Gentle Manifest | Brecht's Poems 4

Six Late Theatre Poems

LOOKING FOR THE NEW AND OLD

When you read your parts
Exploring, ready to be surprised
Look for the new and old. For our time
And the time of our children is the time of struggles
Between the new and the old.
The cunning of the old working woman
Who relieves the teacher of his knowledge
Like a pack to heavy to carry, is new
And must be shown as new. And old
Is the fear of the workers in wartime
Reluctant to take the leaflets which will teach them; it must
Be shown as old. But
As the people say, at the moon’s change of phases
The new moon for one night
Holds the old moon in its arms. The hesitancy of the timid
Proclaims the new time. Always
Fix the ’still’ and the ‘already’.
The struggles between the classes
The struggles between new and old
Rage also within each man.
The teacher’s willingness to teach
Is overlooked by his brother, but the stranger
Sees it.
Check over all the feelings and actions of your characters
For new and old features.
The hopes of the trader Courage
Are mortal to her children; yet the dumb girl’s
Despair about the war
Belongs with the new. her helpless movements
As she drags her life-saving drum on to the roof
A great helper, should fill you.
With pride; the energy
Of the trader who learns nothing, with compassion.
Reading your parts
Exploring, ready to be surprised
Rejoice at the new, be ashamed at the old.

(p. 424-5)

THE CURTAINS

On the big curtain paint the cantankerous
Peace dove of my brother Picasso. Behind it
Stretch the wire rope and hang
My light fluttering half curtains
Which cross like two waves of foam to make
The working woman handing out pamphlets
And the recanting Galileo both disappear.
Following the change of plays they can be
Of rough linen or of silk
Or of white leather or of red, and so on.
Only don’t make them too dark, for on them
You must project the titles of the following
Incidents, for the sake of tension and that
The right thing may be expected. And please make
My curtain half-height, don’t block the stage off.
Leaning back, let the spectator
Notice the busy preparations being so
Ingeniously made for him, a tin moon is
Seen swinging down, a shingle roof
Is carried in; don’t show him too much
But show something. And let him observe
That this is not magic but
Work, my friends.

(p. 425)

THE LIGHTING

Give us some light on the stage, electrician. How can we
Playwrights and actors put forward
Our images of the world in half darkness? The dim twilight
Induces sleep. But we need the audience’s
Wakeful-, even watchfulness. Let them
Do their dreaming in the light. The little bit of night
We now and then require can be
Indicated by moons or lamps, likewise our acting
can make clear what time of day it is
Whenever needed. The Elizabethan wrote us verses
About a heath at evening
Which no electrician can match, nor even
The heath itself. So light up
What we have laboured over, that the audience
Can see how the outraged peasant woman
Sits down on the Finnish soil
As if it belonged to her.

(p. 426)

THE SONGS

Separate the songs from the rest!
By some symbol of music, by change of lighting
By titles, by pictures now show
That the sister art is
Coming on stage. The actors
Change into singers. They have a new attitude
As they address themselves to the audience, still
Characters in the play but now undisguisedly
Accomplices of the playwright.
Nana Callas, the round-headed landlord’s daughter
Brought to market like a hen
Sings the song of the mere
Change of masters, not to be understood without the wriggle of the hips
Trick of the trade that
Turned her privates into a scar. Not to be understood either
The canteen woman’s song of the Great Capitutulation, unless
The anger of the playwright
Is added to that of the woman.
But dry Ivan Vesovchikoff, the Bolshevik worker, sings
With iron voice of the class that cannot be beaten
And friendly Vlassova, the mother
Reports, singing in her particular careful voice
That the banner of reason is red.

