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The production of The Street of Crocodiles presented by Theatre de Complicite at the Queen s Theatre London exhibits evidence of a broad variety of theatrical styles. Adding to the complexity of the shows rich composition is the truth that it is a devised piece of theatrical work. The groups body of work has been widely regarded as innovative, garnering a number of major awards and nominations in the recent past. Dedicated to the collaborative manner in which this production has been developed, the inventors of this staging have guaranteed an intricate weave of dramatic elements. In the 1999 published text of the work Simon Mc Burney and Mark Wheatley are credited aside adapters. The copyright also goes to them.
Their original source material starts with the work ofthe Polish writer Bruno Schulz published in his collected works, The Street of Crocodiles &# 038; Sanitorium Under The Sign of the Hourglass currently available from Picador. Other writings of Schulz used for the basis of the dramatic text include additional short stories and letters. Although they never appear on stage, it is unlikely that the illustrations penned by Schulz were ignored as inspirations. Work on this project began at the Royal National Theatre Studio in 1991. Simon Mc Burney, Co-founder and Artistic Director of Theatre de Complicite, has served as the shows director since this time. Jacob Schulz, Bruno s nephew, worked with the company as they developed the show.
His relationship with the play remained ongoing through its continued growth until his death in 1997. Jacob is credited as providing a bridge between the past and the present by Mc Burney and Wheatley in their notes on the script. His input continued to illuminate not only the character of his uncle but also the world in which he wrote and lived. There is often a lyrical, often somewhat pastoral quality to much of Bruno Schulz s writing. The external reality so closely associated with the subjects and settings of his workers widely regarded as bleak and burnished. The world he represents in his stories is not necessarily in keeping with the images often associated with Poland during his lifetime.
Given this, the help offered by Jacob seems likely to have been invaluable. The younger Schulz was certainly in a position be of immense aid to the company s understanding of his uncle s unique character. The content ohio uncle s writing commented very little on the author himself. Of course the nature of the narrative is revealing in and of itself and says much about the man who gives it voice. Jacob s personal experience of his uncle can only have helped to add depth and texture to the figure of the man and his world. I believe the single most brilliant aspect of the original writings of Bruno Schulz is this.
The beauty with which he sees and experiences his world seems fully contained within the writer himself. Without ever commenting on his own perspective he appears completely unaware of his integral presence within his own narrative. He thus becomes not simply the filter through which his readers experience his world, but the actual object of the their observation. This subtle shift in focus is quite likely to be the key element that accounts for the surreal aspect of his work s effect.
The tenuous redirection of cynosure leaves the reader unwittingly off-balance in territories mistaken as familiar. At this point Schulz is free to compel his readers on a journey inward. There they are apt to join him an examination of the nature of recollection that in itself outshines any individual memory. Here lies the challenge to the creators of the theatrical piece. Their task is to extend far beyond simply portraying the stories of Bruno Schulz in some way upon the stage. Simply adapting a selection of characters and settings from the collected stories would do little to bring the world inhabited by them to the audience.
Beyond communicating the tone of the original text lay the mission to translate the literature into a theatrical language that would have as much impact visually as it did on the page. In keeping with the original style of the text, the presentation was to remain a narrative whilst allowing the nature of the subject s conveyance to be as intricately depicted. To address the creation of an appropriate language capable of communicating the text as fully as possible the company looked beyond the written and spoken word. During the process of the plays development the company and those who were to assist them allowed their exploration to include the possibilities of relating the world of Bruno Schulz to a theatre going audience with a physical vocabulary to support what already existed in writing. Ultimately, the group sought a way to depict the mental and emotional processes with which the stories were told.
The production s design by Rae Smith, along with Paul Constable s lighting and sound by Christopher Stuff are in no way small contributions to the fullness of the world evoked on the stage. Yet the success of the form does not rely on these elements in the way that a more conventional production often does. It is common place in today s theatre to let the technical aspects of a production do the work of communicating much it s form. Transitions and the passage of time are regularly depicted with a change in the action s setting. Memory and dream can be represented withthe support of lighting, fog, smoke and scrim. Recorded sound is apt to accompany the climatic action.
