RAT Moron Words

[MMA <Diogenes_@compuserve.com>]

Dear Tanya:

Never respond to a writer. They won't let anybody else have the last word.
(And speaking of words, whence "Shumka"?)

Your opposition of  language and "feeling" reminded me how interesting it
is that Americans of so many aesthetic bents nonetheless agree on the
primacy of feeling in theatre--interesting because of course theatre is
where feeling is largely feigned.  [Actually, it occurred to me that this
old idea of staged feeling as feigned feeling is really inaccurate. It
would be more accurate to say that theatre involves the manipulation of
that very strange artifact known as the "Self." Now, Self is clearly in
some deep way abstract--that is, it is a thought-product and deeply
culture-bound--but when an actor manipulates the Self, it is possible for
the virtual "selves" to have "real" feelings--Hamlet's player who famously
weeps for Hecuba, etc. So, isn't it more accurate to say that the Self is
the interface we create for our experience? It keeps the inside in and the
outside out. Who experiences if not our "self", who knows except our Self, 
and through the mediation of self, we convert our raw experience into
knowledge. And yet I run before my horse to market...] Americans of many
artistic stripes all want their theatre to be authentic ("sincere"?) and
use feeling as the litmus test for this complicated reaction; the idea
seems to be that unless the feeling is authentic, the theatre must be
inauthentic. This of course is a very paradoxical position, and one of the
ways to understand the Method might be to see it as a peculiarly American
solution to the problem--suggesting that the actor must create 'authentic'
feelings in order to create an authentic character. 

But sure, what Anne is obviously talking about is the relation between
knowledge and experience and what she is saying (although I do take issue
with her words and, I think, her thinking) is that artists must refresh
their knowledge with experience, and that the theatrical event must also
create a true experience for the audience, which is only possible if it
exists, albeit partly and temporarily, outside their knowledge. This is
saying both that a valid theatrical experience must contain elements which
the audience does not already know (does not merely recycle the recieved
wisdom) and that it must resist complete knowledge (i.e., remain in some
sense the memory of an actual experience.).

Nobody (or at least, not I) would take issue with the idea that an artist
needs to step outside of her knowledge and encounter experience directly
shall we call it "Going To The Well"?) But I would suggest that the
American Buddhist tradition (viz. Cage, Gary Snyder, Kerouac, et. al.)
offers a much richer paradigm (e.g. NoMind). What my rather simplistic
reduction of all this does not account for is the complicated dance of
knowledge and experience. While humans cannot (and surely wouldn't want to)
abandon their knowlege completely, it is equally true that the richest
experience comes from continually trying to step outside of one's knowledge
(however briefly) into direct experience... precisely in order to expand
one's knowledge. I have also failed to account for the special experiential
"knowledge-in-the-body" which is so much more critical for the actor than
the writer, and how that knowledge is maintained and recapitulated.
Language, it is true, is an abstraction, but if you include memory and Self
as abstractions too, then it's necessary to describe us as a whole series
of related abstract systems engaged in some sort of play with experience
("events out there").

Still, we can "know" almost nothing except these abstract systems. We can
experience whatever we experience, but when the moment of experience is
over, it seems we can only "know" what has been interpreted into ("mapped
onto") an abstract system--whether language or self. [And if you think
there is no relation between language and self, why is it you would have
such strong emotions if I said you were a Bad Person? Consider the Rat
List, and how these typed words convey such potent emotions. Are we all not
more naked, and more bold, hiding behind these screens than we would ever
be in person? Well, time and the Beach Fest West will tell, I suppose]. I
say "almost nothing" because it seems there is always something just beyond
the reach of our knowledge that didn't quite make it in, and that liminal
space is one of the borderlands where art flourishes.

Why this aversion to language in specific still baffles me, as I will claim
(surely not without controversy) that a theatre performance without words
has to WORK HARDER at fulfilling the potential of theatre than one which
uses words. Simply my perception, not even claiming lack of bias. [And it
would be captious of me to say that Bogart's low regard for words is all
too often apparent, to the detriment of her work, so I won't say that.] 

What I really balk at is the "terror" business. "Terror" is really an
uncharacteristic, if not downright pathological, reaction to the strange
(chaotic, random, call it what you will) nature of direct experience. 
Think of the Buddha. Think of your own experience. (Do you walk around
terrified? Would you like it if you did? Budda sez it's all attachment
anyway, you know...)  Terror is so far from the norm that it misses the
nature of the norm, which is much closer to curiousity, mystery and
delight. Which are NICE things. All creatures see the stars; we are the
only ones (to our knowledge) to be filled with wonder and from that same
wonder come the twin rivers of science and art: calculations of the age of
the universe, the romance of the moon, the period of cepheid variables, 
the patterns of the constellations, astrology, Kepler's laws.... Anyone
claiming that "terror" is the appropriate and fundamental human reaction to
direct experience is just plain wrong on the facts, that's my opinion. And
babies, trust me, are not born in terror. At least the one I know (probably
some are; probably anything is true, somewhere. which is interesting in
itself).

