[About five years ago, I posted a two-part article called “Theatrical Structure” (15 and 18 February 2011) which was my attempt to introduce and explain the analytical system of Michael Kirby (1931-97), a professor of mine at NYU who was a Structuralist. He published “Manifesto of Structuralism” in The Drama Review in 1975 and taught a course in the Department of Performance Studies called Theatrical Structure, which I took. My 2011 post is a description of Michael's analytical method, using Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead as a model. In “Theatrical Structure,” I posit that Kirby’s Structural Theory is useful, both in analysis and in creation, to playwrights—Michael wrote Structuralist plays; I even did a staged reading of one—directors, designers, and teachers of theater and drama, not to mention practitioners of other disciplines such as dance, opera, vaudeville, and, even, circus. As an illustration of the system’s applicability, below are two articles I wrote for Michael 33 years ago, one examining structure of a dance performance and the other looking at the performance structure (as distinguished from literary structure) of a play. (For detailed explanations of some structural terminology, it’s easiest to refer to the 2011 post which includes definitions of all the structural devices Michael identified.)]
7
December 1983
In
The Art of Making Dances, Doris Humphrey identifies the ingredients of
dance as a design in space, dynamics or energy flow, a rhythm, and a
motivation. To make a dance from these elements, she says, “the creator must
then know how to put the parts together . . . .” The “technique for sewing them together” is
the structure of the dance, and it’s what we see as spectators that unifies the
performance in our minds so that we recognize it as a whole dance, and not a
series of “broken fragments.”
So
much for theory. On the stage at La MaMa
E.T.C. in the East Village, the performance of Sin Cha Hong’s Laughing Stone
troupe in Here/Now (viewed Friday
night, 2 December 1983) frequently proved structurally ambiguous. This was most true if one attempted, as I
did, to identify structural connections among the three pieces—“Two-in-One,”
“Tripterous,” and the title piece, “Here/Now”—all of which were choreographed
by Miss Hong. Whereas individual dances
evidenced several strong structural elements, those common to all three dances
were few in number and minimal in effect.
Formally,
the three pieces all seemed to fall into what Miss Humphrey calls “the ‘broken’
form, deliberately illogical, in which lack of continuity in idea is the
point.” She further describes this dance
form as one in which “all the movement is disconnected from its natural sources. Small parts of the body, such as hands and
feet, move independently of the trunk and of each other.” The result of this is to make structural
analysis very difficult because the movements, gestures, and designs
incorporated in the dances are purposely disorienting—even
anti-structural. Structure, nonetheless,
exists, though perhaps in a vaguer manifestation than in more regular or
classical choreography.
The
areas of design, rhythm, and dynamics formed the structural common ground in
the program. Those few elements which
connected the three separate pieces into a somewhat unified whole—identifying
them as part of one choreographer’s oeuvre—occurred in these fields.
Though
there were incidents of Contrasting rhythms, the dominant tempo of all Miss Hong’s
pieces was slow—almost excruciatingly so.
Occasionally this alternated with a rapid, jiggling rhythm and, more
frequently, near or absolute stillness—but the dancers always returned to a
slow-motion walking rhythm in which the dynamics were smooth, rounded, often
circular. In fact, Miss Hong’s uses of
sharp angles in gesture or movement were rare and stood out in Contrast when
they occurred.
Circularity
in one form or another was by far the most common technique in the design of
the program. Though the La MaMa
performing space is rectangular—almost square—Miss Hong’s pieces were
frequently lit by round pools of light from overhead spots. (Lighting was by Blu, the professional name
of William Lambert.) One such pool was a
perfect light circle in the center of the stage within which, in one
significant example, Miss Hong performed her entire solo piece, “Here/Now,”
which itself was circular in movement design.
Even though the light circle spread out ambiguously during the dance,
Miss Hong never strayed beyond that circle’s original boundaries.
This
light circle also occurred, less markedly and more briefly, in “Tripterous” and
“Two-in-One.” Even David Simons, the
composer-musician for “Tripterous,” seated on his square rug down right, was
lit by a perfect circle of light.
But
circularity was also apparent in movement design as well. I have already mentioned that Miss Hong moved
in a circle in her solo, rotating as if around a fulcrum in the center of the
light spot. In “Tripterous,” the four
dancers (Monique Ernst, Nadine Helstroffer, Phyllis Jacobs, and Margueritte Johnson)
frequently formed a large circle, and individual circles occurred as performers
in the three pieces danced in small circles or curled their bodies, carrying
the smooth, curved dynamics to the extreme.
