FAUST CHROMA - Director's Statement
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Faust Chroma is part of an ongoing inquiry by Free Theatre Christchurch into the nature of acting. Why do we act, both in theatre and in life? This matter is explored not only in the content but also in the form of the performance, which juxtaposes different types of acting: exaggerated theatrical styles, moments of improvisation, "authentic" not-acting with self-written text, etc.
The starting point for this exploration is the figure of Gustav Gründgens, this very famous actor who decides not to act anymore, but to live, and who is dying in the attempt.
But what is living, then? Can one avoid acting, even in life? This question is connected with a comparison to the German fascist society through which Gründgens lived, in which politicians were for the first time consciously acquiring power through performance, where mass rallies, films, broadcasting and other live and media performances were at the centre of the political movement. Now, it's a matter of course that this - acting - is what politicians are expected to do.
So we ask ourselves: are we still able to live in an authentic manner? Are there any authentic voices or emotions out there? Are they even possible?
These questions are addressed even, or especially, through the notion of romantic love. It is revealing to put the Romanticism of Goethe, Schumann, and Schubert side by side with the Holocaust and ask "How do they go together?" The 19th century Austrian playwright Grillparzer suggested that sentimentality is just the other side of brutality.
Goethe's Faust sees theatre as a moral institution. Mephistopheles is the actor, who puts on disguises and engages in trickery. Faust is the authentic man, always searching for deeper meaning in life, who is seduced into a pact with the devil, into becoming an actor himself.
This production questions what sort of pact the actors have, or try to establish, with the audience. Do we try to seduce them into something? Like politicians do we try to change them, to manipulate their emotions and thoughts? Or, by questioning this process, do we make the audience aware that they are living the life of actors, playing certain roles that have been prescribed for them, such that their lives are not really theirs?
It's very important for me to stress the musicality of the performance. The whole show is a dance of death, a musical cabaret, with the piano centre stage. The importance of the piano is complementary to the questions we ask. The piano is a tool for the manipulation - it creates the mood - but it is also destructive of the moods. The piano as object and the music made with it are both deconstructed.
So the music is taking on songs from the '20s, old 19th Century German Romanticism, but also new compositions by our musician and set designer Chris Reddington. It is a collage of different styles, like the acting itself. The performance styles, as they're all set to music, are never realistic. I cast the pianist as God who's in control of the actors by his heavenly music, as they all come to life as marionettes, even though Mephisto thinks he is controlling them.
I had talked for some time with Bavarian playwright and filmmaker Werner Fritsch about a collaboration, as he has been interested in creating a new Faust. I chose his play Chroma as a starting text and had his permission to work with and change the text, translate, and rewrite as I saw fit. I also asked the actors to contribute their own responses to certain ideas, so most of the actors have their own voices in it. In the end, he's very satisfied with our version and even wants to have it published in that form, keeping all the additions that we made.
In his play text, Fritsch uses some of his filmic work as interludes, discrete scenes in their own right, but we put them over or under the live acting. The films work much like the music, they colour things, literally and emotionally. They enhance moods, but also undermine them.
We also added our own filmic scenes in which the actors "karaoke" video footage of the Faust film that Gründgens made himself. This karaoke poses the question of acting in a very direct way, by replaying a role that is already given - which again corresponds to the idea of actors as marionettes. This is how Goethe also planned his Faust. All the world's a stage, and people are just playing out the roles given to them by God. But when there's no God, we play out the roles given us by film and television and other popular models. We're all playing our lives or living our plays.
Peter Falkenberg
Artistic Director, Free Theatre Christchurch
February 2009
The starting point for this exploration is the figure of Gustav Gründgens, this very famous actor who decides not to act anymore, but to live, and who is dying in the attempt.
But what is living, then? Can one avoid acting, even in life? This question is connected with a comparison to the German fascist society through which Gründgens lived, in which politicians were for the first time consciously acquiring power through performance, where mass rallies, films, broadcasting and other live and media performances were at the centre of the political movement. Now, it's a matter of course that this - acting - is what politicians are expected to do.
So we ask ourselves: are we still able to live in an authentic manner? Are there any authentic voices or emotions out there? Are they even possible?
These questions are addressed even, or especially, through the notion of romantic love. It is revealing to put the Romanticism of Goethe, Schumann, and Schubert side by side with the Holocaust and ask "How do they go together?" The 19th century Austrian playwright Grillparzer suggested that sentimentality is just the other side of brutality.
Goethe's Faust sees theatre as a moral institution. Mephistopheles is the actor, who puts on disguises and engages in trickery. Faust is the authentic man, always searching for deeper meaning in life, who is seduced into a pact with the devil, into becoming an actor himself.
This production questions what sort of pact the actors have, or try to establish, with the audience. Do we try to seduce them into something? Like politicians do we try to change them, to manipulate their emotions and thoughts? Or, by questioning this process, do we make the audience aware that they are living the life of actors, playing certain roles that have been prescribed for them, such that their lives are not really theirs?
It's very important for me to stress the musicality of the performance. The whole show is a dance of death, a musical cabaret, with the piano centre stage. The importance of the piano is complementary to the questions we ask. The piano is a tool for the manipulation - it creates the mood - but it is also destructive of the moods. The piano as object and the music made with it are both deconstructed.
So the music is taking on songs from the '20s, old 19th Century German Romanticism, but also new compositions by our musician and set designer Chris Reddington. It is a collage of different styles, like the acting itself. The performance styles, as they're all set to music, are never realistic. I cast the pianist as God who's in control of the actors by his heavenly music, as they all come to life as marionettes, even though Mephisto thinks he is controlling them.
I had talked for some time with Bavarian playwright and filmmaker Werner Fritsch about a collaboration, as he has been interested in creating a new Faust. I chose his play Chroma as a starting text and had his permission to work with and change the text, translate, and rewrite as I saw fit. I also asked the actors to contribute their own responses to certain ideas, so most of the actors have their own voices in it. In the end, he's very satisfied with our version and even wants to have it published in that form, keeping all the additions that we made.
In his play text, Fritsch uses some of his filmic work as interludes, discrete scenes in their own right, but we put them over or under the live acting. The films work much like the music, they colour things, literally and emotionally. They enhance moods, but also undermine them.
We also added our own filmic scenes in which the actors "karaoke" video footage of the Faust film that Gründgens made himself. This karaoke poses the question of acting in a very direct way, by replaying a role that is already given - which again corresponds to the idea of actors as marionettes. This is how Goethe also planned his Faust. All the world's a stage, and people are just playing out the roles given to them by God. But when there's no God, we play out the roles given us by film and television and other popular models. We're all playing our lives or living our plays.
Peter Falkenberg
Artistic Director, Free Theatre Christchurch
February 2009