lorenzo mango

The article is an investigation into the theoretical aspect of the Ubermarionette in Gordon Craig's writings. The materials referred to in the text are edited essays but also daybooks and non-edited annotations of Craig. The result of the research is that as a theory, the Ubermarionette has a metaphoric and philosophical aspect that proceeds in parallel to his practical experimentation. The theory of the Ubermarionette, in other words, doesn't support the work Craig did or thought to do with marionettes (whatever they were), but it is a field with its autonomy.

© © 2 20 01 15 5 A Ac ct ti in ng g A Ar rc ch hi iv ve es s L Lo or re en nz zo o M Ma an ng go o CRAIG TOWARDS THE ART OF THE THEATRE THE MORNING POST ARTICLES OF 1903 * Foreword It is customary-and correct-to date Craig's theoretical work to the 1905 publication of The Art of the Theatre, the volume in the form of a dialogue in which he very clearly-even peremptorily-illustrates his vision of theatre as a specific language, and directing as an authorial rather than purely executive and representational element. In actual fact Craig had already published something, two years earlier, in 1903, the year which proved a crucial turning-point in his career. This was the year of The Vikings, based on Ibsen's Haermaendene paa Helgeland (The Vikings at Helgeland), written by Craig for the "family" company Ellen Terry had set up after leaving the Lyceum and after Irving's departure from the stage, with her son Edward as director and her daughter Edith as costume designer. In visual terms the performance was revolutionary, departing sharply from Ibsen's directions in favour of a stark scene reduced to essentials but charged with symbolic value. It was however a failure, its starkness, according to several critics, ill-adapted to the conventional and realistic style of the actors, most of them ex-Lyceum, and the part of the diabolic Hjordis unsuited to Ellen Terry's particular talents. The Vikings closed after a few days, and Terry reverted to one of her mainstays, Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing; her son was again the director, and again the set-design was minimalist and essential. The experience of the family company ended here, although in her memoirs, rather than the lack of success Terry remembers the innovative, experimental aspects, not without a certain ironic pride: I hope it will be remembered, when I am spoken of by young critics after my death as a "Victorian" actress belonging to the "old school", that I produced a spectacular play of Ibsen's in a manner which possibly anticipated the scenic ideas of the future by a century. 1 The failed show did indeed have unexpected developments. It was seen by Count Harry Kessler, a German nobleman with a passion for British culture with which he was keen to establish connections, possible first steps, he believed, towards a project of European modernism on an artistic but also political level (a project destined to end tragically in the First World War). Kessler was fired by Craig's directorly vision and invited him to Germany the following year. One result was that The Vikings was

La metà degli anni settanta segna una linea forte di demarcazione nella realtà teatrale italiana. Si determina, infatti, uno iato programmatico sia nei confronti delle pratiche più istituzionali, il teatro di regia, che nei confronti di quelle riferibili al Nuovo Teatro, Living, Grotowski, Barba da un lato e il Teatro immagine dall'altro. Il momento storico è particolarmente vivace, specie a Roma dove, attorno al Beat 72, con la guida e la complicità critica di Giuseppe Bartolucci, la tensione innovatrice verso una nuova pratica della scrittura scenica è il motore di una generazione di artisti particolarmente radicale. Fu Bartolucci stesso a coniare, per definirne lavoro e poetica, il termine postavanguardia, con un certo anticipo rispetto a quanto farà Achille Bonito Oliva per le arti visive parlando di transavanguardia. Nell'un caso e nell'altro ciò che premeva, nella scelta terminologica, era evidenziare un rapporto di collegamento e scarto rispetto alle pratiche delle avanguardie che avevano caratterizzato fino a quella data il Novecento. Diverso, però, l'approdo critico. Per Bonito Oliva la transavanguardia indicava l'assimilazione della logica decostruttiva dell'avanguardia in una chiave stilistico formale con una ripresa forte della pratica della pittura; la postavanguardia, invece, pur ripromettendosi ugualmente di fare i conti con l'avanguardia e col Novecento in genere aveva un atteggiamento meno formalizzante teso ad esaltarne, fino a toccare il grado zero della scrittura per dirla col titolo di un celeberrimo volume di Roland Barthes, proprio la dimensione decostruttiva. Se storicamente la postavanguardia dialoga idealmente con la transavanguardia, sul piano della operatività linguistica essa appare assai più prossima all'arte concettuale, al suo atteggiamento smaterializzante e alla sua logica di scomposizione del linguaggio in una struttura fonematica, in segni primari non referenziali. Non a caso se ne parlò anche in termini di teatro analitico-esistenziale, di un teatro, cioè, che coniugasse assieme la dissezione del corpo teatrale fino a produrre nuclei fonematici primari e l'apertura verso la dimensione concreta, esperienziale, del vissuto. 1 La Gaia Scienza, fondata da Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Marco Solari e Alessandra Vanzi, fu uno dei gruppi più significativi di quel momento storico, che concorse in maniera rilevante ad avviare e caratterizzare. 1 Si veda al proposito G. Bartolucci, A. e L. Mango, Per un teatro analitico-esistenziale, Torino, Studio forma, 1980.

The Orgies Mysteries Theatre is one of the most radical experiences in
twenty-century theatre. Hermann Nitsch started his project in Vienna at the
beginning of the 1960s. At that time Nitsch was a young painter taken by
the idea of writing a drama that would last for six days and that would be
staged at a big ritual festival. Nitsch developed his original hypothesis
changing the medium of expression in the process: the Orgies Mysteries
Theatre does not perform traditional plays, but is rather based on stage
writing and body art experience. Nitsch’s performances are composed of
actions where the performers use dead animal, blood and other organic
matters to create a ritual effect, which evokes the ancestral rites of death
and rebirth. The performances have a very strong impact on the audience.
The Orgies Mysteries Theatre is a theatre that affects all the senses, in a way
that is remindful of Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk, a Gesamtkunstwerk of the
senses, if you will. Actors, in Nitsch’s theatre have special functions. Nitsch
distinguishes between “active actors” (who produce the action) and
“passive actors” (who are the recipients of it). The latter are the real
characters of the drama, while the role of the “active actors” is similar to
that of the ancient Greek chorus: they stand for the audience. Actors, in
Nitsch’s idea of Theatre, function as ritual operators who act in reality, as
performers that do not simulate but rather use reality directly as a form of
writing. Actors also function as a visual sign in the performance, as
symbolic evocations of sort. As such they have also an iconic role in the
stage writing.

Lorenzo Mango, Studing acting during avantgards age. Some methodological
issues
The avantgard theatre of 1900 has changed completely the theatrical style,
counterposing the concepts of representation, the mise-en-scene and the
centrality of the literary text.
According to that, the concept of acting has changed deeply. New scenic
conditions didn't consider as important the problems connected with acting
a specific character and two new phenomena were born such as the change
of position of acting and the improvement of it.
The former considers the work of the actor as a physical action during the
development of the stories, not contemplating his interpretation of a
specific character. The latter is referred to the insertion of non-theatrical
phenomena in the world of acting such as dance, happening and
performance.
The main point of these procedures is the centrality of the presence,
considered as the most important thing concerning the actors.