Lighting
also played another structural part in unifying the performance. All three numbers began and ended with the same
lighting sequence. The dancers entered
in darkness and took positions to be “discovered” as the lights faded up
slowly. Movement started long before the
lights were fully up, and stopped before the final slow fade-out was
complete. At the end of the piece the
performers exited in darkness as they had entered. (The only exception to this routine was the
entrance of the performers in “Tripterous,” which was dimly lit, presumably to
allow Mr. Simons to enter down left and cross to his rug down right without
stepping on his instruments in the dark.)
Aside
from the rhythmical Continuity (i.e., exaggerated slowness), the most
noticeable stylistic repetition in the program was the total lack of expression
on the dancers’ faces. Except in one
phrase of “Tripterous” in which the quartet sat in a circle and laughed, their
faces were mask-like and immobile. Even
in “Two-in-One” where the two dancers (Jacobs and Karen Cahoon) faced one
another and interacted physically, there was no “eye contact” as we know it in
theater—the pair’s facial expressions did not change in reaction to this
interaction. There was, therefore, no
suggestion of emotional or psychological interaction and, consequently, no
discernible Action, Aristotelian or Stanislavskian, indicated in the
pieces. Structurally, however, this
absence was itself a Thematic and unifying device.
A
Pattern of pairing was another unifying element in Miss Hong’s work at La
MaMa. An alteration of an action and its
opposite recurred a number of times in the performance. This was least obvious in the solo piece,
where it only showed up as stretching upwards and then contracting back down
again and as regularly reversing the direction of rotation. In the other two pieces, however, there were
many variations of this action-reaction routine: separation-coming together,
stretching-collapsing and, most basic perhaps, movement-stillness. (This last occurred as a true regular Pattern
in “Two-in-One,” where the periods of movement and stillness each measured
approximately 12 to 15 seconds during one segment.) In addition to these paired physical Actions,
there was an auditory pairing that occurred in all three pieces when the voices
in “Two-in-One,” the music in “Tripterous” and the sound effects in “Here/Now”
alternated with silent passages.
The
last element I found among all three pieces was less dynamic than the others,
but no less common. In many of Miss
Hong’s motionless passages (and a few of her very slow ones), each performer
balanced on some part of her body—a knee, one leg, her toes, her buttocks, her
head (in a three-point head-stand). In
her final solo piece, since Miss Hong never rose higher than to her knees,
there were only a few instances of balancing, but in the first two pieces, as
with the action-reaction pairing, balancing occurred often and in a variety of
forms.
Overall,
then, what sewed Sin Cha Hong’s program together structurally was to be found
for the most part in the areas of spatial design, rhythm, and dynamics. The program Here/Now was primarily circular, slow-paced, curved and
smooth. In the individual pieces there
were other structural devices, such as Contrasting rhythms, Parallelism, Echo, and
Expectancy, but they did not recur in all three dances or work structurally to
unite them across the entire performance into a whole.
*
* * *
23 November 1983
“Structure”
is defined as “the arrangement or interrelation of all the parts of a
whole.” Performance structure, by
extension, is the arrangement or interrelation of the parts of a theatrical
production as perceived by the spectator.
If we restrict our perception to the visual or spatial structure of the
piece, then the parts in whose arrangement and interrelation we are interested
become limited to the nonverbal elements of the performance, specifically the
stage setting, the costume and props, and the gestures and movements of the
actors. The arrangements and
interrelations that are visually structural are those that, in the spectator’s
mind, create a connection across not only time, but space, uniting two distinct
points on the stage as well as two isolated moments in time.
In
the White Light Productions presentation of Jean Genet’s The Maids at the
New Vic Theatre on Second Avenue in the East Village (viewed Friday night, 18 November
1983), a number of visual connections were obvious from the moment we entered
the auditorium. The set (by Mike Vesea) was
stylistically unified by both its color Theme—entirely black with white
trim—and construction medium—wire mesh throughout, including walls, furniture
and two hanging “mirrors.” The Thematic
color combination was repeated again in the costume (uncredited) of the maids
Claire (Mim Solberg) and Solange (Shelley Volk).
Within
the dichromatic set, movement, gesture, and pose created several striking
connections. (The staging was by Peter
Scangarello.) A physical Parallelism connected
two areas of the stage when Claire was seated at the secretary down right using
Madame’s cosmetics to apply her toilette, while Solange knelt up center left,
behind the mesh “wall” that divided the set into two rooms, ritually lighting a
pair of candles on either side of a statue of the Virgin Mary. The two women moved their heads in unison: as
Claire examined her face both right and left in the mirror, behind her, Solange
lit the candles first right then left, turning her head in each direction as
she did so. The two women put on
half-masks simultaneously, and as Claire rose from her seat, Solange raised her
head from its bowed position. Both
actresses froze at that moment and held their poses for several seconds.
