Summary
Boundaries between the Theater of Existence and the Existence of Theater – a semiotics of Ingmar Bergman's vision as a theater man explores the relationship between the dramatic text and the texture of society (in a broader sense, including metaphorically, simultaneously representing the perception of existence, mentality, sensibility, spirituality, the need and the capacities to assimilate the theatrical message, as well as the evolution of aesthetic and artistic tastes). In a situation of anthropological and global oxymoron, in which the precision provided by high technology collaborates with the chaos produced and maintained by the already inhuman quantity of information, the role and purpose of the text directly concern the present and the future of the human species.
In order to more easily distinguish and unbiasedly follow the movements of the texture of society, I have chosen as an example the vision (aka method) of an artist, Ingmar Bergman, whose experiences, creations in theater and film, written or verbal testimonies mirror and convincingly convey the position that the Artist must adopt as, in the war between the Vertical Text - the texture of society (generically referred to as the Horizontal Text), the former not only to survive, not to be deformed or diluted, but also not to lose its primordial supremacy. In this context, due to the exigencies imposed by a certain (assumed) disproportion between the guiding idea of the work and the data selected to illustrate certain phenomena – some public, others accessible only through semiotic deductions or metaphor – one may conclude that the creative and existential method of an artist can be the message, the lesson for artists and not only from other generations.
In this paper, the Text means that which, in harmony with the research ideology and with the state of society in the different periods researched and metaphorically I will call vertical, primordial, of the archetypal, indispensable, indisputable from the point of view of aesthetic-artistic values, creatively independent, capitalized or not, a kind of text to the power of the text, the bearer at the same time of descriptions, metaphor - as an instrument of knowledge, of the protection of value and even a modus vivendi -; of decipherment and the mysticism of artistic creation.
The importance of the relationship between the Vertical Text and the texture of society (or Horizontal Text) can be rationally understood and accepted with a thoughtful empathy, on the verge of academic sobriety, but it can be experienced and correctly appreciated only by readers who know what a verse, a proverb, a paragraph, a stanza, a line or a parable really can save your life or lift you (again or for the first time) from the horizontal text (monotonous, linear existence) to the Vertical one, where you understand in a different perspective the elementary truth that life is essentially bitextual[1], and death – the definitive passage from one text to another. In this con-text, the present text investigates the moment of passage (called death) as a revelation (hence the concept of boundaries).
The dramatic text is at the root of the mirroring of reality, of absorption, of recreation on the principles of poesis and the representation of that reality ad hoc, intending to enrich the consciousness of the spectator (aka the reader), to support through empathy and artistic therapy, but also to gradually improve the life of the citizen or at least to keep its decay at the limits of spirituality, without allowing the biological to expand at the expense of identity. Under such conditions, the indispensable text remains the most effective 'weapon' of (self)defense against chaos, if only because it reduces the incoherence and spiritual cacophony that propagates chaos – and vice versa.
In the society defined as global, post-modern, post-truth, post-gender, liquid, fluid, nuclear, hi-tech, etc., the languages of the layers of perception function as a system weakened to the boundary of the whole, and vice versa. They "despise" each other, exclude each other, try to absorb each other's energies and especially members of the communities that use them, but for different reasons and purposes: the evolved ones – to be able to survive and carry on the essence of the human species, and the others: to dominate and usurp space (attention, dead or living time, admiring energies, affection, etc.). What is certain is that the evolved (Vertical) languages tend to become niche, closed and, in the absence of the target-audience, unproductive or museum-like, and the less evolved, pragmatic ones – to massively produce functional illiteracy, supported by emotional / sentimental illiteracy[2] and even intellectual autism, fluidizing almost apocalyptically (not in the sense of discovery) the boundaries between art, medicine and social services.
As far as the Theatre and the performing world in general are concerned, the evolution of the relationship between the texture of society and the dramatic text should have depended exclusively on the authentic talent of playwrights, on the soberly innovative vision of directors and on the real needs of spectators as beings meant to transmit to future generations the quality of the theatrical act – symbolizing and guiding a modus vivendi subject to quality, not quantity – and not to confuse the hic et nunc experiences of a performance with its intrinsic value. Only in this way will the theater not be deformed, diluted and removed from its own system of signs, and will preserve its essential elements such as its therapeutic capacity, its power to teach, its power to refine consciences, its spiritual and linguistic richness with which it perfects not only aesthetic tastes but also the ways in which man becomes capable of giving the passing of time the indispensable importance it deserves, not more and not in the spirit of the herd – elements directly linked to the quality of life and inter-human relations.