At other times it can be used amplify the emotions portrayed by the performers. In contrast, the majority of responsibility for illustrating and delivering the complete theatrical picture falls in the hands of the performers themselves. Their physical presence coupled with their manipulation of the tangible environment which they inhabit are the tools that forge much of the plays structure. Accepting the unusually high demands placed on the physical abilities of the performers leads to an examination of the training and experience that prepares an artist for this work. The background required includes not only the ability to execute the work. The success of the play has relied on the individual performers abilities to contribute to the creation of the physical shape of the play.
The art accomplished in this production draws on a broad spectrum of what is frequently referred to under the vague heading of movement in the theatre industry. It is commonly accepted that stage performers who endeavor to train in stagecraft will include movement in their studies. Thermal of choices available to those who seek instruction is broad and varied. Ballet has long been used as a basis for the performers study of their own body and its mechanics. The discipline required by this form of dance is ideal in helping artists to begin to manipulate their bodies as tools. Alexander work is a frequent inclusion of stage training for the actor, dancer and singer.
The principles of it s work encourage the practitioner to address and effect change in patterns of physical stress. Here, a further understanding of the body s own mechanics are deepened. For the work accomplished in the creation and presentation of Theatre de Complicite s production of Street of Crocodiles the mastery of physical performance goes much deeper. The work Jacques Lecoq is an ideal basis for a study of much of the physical work that goes into the invention and fulfillment of this manner of exhibition.
In the article Mime in the Twentieth Century: to 1950 appearing in Mimes on Miming, the editor, Bra Rolfe refers to Lecoq as the fourth of the French four stemming from Coupeau s work. The full compliment of artist contained in this description are Dec roux, Barrault, Marceau, and Lecoq. He discovered his interest and aptitude forming by way of his participation in athletics. Jean Date, within whose school and company Lecoqwas to initially train, had worked directly with Cope. In the current production, there are a number of performers who have studied his work atL Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. These include Antonio Gil Martinez, Eric Mallet, Clive Menu, Stefan Metz and Cesar Sarah.
Director Simon Mc Burney s training and work in Paris also included an association with this artist. All of these actors appeared in the original production of Street of Crocodiles at the Royal National Theatre Studio in 1991. Each of them has had a relationship with the piece since the beginning of its development on the stage. Collectively, these artists brought with them the methods of approach and exploration passed on by Lecoq. In the article Mime, Movement, Theatre appearing in Rolfe s book, Lecoq comments on the nature of the work he explores.
Often people ask me What is it you do in your school, is it mime? I always feel that the one who asks that question limits the school to a wordless formalism. The word mime already is restricting. One sees a performer who does not speak and who makes stylized gestures to show imaginary objects, or makes faces to have you understand that he laughs or cries. Then I answer that I don t do mime, not that kind. This rudimentary anti-description of the focus of his endeavors is actually the basis Lecoq start.
His aim is to develop what is real and present in a performer s physical experience. This departure from a more classical approach to mime work is what deepens the effect of the truth in his work. Lecoq defines his work as fundamental. He seeks to give expression to the seat of experience rather than to represent an action for viewing.
He believes that the response to any stimuli a character can encounter is the source of theatrical articulation. This determines the performers action to be only what they can achieve truthfully with their own presence. The movement Lecoq teaches does not attempt to represent an illustration of the physical world. In his theatre the action is it s own subject and needs no external focus to justify its reality. The approach places a high level of responsibility on the performers ability to create honest moments foe themselves.
Their ability to communicate the reality of their experience to an audience depends on the highest level of commitment to the action they are creating. The artists who have spent time and energy honing the techniques of Lecoq stealings gain a high command of their communication abilities. The interest lies in the simplest gesture that fully illustrates the artist s state. Lecoq refers to this as Pantomime Black, wherein the gesture replaces the word, offers a study of language.