(p. 426-7)

WEIGEL’S PROPS

Just as the millet farmer picks out for his trial plot
The heaviest seeds and the poet
The exact words for his verse so
She selects the objects to accompany
Her characters across the stage. The pewter spoon
Which Courage sticks
In the lapel of her Mongolian jacket, the party card
For warm-hearted Vlassova and the fishing net
For the other, Spanish mother or the bronze bowl
For dust-gathering Antigone. Impossible to to confuse
The split bag which the working woman carries
For her son’s leaflets, with the moneybag
Of the keen tradeswoman. Each item
In her stock is hand picked: straps and belts
Pewter boxes and ammunition pouches; hand picked too
The chicken and the stick which at the end
The old woman twists through the draw-rope
The Basque woman’s board on which she bakes her bread
And the Greek woman’s board of shame, strapped to her back
With holes for her hands to stick through, The Russian’s
Jar of lard, so small in the policeman’s hand; all
Selected for age, function and beauty
By the eyes of the knowing
The hands of the bread-making, net-weaving
Soup-cooking connoisseur
Of reality.

(p. 426-7)

ON SERIOUSNESS IN ART

The seriousness of the man who shapes the silver ornaments
Is likewise welcome in the art of the theatre, and welcome
Is the seriousness of people discussing the text
Of a pamphlet behind locked doors. But the seriousness
Of a doctor stooping over his patent is no longer compatible
With the art of the theatre, and it utterly bars
The seriousness of the priest, whether gentle or hectic.
(p. 428)


*Bertolt Brecht Poems 1913-1956, Edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim with the co-operation of Erich Fried, 1979 edition.

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Gentle Manifest | Brecht's Poems 3

THE BREAD OF THE PEOPLE

Justice is the bread of the people.
Sometimes it is plentiful, sometimes it is scarce.
Sometimes it tastes good, sometimes it tastes bad.
When the bread is scarce, there is hunger.
When the bread is bad, there is discontent.

Throw away the bad justice
Baked without love, kneaded without knowledge!
Justice without flavour, with a grey crust
The stale justice which comes too late!

If the bread is good and plentiful
The rest of the meal can be excused.
One cannot have plenty of everything all at once.
Nourished by the bread of justice
The work can be achieved
From which plenty comes.

As daily bread is necessary
So is daily justice.
It is even necessary several times a day.

From morning till night, at work, enjoying oneself.
At work which is an enjoyment.
In hard times and in happy times
The people requires the plentiful, wholesome
Daily bread of justice.

Since the bread of justice, then, is so important
Who, friends, shall bake it?

Who bakes the other bread?

Like the other bread
The bread of justice must be baked
By the people.

Plentiful, wholesome, daily.

(p. 435)

*Bertolt Brecht Poems 1913-1956, Edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim with the co-operation of Erich Fried, 1979 edition.

Gentle Manifest | Brecht's Poems 2

Four Theatre Poems

PORTRAYAL OF PAST AND PRESENT IN ONE

Whatever you portray you should always portray
As if it were happening now. Engrossed
The silent crowd sits in the darkness, lured
Away from its routine affairs. Now
The fisherman's wife is being brought her son whom
The generals have killed. Even what has just happened
In her room is wiped out. What is happening here is
Happening now and just the once. To act in this way
Is habitual with you, and now I am advising you
To ally this habit with yet another: that is, that your acting
          should
At the same time express the fact that this instant
On your stage is often repeated; only yesterday
You were acting it, and tomorrow too
Given spectators, there will be a further performance.
Nor should you let the Now blot out the
Previously and Afterwards, nor for that matter whatever
Is even now happening outside the theatre and is similar in
          kind
Nor even things that have nothing to do with it all - none of
          this
Should you allow to be entirely forgotten.
So you should simply make the instant
Stand out, without in the process hiding
What you are making it stand out from. Give your acting
That progression of one-thing-after-another, that attitude of
Working up what you have taken on. In this way
You will show the flow of events and also the course
Of your work, permitting the spectator
To experience this Now on many levels, coming from
          Previously and
Merging into Afterwards, also having much else now
Alongside it. He is sitting not only
In your theatre but also
In the world.

(p. 307-8)

ON JUDGING

You artists who, for pleasure or for pain
Deliver yourselves up to the judgement of the audience
Be moved in future
To deliver up also to the judgement of the audience
The world which you show.

