feeling that it all needed too much thinking. Every line, every gesture was a inversion of meaning. Accordingly, the winks to postmodern and deconstructionist philosophy - which teaches us that however we might try we are never really able to put meaning into words, so we might as well say the opposite - were all over the place. I mean, shouting over and over again 'To instruct is to destruct' at the end of the play, looks more like someone showing off his university course in literary theory and cultural studies, than like a playwright who wants to move an audience. And this is my point.
When the play was finished, my friend N was completely confounded. In fact, I think she felt a little sick. You have to give Fabre that: you leave the theatre with a foul feeling in your stomach, questioning everything and anything you know. Yet, not knowing the story of Prometheus, not knowing deconstructionism and postmodern criticism, she had only seen people shouting and doing strange shit. She wasn't moved, she wasn't involved, and she certainly wasn't amused.
So while there might have been a lot at the background of this Prometheus, I wonder: 'Does it really have to be so intellectualistic, so elitist?' To be frank, I had hoped contemporary theatre anno 2011 might have moved on from a philosophical vogue which had its heyday in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. Sure that philosophy has taught us that every story is a violent attempt to control reality, but the best thinkers of the school have always stressed that while we essentially cannot tell a story, we can still try. Why not? We all try to make something out of our lives, even if sometimes we feel, in the end, we cannot be sure to succeed.
Had we seen a play at least trying to tell a story, trying to move people, trying to make sense of it all, even if this seems futile, and especially without a director with his head stuck in his own philosophical ass, N. and I might not have needed two or three mojitos before coming back to our senses. Indeed, it might have helped the poor girl sleep last night...
PS: for some impressions, see this Youtube film
Prometheus is the story of an ancient Greek titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals. In Fabre's interpretation this resulted in a school exercise in postmodern theatre. Complete with ironic dialogue, paradoxical body language, and people masturbating on stage. Now don't get me wrong. I can handle that. In fact, the image of one person trying to make fire by rubbing a stick between his hands on one side of the stage and another tugging feverishly away at his cock on the other side, was quite a good visual expression of the kind of metaphysical masturbation Prometheus' hybris stands for. But while watching the play, I couldn't shake off the feeling that it all needed too much thinking. Every line, every gesture was a inversion of meaning. Accordingly, the winks to postmodern and deconstructionist philosophy - which teaches us that however we might try we are never really able to put meaning into words, so we might as well say the opposite - were all over the place. I mean, shouting over and over again 'To instruct is to destruct' at the end of the play, looks more like someone showing off his university course in literary theory and cultural studies, than like a playwright who wants to move an audience. And this is my point.
When the play was finished, my friend N was completely confounded. In fact, I think she felt a little sick. You have to give Fabre that: you leave the theatre with a foul feeling in your stomach, questioning everything and anything you know. Yet, not knowing the story of Prometheus, not knowing deconstructionism and postmodern criticism, she had only seen people shouting and doing strange shit. She wasn't moved, she wasn't involved, and she certainly wasn't amused.
So while there might have been a lot at the background of this Prometheus, I wonder: 'Does it really have to be so intellectualistic, so elitist?' To be frank, I had hoped contemporary theatre anno 2011 might have moved on from a philosophical vogue which had its heyday in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. Sure that philosophy has taught us that every story is a violent attempt to control reality, but the best thinkers of the school have always stressed that while we essentially cannot tell a story, we can still try. Why not? We all try to make something out of our lives, even if sometimes we feel, in the end, we cannot be sure to succeed.
Had we seen a play at least trying to tell a story, trying to move people, trying to make sense of it all, even if this seems futile, and especially without a director with his head stuck in his own philosophical ass, N. and I might not have needed two or three mojitos before coming back to our senses. Indeed, it might have helped the poor girl sleep last night...
PS: for some impressions, see this Youtube film
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