Peter Berger, analysis of the Empty Space
... musical score and more on intimate character development, successfully replacing the deadly with the rough. According to Brook, rough theater is theater stripped to the bare essentials, reveling in a sense of theatrical play fueled by a union of imaginative energies through the performer, the audience, and the director. In such a meeting place, received conventions dictating what certain dialogue really means or how a particular play ought to be done, normative preconceptions that ensure listless translations, prove less important than asking the essential question of how to make imaginative encounters vital and engaging. Subsequently, Director Dominique Serrand’s consideration and effective implementation of such rough elements make Carmen an excellent candidate for subsequent analysis. Serrand’s infiltration of the audience, animalistic choreography, and minimalist technique all combined to create a refreshingly unique take on this perennial classic. Carmen is usually performed on an extravagant set with a full orchestra accompaniment, however, Serrand choose to remove the lavish decadence typically associated with the opera revealing a vision of unbridled simplicity. In this barren state, Carmen was able to expose the true nature of the storyline, portraying a very human tale of violent passion and internal struggle. Furthermore, the sets were simple, the costumes plain, and the music fundamentally discreet. When there should have been numerous backdrops depicting a varying array of scenery, Serrand offered a lone factory; when there should have been a grand orchestra resonating the opera’s famous musical score, Serrand gave us two dueling pianos; and when there should have been extravagant costumes to accentuate the beauty of Carmen and the grandeur of the bull fighter, Serrand choose to adorn his characters with uninspired garb. Because no element was slick or complete, the production required audience members to invest a good bit of imagination and good will to make the show work. Unapologetically incomplete, the design elements invited a generosity of spectatorship, freeing people from expectations and anxieties associated with the opera’s typical high culture in formal theatre. Audience members simply had to accept that the factory was also a vast mountain range or a bloody bull fighting ring and while these constraints can often prove frustrating, they encouraged in Carmen a high level of ad hoc creativity, exemplifying Brook’s rough theater. Bypassing formalized conventions, Carmen invited an improvised approach, “a bucket will be banged for a battle, flour used to show faces white with fear. The arsenal is limitless: the aside, the placard, the topical reference, the local jokes, the exploiting of accidents, the songs, the dances, the tempo, the noise . . .” (Brook, 66). For example, the first scene assaulted the audience as a group of soldiers uninhibitedly marched through the bleachers. The physicality endured as the opera continued as every scene was performed with consistent bodily contact. The actors were always touching themselves, the scenery, or their counterparts; using their clapping hands as instruments, pushing, holding, climbing, throwing, and embracing. Even the verbal interaction was offensive as the dialogue, which is normally sung, was periodically replaced by spoken conversation. In the end, all of these elements seamlessly combined to exemplify Brook’s rough theater allowing Carmen to evolve and become something entirely its own. Brook’s holy theater is theater which attempts to make, even if only for brief glimpses at a time, the invisible visible. The performance of The Keening effectively subjected people to witness things they haven't seen before. The actress, Marissa Chibas, through the telling of her story, created a sanctified environment of shared communion by bridging the gap between herself and the audience. Furthermore, holy theater is most effective when used to portray an inherently poignant subject, such as plays dealing with economic instability, political corruption, or in the case of The Keening, genocide, creating a personal affect from intimate first hand knowledge or from general sympathy and moral obligation. Holy theater repeatedly reassures audiences of the existence of another reality, giving them the opportunity to experience the play’s subject matter firsthand. What are the tools and devices used to bring about this experience of the holy? One of the main emphases is on the use of ritual and ceremony throughout the play, taking the cue in The Keening from the many forms of ritual which are part of the keener’s everyday life. In fact, the entire performance of The Keening was a ceremony, a ritual in preparation for the dead. As the play progressed we were pulled further in further into her story as we helped her ready the burial room: her sweat, her laughter, and her pain, become our sweat, our laughter, and our pain. It was a very physical theatre, centered in the body, and thus space became all important; often the action took place between and among the audience as the shape and placement of the protruding stage was surrounded by spectators, helping them become more involved. This simplistic stage consisted of only a few key materials to illustrate the fact that it was a morgue. Moreover, Marissa was constantly interacting with the provided props: cleaning the floor, wiping the table, preparing the rose pedals, and banging the mop handle on the floor. The sounds of her words, their tone and volume, took precedence over their literal definitions, with chants and groans often employed to communicate meaning. Marissa sang enchanting songs and expressed her happiness and anguish with loud laughter and piercing moans. Archetypes, shadows, and dreams were an important part of this theater. Allusions and symbols, similar to those found in primitive dance, were utilized and given expression and different colored lights were connected to different characters, successfully enhancing the mood when appropriate. Denounces naturalism, this holy theater failed to become a mere spectacle to be viewed by an audience but rather an event in which actors and audience members participated and were transformed. In searching for a holy theater, Brook alludes to an audience “that would drop all its defenses, that would allow itself to be perforated, shocked, startled and raped, so that at the same time it could be filled with a powerful new charge” (Brook, 53). During the performance of The Keening, the audience was essential to what occurred in the theater as audience members greatly influenced the show without ever leaving their seats. Uproarious laughter, slight chuckles, gasps of surprise, and profound silence were all forms of communication and participation which left their mark on what happened during the performance. “There is a climax of celebration in which our participation explodes in stamping and cheering, shouts of hurrah and the roar of hands, or else, at the other end of the stick, the climax of silence – another form of recognition and appreciation for and experience shared” (Brook, 47). Creating this kind of interactive experience is what makes holy theatre so special. It is extremely difficult to skillfully comb...