The Greatest Shows on Earth: World Theatre from Peter Brook to the Sydney Olympics

297 Pages·2012·1.298 MB·English

by  John Freeman

THE
GREATEST SHOWS
ON EARTH
WORLD THEATRE FROM
PETER BROOK TO THE
SYDNEY OLYMPICS
Edited by John Freeman
the
greatest
shows on
earth

the
greates t
shows on
earth
world Theatre from Peter Brook
to the sydney olympics
John Freeman
First published in 2011 by Libri Publishing
Copyright © John Freeman
Authors retain copyright of individual case studies
ISBN: 978 1 907471 54 4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder for which application
should be addressed in the first instance to the publishers. No liability shall be attached to the
author, the copyright holder or the publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of
reliance on the reproduction of any of the contents of this publication or any errors or omissions in
its contents.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library
Photograph of John Freeman by Leigh Brennan
Photograph on front cover by (c) Maarten Vanden Abeele, Brussels, 2004.
In the photograph : Actress Viviane De Muynck in the theatre production Isabella’s Room from
director Jan Lauwers & Needcompany.
Cover design and typesetting by Carnegie Book Production
Printed in the UK by Halstan Printing
C o n t e n t s
Chapter 1 John Freeman
The Best Seat in the House 1
Chapter 2 Colin Chambers
Shakespeare for My Time 17
Chapter 3 Edward Lewis
‘I’ve been Nicked!’: The Life and Adventures
of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens,
Adapted for the Stage by David Edgar 35
Chapter 4 Jean-Marc Larrue
Robert Lepage and Théâtre Repère:
Trilogie des Dragons 53
Chapter 5 Anthony Mawson & Ursula Raffalt
Styx 69
Chapter 6 Kevin J. Wetmore Jr.
Third World Bunfight’s Ipi Zombi? 87
Chapter 7 Peter Snow
Performing Nation: The Opening Ceremony
of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games 105
Chapter 8 Allan Owens
Pilgrim: Taichi-kikaku 125
Chapter 9 Guilherme Mendonça
O ACHAMENTO DO BRASIL,
Foco Musical 145
Chapter 10 David Jortner
Faustian Fears: Dr. Atomic, National Anxiety
and J. Robert Oppenheimer 163
v
the g reatest s hows on e arth
Chapter 11 Kathy Foley
Odalan Bali: An Offering of Music
and Dance by Gamelan Çudamani 181
Chapter 12 Constantin Chiriac
Silviu Purcărete’s Faust:
an Encyclopedia of the Emotional 201
Chapter 13 John Freeman
Life is a Cigarette: Isabella’s Room, Jan Lauwers
and Needcompany 219
Chapter 14 Anne Pellois
Impromptu XL: Tg STAN:
Theatre as a Memory Machine 235
Chapter 15 David Mason
The Oberammergau Passionsspiele 255
Contributors’ Biographies 277
Index 282
vi
Leave unchanged the hands that I have kissed.

C ha p t e r on e
The Best Seat in the House
John Freeman
Theatre is not about the flowering fantasy of the artist, it’s
about the imagination of the audience.
Heiner Goebbels: ‘Polyphony or Essential Solitude’, February 2010
as the title suggests, this book is about great theatre, about all
that is made visible or audible on stage, about mise en scène as an
imaginative organisational concept. And, with barely a mention of
semiotics, it is a book about a system of signs working together to produce
meaning and resonance. In being a book about fourteen performances,
described by fifteen contributors, this is also a book that wrestles with the
challenge of describing on the page that which exists in time and space and,
most significantly, within specific contexts. Published scripts tell us plenty,
but even more is left out. Where text is considered in various chapters it
is approached primarily in the sense of performance text, as the result of
choices made by performers, directors, designers, writers and spectators…
choices that are made concrete in the work’s presentation and reception.
In this way the book nails its colours cleanly to the mast of performance
as an event occuring over time rather than to literary criticism aligned
to the object of text as it appears in print. Where Tom McAlindon is
suspicious of writing which ‘valorises performance rather than substance’
(McAlindon, 2004, p.20) this book’s prime concern is with the very
substance of performance. This is not to discredit the value of the written
script (where such exists) so much as to engage with the idea that dramatic
text is as likely to be used in the service of performance as vice versa.
Because each chapter will focus on a particular production seen on one
or more occasion and at one or more venues, the role of the spectator is
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