You should show what is; but also
In showing what is you should suggest what could be and
          is not
And might be helpful. For from your portrayal
The audience must learn to deal with what is portrayed.
Let this learning be pleasurable. Learning must be taught
As an art, and you should
Teach dealing with things and with people
As an art too, and the practice of art is pleasurable.

To be sure, you live in a dark time. You see man
Tossed back and forth like a ball by evil forces.
Only an idiot lives without worry. The unsuspecting
Are already destined to go under. What were the earthquakes
Of grey prehistory compared to the afflictions
Which we suffer in cities? What were bad harvests
To the need that ravages us in the midst of plenty?

(p. 308)

ON THE CRITICAL ATTITUDE

The critical attitude
Strikes many people as unfruitful.
That is because they find the state
Impervious to their criticism.
But what in this case is an unfruitful attitude
Is merely a feeble attitude. Give criticism arms
And states can be demolished by it.

Canalising a river
Grafting a fruit tree
Educating a person
Transforming a state
These are instances of fruitful criticism
And at the same time
Instances of art.

(p. 308-9)

THEATRE OF EMOTIONS

Between ourselves, it seems to me a sorry trade
Putting on plays solely
To stir up inert feelings. You remind me of masseurs
Singing their fingers in all too fatty
Flanks, as in dough, to knead away sluggards'
Bellies. Your situations are hastily assembled to
Excite the customers to rage
Or pain. The audience
Thus become voyeurs. The sated
Sit next the hungry.

The emotions you manufacture are turbid and impure
General and blurred, no less false
Than thoughts can be. Dull blows on the backbone
Cause the dregs of the soul to rise to the surface.
With glassy eyes
Sweaty brow and tightened calves
The poisoned audience follows
Your exhibitions.
No wonder they buy their tickets
Two by two. And no wonder
They like to sit in the dark that hides them.

(p. 309-10)

*Bertolt Brecht Poems 1913-1956, Edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim with the co-operation of Erich Fried, 1979 edition.

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Gentle Manifest | Brecht's Poems 1

THIS BABYLONIAN CONFUSION

This Babylonian confusion of words
Results from their being the language
Of men who are going down.
That we no longer understand them
Results from the fact that it is no longer
Of any use to understand them.
What use is it to tell the dead
How one might have lived
Better. Don't try to persuade
The man with rigor mortis
To perceive the world.
Don't quarrel
With the man behind whom
The gardeners are already waiting
Be patient rather.

The other day I wanted
To tell you cunningly
The story of a wheat speculator in the city of
Chicago. In the middle of what I was saying
My voice suddenly failed me
For I had
Grown aware all at once what an effort
It would cost me to tell
That story to those not yet born
But who will be born and will live
In ages quite different from ours
And, lucky devils, will simply not be able to grasp
What a wheat speculator is
Of the kind we know.

So I began to explain it to them. And mentally
I heard myself speak for seven years
But I met with
Nothing but a silent shaking of heads from all
My unborn listeners.
Then I knew that I was
Telling them about something
That a man cannot understand.

They said to me: You should have changed
Your houses or else your food
Or yourselves. Tell us, why did you not have
A blueprint, if only
In books perhaps of earlier times -
A blueprint of men, either drawn
Or described, for it seems to us
Your motive was quite base
And also quite easy to change. Almost anyone
Could have seen it was wrong, inhuman, exceptional.
Was there not some such old and
Simple model you could have gone by
In your confusion?

I said: Such models existed
But, you see, they were crisscrossed
Five times over with new marks, illegible
The blueprint altered fives times to accord
With our degenerate image, so that
In those reports even our forefathers
Resembled none but ourselves.
At this they lost heart and dismissed me
With the nonchalant regrets
Of happy people.

