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Mapping Intermediality in Performance

M. Chatzichristodoulou

Published 2011 in Contemporary Theatre Review

ABSTRACT

The tone of the introduction is casual, self-aware and at times self-critical. She discusses feeling like a dilettante, and learning to embrace her temperamental preference for the instant, the present moment. DbD reads partly like an attempt to demonstrate the rigour of this acceptance, and the attempt is generally effective. The rest of the book details the structure of the DbD workshops. Each workshop is divided into three sections. Friday is ‘Origins’, Saturday is ‘Connections’ and Sunday is ‘Power’. It is challenging to read descriptions of exercises without doing them. Direct descriptions of theatrical improvisations can read as hokey, or daft, while in practice these same exercises are exhilarating. To her credit, Rosenthal is aware of this gap, admitting that her own description of the final Sunday exercise may read as childish, while asking the reader to believe that it does not feel childish. Other methods might be necessary to convey the experience of theatrical improvisation in writing, though the direct descriptions found here are no doubt useful to the audience of acting students and teachers at whom this book is aimed. Before getting into the content of each day, Rosenthal explains the rules participants are asked to follow. The seriousness of the rules and the detailed strategizing of the days are clearly integral to the experience. Structure is the condition for freedom, here, though freedom as an extended state of exploration and wonder might also suggest nostalgia for total external control. Some of the rules are contradictory. The improvisations may not include nudity or bodily fluids – not, Rosenthal insists, because she is a prude, but because these are ‘performance clichés’ with no more power to shock. She prefers the use of metaphor or indirect, associative methods for evoking violence or sexuality, or whatever it might be that nudity or fluids must directly bring up. I am sympathetic to the premise that performance must be aware of its own history, and change and develop accordingly. But if the naked, or bleeding, or pissing body is no longer shocking – so shocking that it can only be purely ‘itself’ – surely it can be used for potentially metaphorical or symbolic effect? Each day opens with a speech from Rosenthal, texts for which she includes in the book (noting that details change with every session). The speech on ‘Origins’ involves a survey of the history of the planet and human civilization. The epic scope of this introduction seems intended to provide a foundation of permissiveness (literally everything, anywhere, ever, is fair game), balanced with gravitas (but chosen carefully, Rosenthal implies, for the stakes are high). However, reading the outline for Rosenthal’s opening speech on the Saturday, alarm bells begin to ring. The theme ‘Connections’ prompts Rosenthal to make unspecific claims about the ‘connectedness’ of everything to everything, problematic ‘othering’ claims about cultures not part of the West (‘they’ don’t hate the planet like ‘we’ do), and imprecise claims for the relevance of sub-atomic physics to human social interactions. There are many important things to be said about the networks of implication that may invisibly structure violence and exploitation, as well as well-being; about politically dominant nations, capitalism, and environmental damage; or about the relevance to the arts and humanities of scientific systems of observation, analysis, translation and circulation. However, a precise critical language is crucial. Otherwise one risks robbing people of their specific histories, and foreclosing political intervention. The main text of the book closes with ‘the Dibidi story’. Rosenthal reveals that while DbD does stand for ‘Doing by Doing’, it also has a more personal meaning. Dibidi, we learn, is the name of a beloved cat. Rosenthal forged a profound connection with Dibidi after rescuing her from a chimney in a building in New York, by breaking into the business on the second floor and destroying a bricked-up fireplace. I love this over-the-top story. I am drawn to Rosenthal’s framing of the separation between human and animal – or better, Rosenthal and Dibidi – as shifting and unstable, not fixed and eternal. And the sense of Rosenthal’s compelling personality shines through. For all the alarm bells and challenges, I suspect a workshop with Rosenthal would be quite convincing.

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