The events that require this theatrical physicality in the performance of Street of Crocodiles are frequent. There is an ideal point of departure for an initial examination of this work s application. In one instance, the ensemble is called upon to portray the beloved group of birds belonging to the character of the Father. There is no offstage technical wizardry to encumber them. The actors simply form themselves into the familiar formation of a flock. Each of the actors manipulates a hardbound book directly over their head.
The performers allow the books to take the easily recognizable physical shape of the individual birds. The birds in the form of books flap noisily then glide about the stage, reforming the shape and pattern of the flock as they move. The human bodies manipulating them are never meant to become invisible. The intention is not that the actors should magically fade into the background, escaping the audience s attention.
The books never appear to be flying on their own. It is the shrewd use of the books as key signs of creatures capable of flight that allow the actors to appear to be flying themselves. This simple device allows the performers to focus solely on the purity of the action of the bird they are portraying. They have been freed from the obligation to flap their arms and draw attention away from the contact their feet make with the stage.
Another chief instance where the company s physical work is used to extend the production s vocabulary is in the internal transitions. In the short stories that make up Schulz s two books, memory and dream like states are explored as deeply as any of the human characters. The inspection of the effects of the passage of time and the decay it brings is also littered throughout the printed narrative. These states are effectively communicated by allowing their effects on a single character to be observed. The role of Joseph is the depiction of Bruno Schulz himself. Throughout the action of the play he moves fluidly back and forth between the life he lead in reality and the world wrote about in his stories.
Students under his tutelage become family members and then customers in the family shop. On stage Joseph exists in a world in which he is an observer. Although his surroundings are familiar and those who keep his company are recognized as his close relations, he appears always just off-balance and incapable of anticipating a moment s probable future. While his experiences his journey as moving forward at a consistent pace, the events and people that surround him spiral and skip unpredictably. When the characters swirl about the stage, constantly changing the dynamic as they reposition themselves in relation to each other, they alter the setting in which the appear as well. As the characters resolve into the next moment, Joseph is left to catch up with them although his interaction with the rest of the group has never ceased.
The Official London Theater Guide describes the show as a world of dreams that has merged with an absurdist sense of reality. Although this notice can alert a potential audience to theses of what they might expect to find in the production, it may ultimately be misleading. Anyone looking specifically for a sampling of something from the Theatre of the Absurd could not be fully satisfied here. In this production what occurs onstage often appears to be of the Absurd. The effect, when it does occur, is usually accomplished visually. Although the production often has the look popularized by practitioners of Absurdism the meaning here is different.
The relationship between Theatre de Complicite s production of Street of Crocodiles and the Theatre of the Absurd bears some clear resemblance to the one Tom Stoppard illustrates in his short play After Magritte. In it, Stoppard allows his audience to examine their own reaction to stage pictures they may feel are familiar to them. At the curtain s rise the stage is populated by characters in unlikely physical positions interacting with common household items in unusual ways. Initially they are discovered in plateau. As they begin to speak their vocabulary appears to be fragmented and devoid of meaning. What follows in the play s short action is the information that fills in the gaps inthe narrative and justifies all that has gone before.
In this way Stoppard tells his audience that they have come to accept at least part of the vocabulary of the Theatre of the Absurd. The signs and notes have become recognizable and thus there is some chance of anticipating the action. The effect of the visual imagery used by Theatre de Complicite covers some of the same ground. The work relies on it s audience having a basic familiarity with the style s feel and tone.
It s inclusion is meant to accomplish the establishment of an altered perspective. For the play s opening, Joseph s entrance precedes the others and he initially occupies the stage alone. The company s subsequent entrance is described in the play s text as follows. The cast gradually appear on stage as if called up by Joseph s imagination.