Formed according to the dominant tastes of a time warp - frequently pressured by consumerism and comfortism[3], at other times attracted by certain expressions of idealism found in degrees less and less taken seriously or still not yet recognized as outdated or pathetic, and in some cases possessed by the comfort presented as equilibrium – the broad mass of spectators, exploited or even tastefully abused, one might say, will only function as a ticket-paying army that imposes ratings, maintains them and contributes directly to the gradual mediocrity of the dramatic texts that reach the stage and are publicized as if they were some unusual successes.
Preceded
by a brief overview of European society today[4]
(Chapter I, entitled Texture of a Society
of Transitions and Transactions, sub-chapters Text – dream of an unfulfilled reality, A siege in the guise of a
performance, Immediate reality – dream of an unfulfilled text, Society as an
auto-correct), with a particular focus on the form it has taken in the
East, which has gone through several dictatorships – after the de jure end of the Cold War –, the work
is composed of six other chapters (each divided into sub-chapters arranged
ideologically, not chronologically):
II. The State of Theater – some observations and opinions about the
current theater in relation to the primordial sign system of Theater. I
meditated on: the meaning of the artistic-mystical ritual and rehearsals that
characterize the everyday; Everything can
be imagined - Everything represents; Ritual versus monotony; The text of
the Archetype or The rest is narrative; A permanent system under attack by the
assemblies[5]
– About: Theatre under siege of innovations at any cost; tendencies to
revolutionize the theatrical act – natural need or mediocrity in financial and
identity impasse; the real risk that the instinct of preserving authentic
values will be replaced by the instinct of deconstruction;
III. Some features of the Scandinavian space –
realities, metaphors, symbols, modus scrivendi – About a space[6]
in which ethnic specificity, thanks to geographical, historical, climatic,
temperamental and linguistic elements, conquers the universal in theater and
cinema; the fructification of solitude and the importance of the so-called peripheral, peninsular spaces; immediate
reality and mythology – the texture of an unmistakable world that does not
allow itself to be altered; the dream as an intermediary space, but also as a
space in its own right;
IV. The essence of a devotion or the island of a peninsula (case study:
on Ingmar Bergman's creation as a theater man – director, but also playwright)
in a European and universal context; on childhood as vocation and vocation as
freedom; training, mentors and people who inspired him; The spiritual circulation of my blood or the "strange"
relations with leading playwrights; the retreat to Fårö Island – a kind of
rootedness in the center of entropy, but especially of the Text;
V. A "Barbarian from the North"[7] or
the Gardener of the Indispensable Text (Bergmanesque vision of theater as an encounter of man with man and nothing
else; repertoire over almost six decades of theater directing; relationship
with playwrights, stage, actors, music, silence, ages; the experience of
(self-)imposed exile and creation at the Residenztheater in Munich;
re-returning to the mother tongue; from an imposed survival to the natural
supremacy of the Vertical Text;
VI. Method as Message –
Some aspects of the semiotics of Bergmanian theater: the structure of a method,
Theater in a local world on the way to becoming a global village; language,
stage space, actors and spectators; the avoidance of improvisation – a way to
master chaos and to safeguard the quality of life maintained/proposed by the
verified dramatic texts; through rehearsals towards Balance; Text, play,
reality; Between accent and meaning there
is a distinction;
VII. Mirrors in progress – universal messages and the tools used by an "artisan"; about the pact with the frequencies of higher language; in countertime with countertime; the conclusion of a devotion imagined as a secret play staged once; about a very important translation; a prologue in Logos.
In this context, Ingmar Bergman's vision as a teatermannen acquires a real importance and even power of impact, first of all because Bergman was the only theater director of the 20th century who, without ideological or aesthetic restrictions, strove and succeeded to keep the primordial system of signs of the Theater within the natural limits that offer sufficient possibilities to perfect it from the inside, on the components, without deforming the essences.
Boundaries between the Theater of Existence and the Existence of Theater is intended to be an interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary work, without pretensions of exegesis, with numerous monographic and essayistic elements, filtered through individual meditations of a bilingual playwright and fragments of notes given throughout the course of university courses and seminars in the History of universal theater and in the Semiotics and stylistics of theater (from 2008 to the present).
The work contains a selective bibliography, three original icons, a selection of images from Ingmar Bergman's staged performances and a 'map' of key observations and opinions.
