Thursday, 11 December 2008

Roberta & Judith

I am a very, very grateful and lucky man.

Last night I once more became that awe-filled twenty-something English kid who embarked on his exploration of the world of Theatre, and once more experienced the joys of theatrical enthrallment, by the witnessing of the wholly selfless and powerful performance of a truly gifted and accomplished actor… Roberta Carreri, with her creation of "Judith", under the superlative and visionary direction of Eugenio Barba.

It is not often that such wonders visit my life… not often the pure thrill of freshly-minted theatre thrusts it’s way up my spine, sending trembles twittering along my every nerve. Over the years such rare events have become etched deeply onto my mental hard-disc and have sustained me through the many long periods of creative drought that I have witnessed since leaving my homeland over two decades ago..

It has been many a long year since that day in Paris in 1970 when Odin Teatret fired my imagination with their production of "Ferai", an amazing experience which came hot on the heels of my first theatrical-epiphany… watching Steven Berkoff create Kafka’s Gregor Samsa in "Metamorphosis" at the Roundhouse in London. It was also the year that my first and only daughter arrived to add a deeper richness to my life.

Roberta was not in Paris that year… perhaps it was before she joined the Holstebro brigade… it was, after all, thirty-eight years ago so she would have been a mere slip of a girl. But I did see her work in another remarkable Odin production a few years later; "Brecht’s Ashes"… can’t remember where exactly… but I do recall the same feelings of wonder at the production, and gratitude for having been given the opportunity to witness such incredible Theatre.
I feel certain that the philosophies and methods of the Odin will have developed and evolved since "Ferai", but Roberta’s performance in "Judith" had that same unique identity which always says… ODIN… and wherever you get ODIN you get acting and production of the most seriously good variety.

What makes a company of actors like those of the Odin Teatret able to consistently produce such excellent work?
That is an easy question to answer… WORK… WORK… WORK.
To commit oneself to the amount of work that is needed to be able to reach such levels of acting and production, requires a monumental degree of dedication to the pursuit of excellence. Training never ceases… it cannot. As human-beings, societies, and cultures evolve so too the needs of that culture, society, and individual evolves, demanding new methods of communication, new forms of expression, new techniques to support this expression.

It’s all too easy for an actor to rest on his laurels once a degree of public recognition or wealth has been achieved; to deny the need for further training based on some weird notion that talent alone will suffice; that status or superiority precludes any need for further work; to resist the idea of an audience’ ever-changing perceptions. These are the actors who quickly decline into the morass of mediocrity and by extension, drag the quality of production down into the murk behind them.

This phenomenon can be witnessed each and every night on stages right around the globe, where as much as 95% of the acting on offer is in fact bad-acting… a mere 5% could possibly be considered good-acting… of which perhaps 1% could rise to the level of great-acting.
I no longer have the patience for the 95%, desiring only to seek out, to watch, and to work with the 5%… the 5% that is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the art and craft of Acting and Theatre.

I am always seeking the Roberta Carreri’s, for there lies the future of Theatre.

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