One of Father s assistants, Theodore, walks down the wall perpendicular to the audience, pauses to take his hat and looks up as, out of the bucket, his twin assistant, Leon, appears wet and dripping. Having struggled out of the small bucket, he picks it up. There is no trace of where he has come from. Maria emerges from the packing case of books. Charles, Emil and Agatha emerge from behind the bookcases. Mother, swathed in cloth, shuffles forward on her knees with a book covered in a shawl.
At a signal, they all produce books in their hands and look at Joseph. In these instances the style certainly fits the literal definition of the notion of absurdity. As defined in the forth edition of the Oxford Dictionary Absurd is not in accordance with commonsense, very unsuitable, ridicules, foolish. When used in the description of theatrical work the term absurdism generally carries a more weighted meaning. In much of the literature of the Theatre of The Absurd the style that has come to be to some extent common to the genre is used to comment of a lack of meaning. For this purpose action is attire portrayed as outside the generally accepted realm of the possible so as to illustrate it s meaninglessness.
Character s tasks are fragmented or committed in repetition so as to comment on their innate lack of purpose or effect. Scenes are played in impossible settings so as to illuminate the feeling of man / woman existing in a void with no purpose or ability to direct their course. None of these themes is in keeping with the writings of Bruno Schulz. Neither are they the meaning that motivate this theatrical work. The issue of the devaluation of the individual is also explored here to great effect. It is perhaps a nod to the tradition of the renowned polish dramatist director Tadeusz Kantor.
In his Theatre of Death he depicted the hopeless state of the individual by substituting an inanimate objector a person. A puppet of sorts is used in conjunction with live actors who carry out a ritualistic murder. Ionesco deals with the same subject matter in his Killing Game. Yet again, when this devices employed in The Street of Crocodiles it is only a visual resonance of a style that is given a different value here.
When the character of the father is lost to Joseph he reapers in wooden effigy. In notice the wooden effigy is destroyed methodically by another character. Yet it is Joseph s experience loss that is being illustrated. The father s demise is only presented for its effect on the son. the father himself is given the line No, no, no, there is no dead matter.
Lifelessness is only a disguise The Street of Crocodiles speaks about searching for purpose and meaning just as the aforementioned work does. It is however an innately different style of art. Throughout the piece there evidence of finding meaning and purpose. While a similar style is shared, it is used here to draw vastly different conclusions. Often in the plays of the absurdist theatre words are shown to have no meaning or use. Their very lack of purpose or impact can be identified by the void on which they continue to have no effect.
In Samuel Beckett s Knapp s Last Tape the playwright s sad clown unwinds the word spool until it has lost it s meaning. At first it becomes a silly plaything and then finally is discarded as debris. Words lose their value when a character discovered that they can note them to communicate anything. The question of the possible impact of the spoken word Makes several appearances in The Street of Crocodiles as well. The characters speak in a number of different languages throughout the play s dialogues. At times they are understood by Joseph whilst sometimes their meaning does not reach him.
Yet here again, as with the example of the play s opening sequence, itis only the appearance of an absurdist characteristic. Here the use of language explores the outer limits of it s means of communicating. In several instances, Joseph s lack of understanding what issuing said to him is positioned as a metaphor for his uncertainty of being understood himself. In the end the Theatre de Complicite s production of Street of Crocodiles benefits from weaving a number of different styles together and possible creating a new one in the process.
While elements of absurdism are evident they serve a different purpose than that for which they are usually used. The mime work incorporated into the body of the piece empowers the strength of the play s language, yet the movement is never enacted on it s own. Indeed no single pure element from any ofthe formal genres on which this creation draws is utilized on it s own. In their note on the script, Simon Mc Burney and Mark Wheatley speak about the plays composition and nature in the following terms. So, this book is more the record of a process than a text for performance; a map rather than a play.
A play is a place which demands to be inhabited; both origin and destination, linked by a clearly determined path. A map indicates the landscape, suggests a multitude of directions, but does not dictate which one you should take.
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