(p. 124-6)

WORDS THE LEADER CANNOT BEAR TO HEAR

In the ministries it is well known that the Leader winces
Whenever he hears words which begin with the syllable PRO-
Such words as 'proletarian', 'prose', 'provocation' or 'pro
          and con'.
'Prostitution' and 'profit' seem to disquiet him too.
Whenever these words are mentioned in his presence
He glances up shyly with a hunted, guilty expression
Which the speaker is hard put to explain.
Another syllable which causes him difficulty
Is the syllable GRAM, occurring in the word 'gramme'
Which designates a small unit of weight, and in words such
          as 'grammar'. Since the Leader
Exhibits such antipathy toward these two syllables, it follows
Quite naturally that, above all, a word which contains them
          both
May never under any circumstances be uttered in his presence -
Wherefore, at Party and theatrical functions
The word PROGRAMME is always replaced by the expression
          'sequence of events'.

(p. 298)

DIFFICULTY OF GOVERNING

1
Ministers are always telling the people
How difficult it is to govern. Without the ministers
Corn would grow into the ground, not upward.
Not a lump of coal would leave the mine if
The Chancellor weren't so clever. Without the Minister of
          Propaganda
No girl would ever agree to get pregnant. Without the
          Minister of War
There'd never be a war. Indeed, whether the sun would rise
          in the morning
Without the Fuhrer's permission
Is very doubtful, and if it did, it would be
In the wrong place.

2
It's just as difficult, so they tell us
To run a factory. Without the owner
The walls would fall in and the machines rust, so they say.
Even if a plough could get made somewhere
It would never reach a field without the
Cunning words the factory owner writes the peasants: who
Could otherwise tell them that ploughs exist? And what
Would become of an estate without the landlord? Surely
They'd be sowing rye where they had set the potatoes.

3
If governing were easy
There'd be no need for such inspired minds as the Fuhrer's.
If the worker knew how to run his machine and
The peasant could tell his field from a pastryboard
There'd be no need of factory owner or landlord.
It's only because they are all so stupid
That a few are needed who are so clever.

4
Or could it be that
Governing is so difficult only
Because swindling and exploitation take some learning?

(p. 295-6)


*Bertolt Brecht Poems 1913-1956, Edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim with the co-operation of Erich Fried, 1979 edition.

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The Empty Box | Excerpts on theater

I have decided to share with you a few excerpts from Peter Brook's book, The Empty Space, because I think it is crucial that we not only engage with the current conversations and activist movements surrounding the proposed demolition of the National Theater in Albania, but that we multiply the momentum of their resistance, the energy of this public force, by taking it even further - from performance to knowledge - to expand our understanding of theater, which is one of the 'other' creative disciplines that has been pushed aside during the country's economic and ideological transition in favor of the more marketable contemporary arts. To do so, many questions need to be asked and a rigorous historiography should be researched - if it hasn't been done already. It is high time we stop consuming information and start cultivating knowledge (e.g. situated, open source, etc). 

The text below is taken from two of the four Theaters of the book: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate, which was published in 1968. As it is posted here out of context and 50 years after it was written, I would recommend you read the book yourselves, in order to draw your own conclusions. 

"Karvani vigan i kulturës ecën përpara duke mbartur gjurmët e çdo artisti drejt një grumbulli me mbeturina që sa vjen e rritet. Teatrot, aktorët, kritikët dhe publiku janë ndërthurur në një mekanizëm që kriset, por kurrë nuk ndalet.

Teatri ka nevojë për një revolucion të përhershëm." 

