The theatre of the edge.
The theatre on the edge.
The cutting edge theatre.
The double edged theatre.
The edge.
The cliff.
The abyss.
The borderline.
What is right and what is wrong and the thin line in between.
I have taught a course entitled "Introduction to the Art of Theatre" for the past 10 years.
When I reach the chapter of the director,
I explain to my students the difference between the museum director
and the auteur director.
Museum directors are the ones who decide to stay far away from the edge. They are safe. All they do is to restore a piece of art.
They are curators.
Auteur-directors try to create.
For this, they sometimes need to destroy a piece of art instead of restoring it. And in order to create they have to reach the cliff and look down at the abyss.
And if they are creators, when they are stabbed in the back, they do not fall in the abyss...they fly.
I often heard people say "theatre is life".
Two days ago i met a friend who told me:
"In order for us to understand what is happening in the world today, we need to see it on stage. The truth, the real aspect of it, will only be unveiled if put on stage. What is happening in the streets, is only one side of the story, & it is often staged."
In 1985, I was given the responsibility of a group of 10 children.
I was working as an instructor in a summer camp in the island of Rodhes.
We were staying at a hotel near the Villa de Vecche, which used to be the summer residence of Mussolini.
In the afternoons, the director of the summer camp used to send us to play in the court of the abandoned Villa.
In this yard there was a cliff.
The first day I arrived to the summer camp,
I went up to visit the villa and the yard without my kids.
Another group of children were playing a 'run and catch me' game.
One of the children was running and to avoid being caught,
jumped over the cliff.
They took him to the hospital: one fractured leg, one fractured arm.
In the evening, I had a fight with the director of the summer camp.
I was blaming her for sending the children to play in a dangerous place.
She replied: "my mistake was not to have sent them play there,
my mistake was to have trusted the instructors."
The next day she programmed the same game, at the same time, with all the kids of the summer camp, in the same place. She explained to the kids that there was a cliff. She built a fence. She drew the limitation of the space 2 meters away from the fence and said:
"now they can play safely".
Back then, I was 16 years old.
The Theatre of the Edge consists of taking all the precautions necessary,
it consists of keeping in mind all the safety measures in relation to all participants.
How did I go to the Edge with the people who have worked with me for the past 10 years?
In 2002, in "The Love of the Nightingale",
one of the platforms was a swing, chained to the catwalk. Not only were some actors jumping and swinging on it, but others were standing in the way, so if they lacked concentration for 1 second, the platform would hit their head.
In 2003, in "This is Not Terrorism",
a performance that was created after 18 rehearsals,
the actors had to climb on the trees, the windows and the balconies of the campus of LAU. The performance was on the 23rd of January and we used to rig the lights every night for the rehearsals because at the time, it used to rain in January in Beirut.
In 2004, in "Fragments",
I had 11 tons of water on stage, and actors were diving in the water.
My technical director made sure we had no accident despite the fact of having electric wires and water on stage.
In the same play, my actors had to climb on scaffolds which were behind a big wooden wall. The first time they climbed, it took them 6 minutes to reach their places. During the performances, they would reach their places in 57 seconds.
In 2005, in "Amnesia 2025" ,
my actors were able to stand and walk on 8x8 poles that were planted into the ground.
In 2006, in "The Dead Sea",
the actors were tied to ropes,
we had more than 500 ropes on stage back then,
and some were literally flying as you saw in the pictures.
In 2007, in "Silenzio 33",
we had fire on stage. The day we had an accident, the 3 safety people in the wings and sitting in the first row did not even have to interfere.
One of the actors, in character, turned off the fire on stage and everybody thought it was part of the show.
In Silenzio 33, the actors were carrying 8x8 poles which were 4 meters long and which were quite heavy.
They used to build the set themselves every night after the end of the performance. The first time they built it it took them 1 hour and 15 minutes.
During performances, they would build it in 22 minutes.
In 2008, in "En'kephale",
actors had their hands tied to extensions which were 4 by 4 wooden sticks. They had to exist and climb on platforms which were 6 meters high, with the width of 90 cm. The first time they climbed on them, some of them cried.
In 2009, in "UTOPIA",
actors had to exist barefoot on scaffolds, which means they were standing on horizontal pipes with a diameter not exceeding 7 cm.
The pipes were on 3 levels, the first height was 2 meters, the second height was 4 meters, the third height was 6 meters.
In 2010, in "In the Heart of the Heart of Another Body",
the platforms were there, the ramps were there, and actors had to climb on ropes to reach the catwalk which is 9 meters high.
And now, if I look back at "Apospasmata Aghonistika",
the only edge, the only danger of it, seems to have been its content.
And yes, my theatre is that of the edge.
And everything we do on stage is a lesson for life.
Tadeuz Kantor said: "Theatre is an activity that occurs if life is pushed to its final limits where all categories and concepts lose their meaning and right to exist [...] It is fascinating that art -not only theatre but art in general-
occurs when our awareness of everyday life is pushed to its final limits…"
My methods are not common,
I am and I will always be a very strict person, demanding, perfectionist.
I will always push the people who work with me to their limits, to the edge, but they will never be endangered.
If they respect the rules of the game and the rules of the group, they are safe.
They will not fall into the abyss.
Yes, it is not meant for everybody to work with me, and any person who becomes harmful to the group or even to him / herself will always be asked to stop working with us.
Yes, it is safer to be a curator.
But we will always aim to be creators.
Tadeusz Kantor talks about a theatre that renounces the laws of its own existence. A theatre which was forced to submit to the conditions,
to the laws and to the conventions of life.
This is why it has become an institution.
After 10 years of experimentation, my Theatre of the Edge has become an institution.
Nagy Souraty - March 2011
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