I also had the important, life-affirming opportunity to participate as an audience member in Le Théâtre du Soleil's production of Tambours sur la Digue (May, 2000), a performance which in essence defined my own personal, elaborative penchant for theatrical spectacle and opulence on stage, presented in the forms and textures of elaborate costuming, expressive make-up design, corporeal/dance theatre traditions and a somber, sparse, though ultimately very spiritually and visually inspiring scenic design. I include this text as personal record of my contributions today to Wikipedia.org and to document my profound passion for this performance group and for its uniquely exceptional and innovative, universal form of collaborative, improvisational theatre.
THÉÂTRE DU SOLEILSo, that is my co-authored/edited entry into Wikipedia.org for Le Théâtre du Soleil. This text should give any reader an astute, comprehensive understanding of the concepts that underlay the formation, repute, and success in perpetude of this innovative, collaborative, universal form of theatre. To summarize, I will state that Le Théâtre du Soleil is a contemporary popular, collaborative theatre company that was founded on the practices and mastery of improvisation, corporeal theatre and the work of the ensemble; in the larger majority of its innovative and oppulent theatrical productions, throughout its forty-year history, the company has commonly borrowed from popular, Western, traditional theatre forms and from theatrical traditions of Asia, to create a uniquely original, impressively stylized form of performance.
A COLLECTIVE COMPANY OF THEATRE ARTISTS
Le Théâtre du Soleil (lit. "The Theater of the Sun") is a Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble founded by Ariane Mnouchkine, Philippe Léotard and fellow students of the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in 1964 as a collective of master theatre artists devoted to the pursuit of a universal, truly popular form of multi-cultural corporeal theatre based on improvisation, masks and pantomime.
Mnouchkine and her international company of actors believe that the fundamentals of theatre and theatricality are found within the traditions of Asian theatre and the popular historical theatre of the West, as defined by the Jacques Lecoq course of study. Le Théâtre du Soleil is a relatively young cosmopolitan company (taking into account the long, storied history of Parisian French Theatre) that is located at La Cartoucherie, an old munitions factory complex in the Vincennes area of eastern Paris.
The company creates new theatrical works, focusing on collective work and devising new collaborative creative processes based on corporeal theatre and improvisation; its main purpose, unchanged since 1968, is to inspire a new relationship between the theatre and the public and to be distinguished from théâtre bourgeois, creating a more popular, transcendental, universal form of theatre.
THE SOCIALIST ENSEMBLE: A COMMUNITY OF EQUAL CITIZENS
The company was, at its inception, a very unique vibrant phenomenon, quickly becoming one of the major, most-reputed companies on the international contemporary theatre landscape. It built its own "socialist" ethics, based on the concept of a theatre company as a tribe or a family, a community of equal citizens: everyone receives the same wages, and the workday follows a schedule to which all actors, musicians and production assistants rigorously accommodate. More original still, the final casting or distribution of roles for all productions is decided upon only after all the performers in a production improvise, practice and audition numerous (if not all the) roles.
Le Théâtre du Soleil is truly a contemporary ensemble theatre company; no principal roles or lead actors are defined in its productions, which are written to showcase the beauty and mastery of theatrical talent of the entire cast of actors/performers. Hélène Cixous, a famed French feminist author/philosopher, has been associated with the company as its preeminent, principle playwright since the late 70s or early 80s, penning the vast majority of the company's recent productions through a collaborative process, which develops through the improvisational exercises of the performers during any 9 to 12 month rehearsal period for a production. This organic writing process lends itself to productions of extended length, sometimes ranging between 3 and 6 hours in duration.
THE "FOURTH WALL": BREAKING THE THEATRICAL ARTIFICE
Le Théâtre du Soleil's productions are often performed in unconventional venues such as barns or gymnasiums, as Mnouchkine does not like being confined to a typical stage. Similarly, she feels theatre cannot be restricted with the "fourth wall". While the official native stage of the company is a typical "fourth wall" proscenium/thrust stage, the theatre space is marked by specific communal innovations, like open seating (i.e., without reservations), an expansive music space (stage-right) devoted to the live orchestrations of the company's principle composer & solo musician (i.e., Philippe Léotard), and a large open lobby or social space where audience and actors alike convene before, after and during intermissions of each show to enjoy refreshments & conversation.