The Deadly Theater

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theater to be engaged. Yet when we talk about theater this is not quite what we mean. Red curtains, spotlights, blank verse, laughter, darkness, these are all confusedly superimposed in a messy image covered by one all-purpose word.
[...]
All through the world theater audiences are dwindling. There are occasional new movements, good new writers and so on, but as a whole, the theater not only fails to elevate or instruct, it hardly even entertains. The theater has often been called a whore, meaning its art impure, but today this is true in another sense - whores take the money and then go short on the pleasure. [...] In fact, were the public ever really to demand the true entertainment it talks about so often, we would almost all be hard put to know where to begin.
[...]
Anyone who watches the real successes as they appear each year, will see a very curious phenomenon. We expect the so-called hit to be livelier, faster, brighter than the flop - but this is not always the case. Almost every season in most theater-loving towns, there is one great success that defies these rules; one play that succeeds not despite but because of dullness. After all, one associates culture with a certain sense of duty, historical costumes and long speeches with the sensation of being bored: so, conversely, just the right degree of boringness is a reassuring guarantee of a worthwhile event. Of course, the dosage is so subtle that it is impossible to establish the exact formula - too much and the audience is driven out of their seats, too little and it may find the theme too disagreeably intense. However, mediocre authors seem to feel their way unerringly to the perfect mixture - and they perpetuate the Deadly Theater with dull successes, universally praised. Audiences crave for something in the theater that they can term ‘better’ than life and for this reason are open to confuse culture, or the trappings of culture, with something they do not know, but sense obscurely could exist - so, tragically, in elevating something bad into a success they are only cheating themselves.
[...]
Again with Shakespeare we hear or read the same advice - ‘Play what is written’. But what is written? Certain ciphers on paper. Shakespeare’s words are records of the words that he wanted to be spoken, words issuing as sounds from people’s mouths, with pitch, pause, rhythm and gesture as part of their meaning. A word does not start as a word - it is an end product which begins as an impulse, stimulated by attitude and behavior which dictate the need for expression. This process occurs inside the dramatist; it is repeated inside the actor. Both many only be conscious of the words, but both for the author and then for the actor the word is a small visible portion of a gigantic unseen formation.
[...]
It is vain to pretend that the words we apply to classical plays like ‘musical’, ‘poetic’, ‘larger than life’, ‘noble’, ‘heroic’, ‘romantic’, have any absolute meaning. They are the reflections of a critical attitude of a particular period, and to attempt to build a performance today to conform to these canons is the most certain road to deadly theater - deadly theater of a respectability that makes it pass as living truth.
[...]
The opposing words ‘literary’ and ‘theatrical’ have many meanings, . . ., they all too often describe ways of warding off contact with disturbing themes.
[...]
‘Reality’ is a word with many meanings, but here it is understood to be that slice of the real that reflected the people and the problems around the actor, and it coincided with the slices of existence that the writers of the day, Miller, Tennessee Williams, Inge, were trying to define. In much the same way Stanislavsky’s theater drew its strength from the fact that it corresponded to the needs of the best Russian classics, all of which were cast in a naturalistic form. For a number of years in Russia, the school, the public and the play had made a coherent whole. Then Meyerhold challenged Stanislavsky, proposing a different style of playing, in order to capture other elements of ‘reality’.
[...]
All this brings us back to the same problem. The word theater has many sloppy meanings. In most of the world, the theater has no exact place in society, no clear purpose, it only exists in fragments: one theater chases money, another chases glory, another chases emotion, another chases politics, another chases fun. The actor is bundled from pillar to post - confused and consumed by conditions outside his control. Actors may sometimes seem jealous or trivial, yet I have never known an actor who did not want to work. This wish to work is his strength. It is what enables professionals everywhere to understand each other. But he cannot reform his profession alone. In a theater with few schools and no aims, he is usually the tool, not the instrument. Yet when the theater does come back to the actor, the problem is still not solved. On the contrary, deadly acting becomes the heart of the crisis.
[...]
When we say deadly, we never mean dead: we mean something depressingly active, but for this very reason capable of change. The first step towards this change is facing the simple unattractive fact that most of what is called theater anywhere in the world is a travesty of a word once full of sense. War or peace, the colossal bandwagon of culture trundles on, carrying each artist’s traces to the ever-mounting garbage heap. Theaters, actors, critics and public are interlocked in a machine that creaks, but never stops. There is always a new season in hand and we are too busy to ask the only vital question which measures the whole structure. Why theater at all? What for? Is it an anachronism, a superannuated oddity, surviving like an old monument or a quaint custom? Why do we applaud, and what? Has the stage a real place in our lives? What function can it have? What could it serve? What could it explore? What are its special properties?