Metaphorical in essence, the chapter and sub-chapter headings are used as tools to more convincingly decipher the phenomena under study, while mirroring the working method I have chosen for this paper.
Info
The
work contains:
3
original pictographs,
263
Footnotes
197 names (Index)
Contents
Synopsis 9
I. The
Texture of a Society of Transitions and Transactions
The Text – the Dream of an Unfulfilled Reality?
A Siege in the Form of a Spectacle
Immediate Reality – the Dream of an Unfinished Text?
Society as an Auto-Correct
II. State of
Theatre
Everything Can Be Imagined / Everything
Represents
Ritual vs. Monotony
The Archetype Text or the Rest is a
Narrative
A System Permanently Attacked by Ensembles
a. In Place of Posterity, an Endless Shipwreck
b. Mimesis nihil est and Poesis ex nihilo
III. Some
Features of Scandinavian Space – Realities, Metaphors, Symbols, Modus Scribendi
The Universal in Local Texts
Responsibility for Perspective and Vice Versa
Symbols of Reality – the Reality of Symbols
Dream, World, Worlds
To Read, To Live, To Create
Ezoterikón
Persons and Persona(s)
A Theatre That Writes Itself
Center and Periphery in the Fate of the Text
Asceticism and Image – Parts of a Superior Geometry
IV. The
Essence of Devotion or the Island in a Peninsula
Access as an Initiatory Endeavor
Childhood – Vocation; Vocation – Freedom
Theatre, Life, and the Border
Theatre – a 'man's interface with man'
and nothing else
Statistic Quo
Dramaten
The New Textual Originality
Living Mentors Through Texts. The Text – the Bond of “Siamese Brothers”. August
Strindberg
Living Mentors Not Only Through Creations
An Intermezzo: Ex-Islandion
Returning to the Island Where, Through Daily Writing, One Can Rediscover the
Language (the View) of Childhood
Fårö – a Diamond Core in the Middle of Entropy
V. A
"Barbarian from the North" or an Incorruptible "Border
Guard"
The Bergmanian Vision of Dramatic Text
Indisputable Texts – an Incomplete Anthology
Six Characters in Search of an Author – and Their Fellow or Even the Self in
the Hall
King Lear – a Continent
Corpses Turned in Ophelia’s Grave
Ibsen – the Hidden Poet
The Reply of an Exiled Balkan Elder
The Blooming of Alexandrines
Directing as If You Were a Musician
The Relationship with the Rest of the Stage
Imposed Survival – Natural Supremacy
VI. Method
as Message
Theatre in a Local World on the Way to Becoming a Global Village
The Today – Role and Impact
The Meaning and Nature of Freedom (Independence) in Art
VI. . The
Structure of a Method
To stage
Roots
Magic / Super- or Extra-Natural
Converting Life Experience into Art and Vice Versa
Through Rehearsals to Balance
Text, Play, Reality
The Actor – the Cyclic Host of Man / Man – the Cyclic Host of the Actor
The Audience
The Stage, the World, and the Focal Point
Light and Shadows
The Inner Rhythm or Between Accent and
Meaning There Is a Difference
Avoiding Improvisation
Silence – the Perfect Corrector
Another Maternity / Paternity
Movement Can Be the Reading
Discipline and Punctuality
Lines for Me and You
Invisible Collaborators
VII. Mirrors
in Progress
Border and Chaos
The Pact with Frequencies of Higher Language
In Counter-Time with Counter-Time
Vivid Memories from a Hunger
A Very Important Translation – with
and without Quotation Marks
Presence Through Absence and Vice Versa
The Secret Play
Pro-logue in Logos
A “Map”
Summary in English
Contents
Selective
Bibliography
Index of Names 151
[1] Word proposed by the author strictly in
this context, in total independence from terms from other paradigms / fields –
A. K.
[2] A phrase from Chapter 5 of Ingmar
Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap, 1974).
[3] Word proposed by the author. It
simultaneously depicts comfort as a growing obsession of the contemporary man
and his striving to obtain it at any cost, according to an eclectic
pseudo-philosophy which, by gathering individual experiences that are universally
valid, leads to conformity. – A. K.
[4] I find revelatory the incredibly actual
observations in the Diary... by Ion
D. Sîrbu.
[5] Both in the sense of a permanent system,
and permanently under attack – A. K.
[6] In the subtext, I traced some lines of
timeless links between the Scandinavian and Balkan space.
[7] A phrase used by Ingmar Bergman in The Magic Lantern, p. 194.