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Mise au Centre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2021

Extract

If one could represent in space the vision of a Zen garden, it would be the Arizona desert. But one cannot represent in space the vision of a Zen garden. Thus, the Arizona desert is neither a Zen garden nor the vision one could have of it.

Within the last 10 years, many directors of “gestural theatre” have attempted to dispense with the author. As a result, the theatre is used as a vehicle for conveying a “message.” That is the job of newspapers, theses, political speeches, and this very text. But art finds its essence only in the ambivalence of all things and their signs, in their unfathomable ambiguity.

Some directors rely on classical culture. We expect from a true creator an exploration of the unknown that opens up into the infinite, not a rehashing of mummified mythologies.

Directors appear unwilling to accept their dependence upon the author, who is bound by everything written before his time, by the state of the language in his time.

Type
Two Pieces
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 The Drama Review

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