Superfluities Redux

Lagging

2009-07-15T12:08:00Z

The jet lag is still catching me up, but I did want to note my thanks and gratitude to the good people at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales, for their brilliant generosity and a fine conference that pointed in so many new directions, as well as their enthusiasm and companionship, from fellow participants, splendid guests and dizzyingly talented students (especially those whom I was honored to see at work among the cast and crew of the staged reading of A Wounded Knife). And a welcome, too, to those whom I met at the conference who may be reading Superfluities Redux for the first time over the next few days. I hope that they may find something here worth their effort in seeking me out here on the Internet, and naturally welcome their comments on whatever they find. More substantial writing will resume soon, when my pencil is more keenly sharpened than it is this morning.

This is also an appropriate time and place to note that the daylong celebration of Howard Barker's work in New York is now scheduled for Monday, 10 May 2010. A co-production of CUNY's Martin E. Segal Theatre Center and theatre minima, the event will consist of readings, screenings and discussions of Howard Barker's plays, poetry and theatre (I'm especially looking forward to screening archival recordings of Barker's own productions of his recent plays I Saw Myself and The Dying of Today), and we're delighted that he's accepted our invitation to attend the conference in a rare visit to the United States. More information will be available shortly. To make sure you get it, join theatre minima's mailing list here.

Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone

2009-07-07T13:02:00Z

Tomorrow I travel to Wales to deliver a paper and otherwise meet new friends, find new aesthetic encouragement and generally recharge the batteries. Among the demands of a day job and a new daughter, I'll confess that it has been difficult to keep the fires stoked, especially in imagining a theatre that, because of its demands, demands more from me. In New York there is little return on investment, perhaps in Europe more. I will not be blogging from the conference (as they say about Las Vegas, what happens in Aberystwyth stays in Aberystwyth), so here there will be a hiatus, with no promises of a specific return date.

Upcoming

2009-07-02T12:32:00Z

The Heiner Müller/Robert Wilson Quartett, coming to the Brooklyn Academy of Music this fall (Photo: Pascal Victor)

Beginning at Performance Space 122 this weekend, younger experimental artists take both stages through 26 July in the undergroundzero festival. The festival, curated by Paul Bargetto and produced by East River Commedia in association with Collective:Unconscious, offers fifteen full productions and five staged readings, including new work from Blessed Unrest (an adaptation of Chekhov's Ivanov) and Thinking Person's Theater (She of the Voice, adapted by Eliza Bent from a short story by Hari Kunzru, directed by José Zayas). Tickets for each production are $15, little more than the price of a movie. Full information on the festival and ticketing information is here; come out and support the next generation of theatre's innovators.

Casting an eye over contemporary New York theatre, a look back at the last generation of theatre's innovators would also be a good idea. Tracing Grotowski's Path: Year of Grotowski in New York, the year-long celebration of the Polish director's career, concludes in July with On Grotowski and His Legacy, a three-day event at the 2009 Lincoln Center Festival that includes a panel discussion with Grotowski's artistic heir Thomas Richards and NYU's Richard Schechner as well as two films at the Walter Reade Theater. Tracing Grotowski's Path is co-sponsored by the Polish Cultural Institute and NYU's Performance Studies Department. Information on 13 July's panel discussion (which is free) here, more on the 11-12 July film program here.

Finally, a save-the-date for Robert Wilson's production of Heiner Müller's Quartett, starring Isabelle Huppert, which comes from France's Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe to BAM's Next Wave Festival this November. This will be a rare opportunity to see an example of this work (one of Müller's most remarkable plays, based on Les Liaisons dangereuses) from two notorious theatre artists; individual tickets go on sale on 8 September. More information here, and below is a sample of the production from its French premiere: