Битеф

That part of us which lives in exile What does it mean to work keeping the spectators in mind but not the public? The public ordains success or failure, that is, something which has to do with bredth. The spectators, in their uniqueness, determine that which has to do with depth: to what extent the performance has taken root in certain individual memories. There is a part of us which lives in exile, which wg or others (the others in us) do not find acceptable or sufficiently important. Certain performances burgeon in this rationally, morally or emotionally exiled region. The , spectator does not consume these performances. Often s/he does not understand them or does not know how to evalute them. But s/he continues to have a dialogue with the memories which these performances have sown deep in her/his spirit. I say this not as a director but on the basis of my experience as a spectator. The necessity of distinguishing between public and spectators derives from the will to consciusly exploit an inevitable condition; even though some or many reactions can be unani-

mous and common (these are the public’s reactions), communion is impossible. Intense relationships can be established, but based on reciprocal estrangement. This estrangement is not only a source of difficulties but can be exploited as a precious source of theatrical energy.’ Instead of trying to construct a performance as an organism which speaks to all spectators with the same voice, one can think of it as being composed of many voices which speak together without each voice necessarily speaking to all spectators. For several years, Odin Teatre’s performances have contained fragments (sometimes entire sequences) which arc directed to certain specific spectators whom we feel are close to us and to whom we personally refer. This does not mean these sequences of fragments must appear incongruous to other spectators. It has to do with creating a woven fabric of actions which is coherent on the pre-expressive level, precise in its dramatic rhythm and with knots of images which ca arouse the attention of every spectator. The action or sequence which for the majority of the specta-

tors is alive but impenetrable, or simply not-boring, must, for at least one spectator, contain a clear and central value. The word spectator does not apply only to those who are gathered around the performance. The actors and the director are also in part spectators: they are active in the composition of the perfomance; they are not, however, the masters of its meaning. I have referred to an extreme case. There is a vast gamut of possibilities between this case and its opposite pole, where everything must be equally decodifiable by the maximum number of people. When one is in a position to explore this gamut amply, then one is also in a position to cross the barriers of language, of social and cultural divisions, of different levels of education, not because the performance is universal and says something acceptable to everyone, but because at some moments it speaks to everyone while at other moments it speaks differently to each individual. The performance dances not only on the level of energy but also on the semantic level. It is its mea-

ning which dances, sometimes explicitly, other times covertly and 's'ecretly, open to the free associations of some spectators, while for others it is ambiguous and unrecognizable. The real difficulty does not consist in guaranteeing the presence of multiple voices but in safeguarding the organic integrity of the performance. There must be a technique wich prevents its fragmentation or its degradation into a message which is coded insensate and inert for those who do not possess the key. Making it possible for the spectator to decipher a story does not mean making her/him able to discover the “real meaning” but creating the conditions which allow her/him to ask her/himself questions about the meaning. It has to do with uncovering the, “knots” of the story, those points at which the extremes embrace. There are spectators for whom the theatre is essential precisely because it presents them not with solutions but knots. The performance is the beginning of a longer experience. It is the scorpion’s bite which makes one dance.