The Rough Theater (or Informal)

It is always the popular theater that saves the day. Through the ages it has taken many forms, and there is only one factor that they all have in common - a roughness. Salt, sweat, noise, smell: the theater that’s not in a theater, the theater on carts, on wagons, on trestles, audiences standing, drinking, sitting round tables, audiences joining in, answering back: theater in back rooms, upstairs rooms, barns; the one-night stands, the torn sheet pinned up across the hall, the battered screen to conceal the quick changes - that one generic term, theater, covers all this and the sparkling chandeliers too. I have had many abortive discussions with architects building new theaters - trying vainly to find words with which to communicate my own conviction that it is not a question of good buildings and bad: a beautiful place may never bring about explosion of life; while a haphazard hall may be a tremendous meeting place: this is the mystery of the theater, but in the understanding of this mystery lies the only possibility of ordering it into a science. In other forms of architecture there is a relationship between conscious, articulate design and good functioning: a well-designed hospital may be more efficacious than a higgledy-piggledy one; but as for theaters, the problem of design cannot start logically. It is not a matter of saying analytically what are the requirements, how best they can be organized - this will usually bring into existence a tame, conventional, often cold hall. The science of theater-building must come from studying what it is that brings about the most vivid relationship between people - and is this best served by asymmetry, even by disorder? If so, what can be the rule of this disorder? An architect is better off if he works like a scene designer, moving scraps of cardboard by intuition, than if he builds his model from a plan, prepared with compass and ruler. [...] At the beginning of electronic music, some German studios claimed that they could make every sound that a natural instrument could make - only better. They then discovered that all their sounds were marked by a certain uniform sterility. So they analyzed the sounds made by clarinets, flutes, violins, and found that each note contained a remarkably high proportion of plain noise: actual scraping, or the mixture of heavy breathing with wind on wood: from a purist point of view this was just dirt, but the composers soon found themselves compelled to make synthetic dirt - to ‘humanize’ their compositions. Architects remain blind to this principle - and era after era the most vital theatrical experiences occur outside the legitimate places constructed for the purpose. [...] The Rough Theater is close to the people: it may be a puppet theater, it may - as in Greek villages to this day - be a shadow show: it is usually distinguished by the absence of what is called style. Style needs leisure: putting over something in rough conditions is like a revolution, for anything that comes to hand can be turned into a weapon. The Rough Theater doesn’t pick and choose: if the audience is restive, then it is obviously more important to holler at the troublemakers - or improvise a gag - than to try to preserve the unity of style of the scene. In the luxury of the high-class theater, everything can be all of a piece: in a rough theater a bucket will be banged for a battle, flour used to show faces white with fear. The arsenal is limitless: the aside, the placard, the topical reference, the local jokes, the exploiting of accidents, the songs, the dances, the tempo, the noise, the relying on contrasts, the shorthand of exaggeration, the false noses, the stock types, the stuffed bellies. The popular theater, freed of unity of style, actually speaks a very sophisticated and stylish language: a popular audience usually has no difficulty in accepting inconsistencies of accent and dress, or in darting between mime and dialogue, realism and suggestion. They follow the line of the story, unaware in fact that somewhere there is a set of standards which are being broken.
[...]
Of course, it is most of all dirt that gives the roughness its edge; filth and vulgarity are natural, obscenity is joyous: with these the spectacle takes on its socially liberating role, for by nature the popular theater is anti-authoritarian, anti-traditional, anti-pomp, anti-pretense. This is the theater of noise, and the theater of noise is the theater of applause.

Think of those two awful masks that glower at us from so many books on theater - in ancient Greece we are told these masks represented two equal elements, tragedy and comedy. At least, they are always shown as equal partners. Since then, though, the ‘legitimate’ theater has been considered the important one while the Rough Theater has been thought less serious. But every attempt to revitalize the theater has gone back to the popular source. Meyerhold had the highest aims, he sought to present all of life on the stage, his revered master was Stanislavsky, his friend was Chekhov; but in fact it was to the circus and the music hall that he turned. Brecht was rooted in the cabaret: Joan Littlewood longs for a fun-fair: Cocteau, Artaud, Vakhtangov, the most improbable bedfellows, all these highbrows return to the people: and Total Theater is just a mix-up of these ingredients. All the time, experimental theater comes out of the theater buildings and returns to the room or the ring.

