There is no one going to watch theater anymore. What needs to be done? This troubling question was posed by Peter Brook in the early 70’s. The same question is evermore present today.
With a current stream of images, texts, statements continuously being transmitted to the viewer, the spectator, is there any need for theater in the daily life of people today?
The place for profound wonder has been taken from us. Taken by who? Taken by us. The Madman exclaimed, “I am looking for God? He is dead! We have killed him!” Indeed we might have, unwittingly, killed him… Perhaps the same could be said of the art of theater. The time and space for wonder has been replaced with different needs. But what was once at the heart of humanity's doubt, and thus needs, does not die so easily. Silently, it lays there, longing to be revived,
It is at this the arrow points it dart. The will and desire of the restless can cause such a turmoil in the hearts of others that, unknowingly, he is the one drawing the bow, releasing the arrow to seek out its own target.
The method can be likened to the philosophical suicide of which Albert Camus spoke. It does not merely suffice to recognise the “empty waste-lands”, one has to stay there and explore the limits of each fear, joy, illusion and reality. By driving the point of examination to its very limit a break-through might happen. The limit-concepts of death, life, sexuality; the rituals of life, are all imbued in our every-day understanding of life. While granting the philosophers their contemplative act–lingering in the wastelands on the train of thought–the performer bursts into their own body which carries them to the limits of death and creation. In each piece of theater a single idea, word, emotion, carries within it an infinite world of its own. Without the need of rational thought a piece of theater has the potential to speak directly to the viewer. A one-piece act can tell a thousand words without a sound being heard or suggested. The exercised spontaneity of the performer has the capacity of seeing and taking hold of the mute moment which resonates with him- or herself and in equal measures with the viewer.
The method that we try to touch upon, dream of and long for is a method of the actor facing his or her own core of being. Letting the internal flow of creation that resides within each performer to be harnessed and guided through the minefield of personal achievement and Ego in order to reach the other shore where Ego and Persona have vanished leaving pure aware potentiality.This is what we long for. This is what we insist on reviving and keeping alive.