Observer: Acorn Jones
Subject: Theater Mitu
Inspiration: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Source Material: Aristotle, Appia, Stanislavski, Artaud, Brecht, Grotowski, Brook and Bogart
An experiment is going on at 3LD (3 Legged Dog Arts & Technology Center). Getting off the subway and looking for the theatre, I approached a very clinical looking building with odd lighting and few if any right angles. Ushered into the theatre space the setting becomes increasingly clinical as we take our seats in galleries, set on either side of a long narrow stage where eight actors are lying on a segmented floor. The immediate feeling upon arrival is voyeuristic and the audience instinctively takes on the part of scientific observer, while we really are playing the control in Theater Mitu’s experiment of how art works.
If the audience had access to the materials in the press packet, it might invaluable to helping the audience understand the piece, but would also undermine the experiment that the company is in fact performing on the audience.
The piece is set up as a group of test subjects who are being observed in order to find out what acting is. Characters include Philosopher, Actor, Acting, Audience, Poet, Critic #1, 2 and 3 and the Voice.
What was of particular importance in pulling off this performance (and the goal is definitely achieved) is the physical personification of the actors struggle while going through these eight methods. Often jarring emotionally and physiologically, learning a new approach to acting changes everything about a person; actors get lost inside themselves constantly trying to re-figure out who they are and what they believe. No other profession asks its practitioners to constantly re-evaluate self and self output like acting, where the physical and emotional self-in use is the art form observed and used to re-create life. The company members are all working at extremes, and do great work.
The operatic nature of the piece comes both as a help and an obstacle to the piece. With that said, it was mostly very well sung and the music is invoking and unforeseeable. I do think placing the form into an opera somewhat comments on the experiment they are trying to run, and placating the audience with “entertainment”. While it may be true that all art aspires to music, science may not necessarily reach for that goal. I don’t have an answer for that, but this is something they are determined to find out.
According to press notes, the production seeks to ask the question “can theatre still be a whole art, while being inclusive in its conversation about acting, and what does that mean for the craft of acting itself?” While asking the audience to step outside of itself and become silent observer, our part being taken over by the actor named “Audience”, we are given the charge of determining the answer, if an answer is to be found.
Overall it is a very thoughtful production although a little bit exclusive, speaking more clearly to other actors than entirely neutral observers. In using the audience in a new role as observer, our role changes, and we experience something new: not experiencing change; we observe only. We can create new theory, but not come up with conclusive answers. “Mankind is prone to assimilation,” waiting to become the next new approach, or to follow it when it arrives. In the meantime, we have an interesting experiment to observe.
Dates: June 2nd-June 14th
Location: 3LD Theatre, 80 Greenwich St.
Tickets: http://www.theatermitu.org/ or http://www.3ldnyc.org/
Subject: Theater Mitu
Inspiration: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Source Material: Aristotle, Appia, Stanislavski, Artaud, Brecht, Grotowski, Brook and Bogart
An experiment is going on at 3LD (3 Legged Dog Arts & Technology Center). Getting off the subway and looking for the theatre, I approached a very clinical looking building with odd lighting and few if any right angles. Ushered into the theatre space the setting becomes increasingly clinical as we take our seats in galleries, set on either side of a long narrow stage where eight actors are lying on a segmented floor. The immediate feeling upon arrival is voyeuristic and the audience instinctively takes on the part of scientific observer, while we really are playing the control in Theater Mitu’s experiment of how art works.
If the audience had access to the materials in the press packet, it might invaluable to helping the audience understand the piece, but would also undermine the experiment that the company is in fact performing on the audience.
The piece is set up as a group of test subjects who are being observed in order to find out what acting is. Characters include Philosopher, Actor, Acting, Audience, Poet, Critic #1, 2 and 3 and the Voice.
What was of particular importance in pulling off this performance (and the goal is definitely achieved) is the physical personification of the actors struggle while going through these eight methods. Often jarring emotionally and physiologically, learning a new approach to acting changes everything about a person; actors get lost inside themselves constantly trying to re-figure out who they are and what they believe. No other profession asks its practitioners to constantly re-evaluate self and self output like acting, where the physical and emotional self-in use is the art form observed and used to re-create life. The company members are all working at extremes, and do great work.
The operatic nature of the piece comes both as a help and an obstacle to the piece. With that said, it was mostly very well sung and the music is invoking and unforeseeable. I do think placing the form into an opera somewhat comments on the experiment they are trying to run, and placating the audience with “entertainment”. While it may be true that all art aspires to music, science may not necessarily reach for that goal. I don’t have an answer for that, but this is something they are determined to find out.
According to press notes, the production seeks to ask the question “can theatre still be a whole art, while being inclusive in its conversation about acting, and what does that mean for the craft of acting itself?” While asking the audience to step outside of itself and become silent observer, our part being taken over by the actor named “Audience”, we are given the charge of determining the answer, if an answer is to be found.
Overall it is a very thoughtful production although a little bit exclusive, speaking more clearly to other actors than entirely neutral observers. In using the audience in a new role as observer, our role changes, and we experience something new: not experiencing change; we observe only. We can create new theory, but not come up with conclusive answers. “Mankind is prone to assimilation,” waiting to become the next new approach, or to follow it when it arrives. In the meantime, we have an interesting experiment to observe.
Dates: June 2nd-June 14th
Location: 3LD Theatre, 80 Greenwich St.
Tickets: http://www.theatermitu.org/ or http://www.3ldnyc.org/