When audiences enter a Mnouchkine production, they have the opportunity to peek through holes in the large, canvas curtain separating the audience space from the actor space, to observe the actors preparing (i.e., putting on make-up, getting into costume, practicing vocal & movement exercises, etc.) right before their eyes. Sometimes, the troupe develops ideas out of improvisational exercises. They also incorporate multiple styles of theatre in their work - ranging from commedia dell'arte to Eastern forms such as Butoh, Noh, and Bunraku (i.e., a Japenese "puppet form in which life-size puppets act out dramatic narratives to music").[1]
PERFORMANCE IN PERSPECTIVE: Tambours sur la Digue, 1999
Les Tambours sur la Digue (en. "The Flood Drummers"), a production commemorating the turn of the Millennium in 1999-2000 and the flooding in China of vast, inhabited acreage to reroute waterways and make way for the nation's largest water reservoir that annihilated countless cities, villages, cultures and archaeological treasures, was performed in a contemporary adaptation of the classical Japanese Bunraku and Chinese Shadow Puppet traditions and featured performers costumed entirely in black who "manipulated" the colorful life-size human puppet-performers that danced around on stage. One particular trio of performers, living the role of a Chinese stilt-walker on the river's edge, amazed audiences during this production by balancing an animated, costumed actor on two 4.5 meter stilts. The puppet-actor could be seen actually dancing between the tall wooden, mobile poles, hoisted up & suspended by the "manipulators" dressed in black.
To deepen the sense of spectacle for the production, the stage design (e.g., a blank, universal space that was often adapted into a "digue" or wooden dock) featured a realistic, massive flooding at the end of the play, when human actors dived into the water and waded chest deep and where smaller hand-puppets representing the characters of the play were thrown into the water, left to float as if drowned in the flood.[2] The production also featured a live, full-stage percussion orchestration that succeeded in its full potential to profoundly move the audience to catharsis (see YouTube.com Video: "Theatre du Soleil Tambour").
PERFORMANCE IN PERSPECTIVE: Les Ephémères, 2006
Their latest work called Les Ephémères is an eight-and-a-half-hour long show that takes place in the space located between 2 sets of bleachers, forming a thoroughfare where performers roll on mobile scenic constructions & stagings to present small scenes of a few minutes each in length, played by as little as one or two performers. Some scenes are related; some are connected only by the thread of the memory, and some are replayed and fast-forwarded. The ephemeral temporal feeling of the scenes stays imprinted in the memory of the spectators, creating an eerie feeling and a deep sense of dream-stasis.
Several short intermissions are offered, during which actors serve unique, home-made appetizers and beverages to the audience members in the communal space or lobby of the theatre. Le Théâtre du Soleil even has its own resident "cuisinière" who has lived and worked devoutly with the company since the early 80's. Mostly sold out, the production is now touring around the world and can be seen in countries such as China, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Germany and Canada. The large troupe travels with their original stages, their own sets, formidable amounts of costumes & props, and the company even takes the numerous children of the performers along with them, internationally. Le Théâtre du Soleil is truly the realization of a Socialist, popular ideal in the theatre!
A CITATION: CURRENT THEORETICAL ANALYSIS by A. Kiernander
For a thoughtful, literary, analytical discussion on Mnouchkine and her Théâtre du Soleil, included below is an extended citation from the major piece of literary theory on this theatre company and its director, Adrian Kiernander's Ariane Mnouchkine and the Théâtre du Soleil. The following text is a good introduction to Ariane Mnouchkine as a director and provides a valuable comparison between this female pioneering, innovative director and her influential predecessor: theatre arts/acting theorist and reputed director of the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, Jacques Copeau, whose theoretical works only appeared posthumously. Unlike Mnouchkine, who benefited from much acclaim and renown during her forty year career, Copeau experienced relatively little theatrical success during his lifetime.Like Copeau's, Mnouchine's vision of the theatre is based on the ideal of a collective company of equals working closely together over a long period of time, collaborating jointly on the creation of performances. Both directors have had a parental role within the group and have tended to assemble companies of actors who are young, idealistic, and dedicated. Both directors also see the troupe functioning as a school for its members, who are not professional actors engaged for a specific production. [...] Copeau's ideas and aspirations as set out in his Appris coincided remarkably with what Mnouchkine was trying to achieve. In particular, Copeau's aim to rediscover the techniques of improvised theatre was vitally important, and along with it went an interest in the forms of commedia dell'arte and clowning. The two traditions, which Copeau and his actors experimented with, were to be the direct basis of two major productions by the Théâtre du Soleil, as well as informing much of its subsequent work. Mnouchkine has explored these aims of Copeau more completely and for a longer time than he himself was able to do in his lifetime.CONCLUSION - COMPARISONS & REFERENCES: The Copeau Double
