Resumo de A Director Prepares: Seven Essays On Art And Theatre

As the American director Anne Bogart frequently reminds her students, ?If you don?t know how to say it, point to it.? Her book, A Director Prepares, appears to do just that. Rather than, as her title would suggest, a director?s imitation of Stanislavsky?s bible for actors, Bogart?s book is a ménage of thoughts and anecdotes on life, inspiration, creativity, and the art of theatre. However, the book has no cohesive through-line; its subtitle, ?Seven Essays on Art and Theatre,? presents a much more accurate picture of what is being attempted. Vague as the title is, the subsequent essays embrace this structural ambiguity; they straddle a line between theory and practice, art and commercialism. In her introduction, Bogart compares her life to an anecdote of Jean Paul Sartre?s. The French philosopher, in Bogart?s tale, is attempting to pick up a woman in a bar. As he waits for her to return from the ladies room, he imagines the natural progression of the evening. Sartre, in the midst of his musings, comes to the realization that he would rather choose the unknown than the inevitable; he decides to walk out of the bar into the night. Bogart similarly departs from the conventional; her book chooses to ?embrace the discontinuous blips and bleeps of human existence and live without the security of a story?(8). Indeed, Anne Bogart describes her book as essentially an ?anti-story?(9). This lack of a cohesive through line certainly imitates Bogart?s own career in the theatre. Her SITI Company ruptures the original narrative of its work; by distorting and transforming known texts, or devised pieces, beyond a linear structure, SITI Company creates a theatre of memory, collaboration, and violence.
SITI was founded with a philosophy of practice and pedagogy in mind. The artists, technicians, and director all wished to train and perform using the Suzuki method and Viewpoints; they also wished to teach their methods to others. The company?s desire for collaborative practical and instructional work significantly influences the making of A Director Prepares.
A Director Prepares is the antithesis of theory. Anne Bogart attempts to present a visceral, physical and emotional approach to the creative process. The seven essays in this work are all intense difficulties that Anne Bogart finds essential to work in the theatre. As she describes: ?I have found myself repeatedly face to face with issues about violence, memory, terror, eroticism, stereotype, embarrassment and resistance ? These problems became my allies?(pg.2). Bogart?s essays are a detailed look at the seven issues that she considers the essential tools necessary for creating theatre. As one sees by her titles: Violence, Memory, and Embarrassment, among others, the tools are visceral, emotional actions that go beyond any intellectual, analytical enterprise.
By looking at the essay, ?Violence,? Bogart?s description is dramatic in itself. Anne Bogart begins this chapter by describing her own observation of a master class at NYU with the American Director, Robert Wilson. Wilson?s extremely detailed approach to directing, his enforcing of the very angle and rhythm of his actress? left arm caused Bogart to feel physically ill. Wilson?s very choices, according to Bogart, were acts of violence. In a medium of interpretative skills, choice becomes dangerous and essential to the art form. By using this term ?violence,? Anne Bogart again removes theatrical creation from the analytical realm. A choice becomes, not an action of the ?head space,? but a physical act of rupture and destruction. ?When an actor achieves a spontaneous, intuitive, or passionate moment in rehearsal, the director utters the fateful words ?keep it,? eliminating all other potential solutions. These two cruel words, ?keep it?, plunge a knife into the heart of the actor?? (p. 45). The extremity of Bogart?s diction mirrors the passion involved in a theatrical endeavor. A Director Prepares may not be a handbook for the directorr, but it does embody the creative process. Her book is a passionate display of her life in art, describing her emotions behind the work, if not the work itself.
In her essay ?Memory,? Bogart questions the origins of our culture. She describes memory as an active embodiment rather than a mere cerebral experience. As a developing artist in the late ?60?s and early ?70?s, she took much of her inspiration from the volatile work of that time. The creations of The Living Theatre, Robert Wilson, The Open Theatre, Richard Foreman, and Meredith Monk, among others, greatly influenced her artistic process. However, Bogart found it difficult to think beyond her own generation to find a richer American identity. In this essay, Bogart maps out the cultural history of the United States, not by any profound or in-depth study of the dramatic works from 1665 to the present, nor in any linear trajectory, but rather as a document of points of departure in her own process. Much of Bogart?s productions reflect her research into American performance history; SITI Company has created projects regarding the Living Newspaper, the Federal Theatre Project, as well as productions of the notable American playwrights O?Neill, Miller, and Williams, among others. In her book, the reader obtains a sense of what Anne Bogart considers necessary to research and uncover from American cultural history. Moreover, by studying Bogart?s discoveries of inspiration, perhaps the reader can uncover her own.

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