Besides--and here is where the French Revolution comes in--terror is not a
neutral word.  It is a jazzy, pepped up word, to be sure, and it's kinda
fun to sling around (again, see the French Revolution, below), but I do
think it is not a very nice thing bring to other people. Surely we don't
disagree. Surely you and Anne are using the term metaphorically (and that
is why I am suggesting the Buddha-mind is a much much better metaphor).
But, hey you know, so what's the problem with a little sharp-edged
metaphor, eh, Mr. Jones? So you can dish it out but you can't take it, Mr.
Jones?

Mr. Jones has already confessed to being a) tetchy and b) too damn
book-learned for his own good but he really did spend the winter reading
about the FR for the first time in his life (started with Schama's
CITIZENS, highly recommended, then Furet, from whom Schama apparently
cribbed tons and tons, with LeFebvre, Carlyle and Burke still ahead) and
the truly problematic character turns out to be Robespierre.  Schama and
Burke, two conservatives, absolutely hated him and he seems so hateful that
it's hard to understand why there are still actually pro-Robespierre-ists.
Anyway, the point is that it was Robespierre who, for the first time in
Western Culture, introduced the idea of Terror as something of a
turn-on--seductive, exhilarating, intoxicating--something you could get a
big, nasty, virtous kick out of doing to your neighbor.  When you invoke
Terror, you are playing his card, and  Old Maximilien really got into it
with both hands, whipping up as toxic a brew of schadenfreude (call it
RatSassYoMomma!) as this old globe has seen, before or since.  Here is the
old Incorruptible stemwinder himself, holding forth before the National
Assembly in 1794:

        "If the spring of popular government in time of peace 
        is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution 
        are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is 
        fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is 
        nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it 
        is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a 
        special principle as it is a consequence of the general 
        principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent 
        needs. 
        
        It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic 
        government. Does your government therefore resemble 
        despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands 
        of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the 
        henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern 
        by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. 
        Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be 
        right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the 
        revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny. Is force 
        made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not 
        destined to strike the heads of the proud? 

        To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to 
        forgive them is cruelty. The severity of tyrants has barbarity 
        for its principle; that of a republican government is founded 
        on beneficence. Therefore let him beware who should 
        dare to influence the people by that terror which is 
        made only for their enemies! Let him beware, who, regarding 
        the inevitable errors of civism in the same light, with 
        the premeditated crimes of perfidiousness, or the 
        attempts of conspirators, suffers the dangerous intriguer 
        to escape and pursues the peaceable citizen! Death 
        to the villain who dares abuse the sacred name of liberty 
        or the powerful arms intended for her defence, to carry 
        mourning or death to the patriotic heart....

And lord lord lord what a mighty chop-chop-chopping off of heads did there
ensue. (Schama even has a footnote listing the speed record set by a
32-head batch job, which means some old Froggie was timing the damn thing
with his pocket watch.  Yeooowwww!)

Here's my admittedly Whiggish point. To the extent that we are engaged in a
public discourse, our choice of words and metaphors matters, especially
when we are talking about what we want to do to our audience.  And at the
risk of inciting the wrath of Gaul, there is something in the French
cultural tradition having to do with "Terror"--or if you prefer M. Artaud,
"Cruelty" (and as I recall, "Blood"???)--which I'm just gonna go right out
on a limb and say has no damn business in any kinda theatre I want to be
involved with, at all.  

And one last thought.  Would it really be such a mistake to include a heavy
dose of literature, critical theory, history, philosophy and scientific
thought in actor training? Does anyone know whether this would be better or
worse than sense-memory exercises?  I'm only asking....

Diogenes (aka "Mr. Jones")
Brooklyn, USA



Message text written by INTERNET:rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>J. Jones:

Excuse the delay in responding to your comments (I moved). I appreciate
your 
thoughts and arguments, and have further enjoyed others' comments as well. 
Unfortunately, I do don't have the time to respond fully to your last
entry, 
but I do wish to briefly clarify the use of the word "terror" in my first 
exchange. I was referring to the quote by Bogart and her inclusion of this 
word as representing an attempt to affect the audience by presenting the 
unexpected, thereby creating a state of "unbalance" which can both
confusing 
and frightening. I do not mean using scare tactics like a horror flick, but

rather, purposely attempting to inject "chaos" - "randomness" - bypass the 
logical, the expected, the intellectual, and affect one on a gut level 
(though even such fool-hearty attempts become dissected and categorized to 
represent some kind of meaning so that our minds can make "sense" of it, 
thereby defeating the whole purpose). Language can be a protective device 
from which to separate oneself from the immediate "feeling" (dare we use
that 
word), and thereby remain detached, safely protected in the "higher" 
intellectual functions.

This is not to say that language is not important, nor that it has beauty
and 
power. Only that, in the three dimensional forum of live performance, 
language is only one of the many elements through which we communciate, and

in my experience, often the weakest. 

There's more to say (and ponder) on this, but I must go. I look forward to 
your comments, as well as to all others.

Tanya Kane-Parry
Shumka (location undetermined)




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Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 02:36:58 EDT
Subject: RAT More on Words
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