Both Copeau and Mnouchkine have a penchant for working in large open performance spaces, and both have used the idea of the tréteau, the traditional raised wooded stage of French fairground performers, implanted within a larger acting space. The recreation of pictorial sets in favor of the more architectural use of permanent structural materials, like concrete, provides other parallels. A photograph of the interior of the Vieux-Colombier showing prominent roof-beams and skylights above an open acting space without wings has a quite striking resemblance to the fixed features of the interior of the Cartoucherie.[3]
This introduction to Kiernander's text, a volume in the series Directors in Perspective of Cambridge University Press, publishers, August 2008, succinctly describes Mnouchkine's persuasions and accomplishments as a director, and rightly explains the prominence and repute of the Théâtre du Soleil. The use of the tréteau is evidenced by previous discussions in this article on various specific performances by the contemporary French theatre company. Also, the Socialist bent of this innovative theatre tradition of Mnouchkine and Copeau is explained both in this cited text and in previous discussions in this article. The Kiernander introduction also discusses the relationship and influences of such reputed theatre arts theorists and directors as Jean Vilar and Antonin Artaud, with their likely protégé: Mnouchkine. This Kiernander text is highly recommended as supplemental, integral reading when approaching the study of the Théâtre du Soleil.
REFERENCESAUTHOR/EDITOR OF WIKIPEDIA ENTRY (7 Feb. 2009)
- ^ Don Rubin, ed. World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: The Americas, p. 180 [Paperback]. Taylor & Francis, 2000. http://books.google.com/books?id=Oct-fCGUBpkC&printsec=frontcover#PRA1-PRA180,M/, (7 Feb. 2009).
- ^ Ariane Mnouchkine, dir. Les Tambours sur la Digue. [Theatrical Performance] Le Théâtre du Soleil, 1999. http://www.theatre-du-soleil.fr/ (7 Feb. 2009).
- ^ Adrian Kiernander, Ariane Mnouchkine and the Théâtre du Soleil, pp. 4-5 [Paperback]. Cambridge University Press, August 2008. http://www.cambridge.org/ (7 Feb. 2009).
Matthew Blanchard
http://qherekidsf.blogspot.com/
San Francisco, CA 94109 USA
[February 07, 2009 @ 01:06PM]
Giving to the similarities between the pioneering, innovative director, Ariane Mnouchkine and her predecessor, Jacques Copeau, Le Théâtre du Soleil can be defined as a collaborative, "Socialist" performance troupe that shares common standards of equality, devout idealism, and mastery of technique amongst its members to create a close-knit, family or tribal community where the director plays the parental role, mentoring and teaching her team of young, enthusiastic actors. This philosophy or standard of practice has proved time and time again to engender and realize splendid, spectacular works of theatrical perfection, where catharsis is common ground for the performers and spectators alike.
I was profoundly moved by my expereinces with Le Théâtre du Soleil and ARTA at the Cartoucherie in Paris. I only hope one more day in my short, tumultuous life, to have the opportunity and honor again of participating in one of their ground-breaking, riveting performances as an audience member. I once was invited by Mnouchkine herself to audition for this theatre company, fresh after performing a monologue for the Peking Opera/Shakespeare Workshop at ARTA, but that opportunity was hampered and blocked by my good-intentioned though stingy father, who preferred I not stay in Paris long enough to be able excel through the company's collaborative, improvisational audition process.
My hopes & dreams were dashed; but alas, dreams are born again with new lives , new passions and new awakenings! This astounding, beloved contemporary French theatre company has touched my life once already and provided me with immense amounts of inspiration. I only hope that I can live until the day when I see that inspiration reborn in another pivotal, life-altering experience or through intellectual and artistic learning. That is my hope; that is my aim, and that is the profound sentiment of objective mission and goals that Le Théâtre du Soleil has given me in my experiences with them. I wonder if I will ever be able to repay my indebtedness as well as I am able to reflect upon it. We'll just have to wait & see...
Full of nostalgia & pride,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA 94109 USA
[February 7, 2009 @ 06:05PM]
IF ONE ADVANCES CONFIDENTLY IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS DREAMS,
AND ENDEAVORS TO LIVE THE LIFE HE HAS IMAGINED, HE WILL MEET
WITH SUCCESS UNEXPECTED IN COMMON HOURS.
— Henry David Thoreau