In
more isolated instances, three repeated Actions connected moments across
time. The least frequent of these was a
repeated gesture, or posture—standing, usually center stage, with arms
stretched out to the sides. Claire
struck this pose early in the play, first when she demanded Madame’s dress from
Solange, and shortly afterwards, standing down center in an attitude of
ecstasy, stating that she was being carried away “By the devil! He’s carrying me away in his fragrant
arms. He’s lifting me up, I leave the
ground, I’m off . . .” Much later in the
play, after Madame (George Sutton) had returned and left, Claire, again as
“Madame,” uses this stance when she was waiting for Solange to bring her her
tea: “Madame must have her tea.”
Finally, in her closing monologue, Solange repeated the gesture, this
time far up right at the window in the adjoining room.
The
second visual Theme was a frequent juxtaposition of the women on stage in which
one stood down center with the other (and, in one case two others) kneeling in
front of her. During Claire’s first
masquerade as Madame, Solange, while dressing her sister in Madame’s purple
gown, knelt to arrange the fall of the dress.
Later, after Solange had assumed the dominant role in the masquerade,
she grabbed Claire around the neck and forced her sister to kneel in front of
her.
During
the second masquerade, Solange, using a wire whip, again forced Claire to her
knees before her—this time onto all fours.
But the most striking variation of this repetition occurred while the
maids were undressing Madame. Both
servants ended on their knees down center facing Madame standing up stage of
them.
The
third and most pervasive blocking Theme in the production was the use of the
two hanging wire mesh “mirrors.” All of
the characters spoke into the mirrors frequently, using them as a means of
communication in three different ways.
In the two most direct ways in which the mirrors were used, characters
talked to themselves or referred to someone not on stage. In the most dynamic use of the mirrors, one
character talked to another who was on stage by addressing her reflection in
the mirror. However it was used, the
repeated business of talking into the mirror was common throughout the
production, starting with Claire’s opening lines to Solange: “Those
gloves! Those eternal gloves!” There were some dozen or more instances
following this opening moment, involving all three characters in all three uses
at one time or another. Here is a sample
of the more outstanding moments where the technique was used:
CLAIRE (to Solange behind her): Am I
to be at your mercy for having denounced Monsieur to the police, for having
sold him? . . .
CLAIRE (to Solange behind her): I see
the marks of a slap, but now I’m more beautiful than ever! . . . Danger is my halo, Claire, and you, you dwell
in darkness . . . .
SOLANGE (referring to Madame who is
not present): . . . . Look, just look how she suffers. How she suffers in Beauty. Grief transforms her, doesn’t I? Beautifies her? . . .
CLAIRE (to Solange behind her): . . .
. I’m capable of anything, you know.
MADAME (referring to Monsieur): . . .
. I’d follow him from place to place, from prison to prison, on foot if need
be, as far as the penal colony.
MADAME (to herself): . . . . And what
about you, you fool, will you be beautiful enough to receive him? No wrinkles, eh? . . .
MADAME (to Claire behind her): You’re
trying to kill me with your tea and your flowers and your suggestions . . . .
CLAIRE (to Solange behind her): I said
the insults! Let them come, let them
unfurl, let them drown me, for, as you well know, I loathe servants . . . .
SOLANGE (referring to Madame who has
left): . . . . What? Oh, Madame needn’t feel sorry for me. I’m Madame’s equal and I hold my head up
high . . . .
CLAIRE (to Solange behind her): You’re
talking too much, my child. Far too
much. Shut the window. Draw the curtains. Very good, Claire!
As
we saw a clear example of visual Parallelism in the opening moment, the closing
moment contained an instance of another visual structure. Combining Memory and Expectancy, it harked
back to the opening ritual Solange performed before the dialogue even
started. At the beginning of the second
masquerade sequence, Solange knelt again at her “altar” and lit her
candles. This was immediately
reminiscent of the opening sequence (Memory structure) and also led us to
expect her to mask herself as she had done at the beginning in order to play
“Claire” to Claire’s “Madame” (Expectancy structure). In fact, Solange did not remask, but the Expectation
was nonetheless strong, and, because she held the mask in her hand for several
minutes after Claire’s masked re-entrance, we kept waiting for her to put it on
and enter the game as she did in the first scene.
Though
there appeared to be some significance to the use of color (the flowers, the
purple gown, Solange’s red slip, and Madame’s brown suit and fur cape), it
seemed more connected to the meaning than the structure of the production. And though the masks themselves were
indicative of Levels in the performance, that seemed to belong more to the
realm of verbal structure than to the purely visual. The masks in this case merely aided in
distinguishing the Levels in acting style, but did not create those Levels themselves
by visual means. Aside from the two
salient examples of nonthematic structure, the major structural dynamics in the
production, then, were those of repeated gesture, pose and blocking, which, in
the three types mentioned, gave a unified—or structured—style to the
performance.
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