The Rough Theater has apparently no style, no conventions, no limitations - in practice, it has all three. Just as in life the wearing of old clothes can start as defiance and turn into a posture, so roughness can become an end in itself. [...] The Rough Theater deals with men’s actions, and because it is down to earth and direct - because it admits wickedness and laughter - the rough and ready seems better than the hollowly holy.

It is impossible to consider this further without stopping to look at the implications of the strongest, most influential and the most radical theater man of our time, Brecht. No one seriously concerned with the theater can bypass Brecht. Brecht is the key figure of our time, and all theater work today at some point starts and returns to his statement and achievement. [...] He began working at a time when most German stages were dominated either by naturalism or by great total-theater onslaughts of an operatic nature designed to sweep up the spectator by his emotions so that he forgot himself completely. Whatever life there was on-stage was offset by the passivity it demanded of the audience.

For Brecht, a necessary theater could never for one moment take its sights off the society it was serving. There was no fourth wall between actors and audience - the actor’s unique aim was to create a precise response in an audience for whom he had total respect.
[...]
All this stems from a strict sense of purpose. Brecht believed that, in making an audience take stock of the elements in a situation, the theater was serving the purpose of leading its audience to a juster understanding of the society in which it lived, and so to learning in what ways that society was capable of change.
[...]
No actor can play a cipher: however stylized or schematic the writing, the actor must always believe to some degree in the stage life of the odd animal he represents. But nonetheless an actor can play in a thousand ways, and playing a portrait is not the only alternative. What Brecht introduced was the idea of the intelligent actor, capable of judging the value of his contribution. There were and still are many actors who pride themselves on known nothing about politics and who treat the theater as an ivory tower. For Brecht such an actor is not worthy of his place in adult company: an actor in a community that supports a theater must be as much involved in the outside world as in his own craft.
[...]
It is not as though the period of necessary debunking were now over. On the contrary, all through the world in order to save the theater almost everything of the theater still has to be swept away. The process has hardly begun, and perhaps can never end. The theater needs its perpetual revolution.

* * *
In everyday life, ‘if’ is a fiction, in the theater ‘if’ is an experiment.
In everyday life, ‘if’ is an evasion, in the theater ‘if’ is the truth.
When we are persuaded to believe in this truth, then the theater and life are one.
This is a high aim. It sounds like hard work.
To play needs much work. But when we experience the work as play, then it is not work any more.
A play is play.

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Undigested Thoughts | In search of missing theater(s)

Lëvizja e aktivistëve për teatrin (#mbroteatrin) duhet kuptuar jo vetëm si mbrojtje e trashëgimisë historike nëpërmjet arkitekturës së një ndërtese, por vetë teatrit si organizëm dhe akt(ivizim) kolektiv, si një arkitekturë (art+tekton) që ushqen, zhvillon dhe shpreh jo vetëm lirinë e fjalës po atë të mendjes së individit (të menduarit), kulturës shoqërore (të sjellurit) dhe ndërgjegjes historike (të kujtesës kolektive), pra një arkitekurë që mundëson jo vetëm publikun por dhe (materializon) hapësirën e tij.

Duke u mbajtur jashtë ndërtesës së teatrit, në oborrin e tij, kjo lëvizje mundëson dhe materializon atë hapësirë publike që e kërkojmë kudo, jo vetëm jashtë në qytet por edhe brenda në institucionet e tij. E zhvendos spektaklin e këtyre institucioneve në rrugë (dhe me këtë veprim nxjerr në pah vetë hierarkinë (jo)publike «teatër-bashki-kryeministri-privat»). Eshtë një aktivizëm që "shfuqizon skenën dhe auditorin duke i zëvendësuar ato me një hapësirë të vetme, pa asnjë lloj ndarje apo pengese, duke u kthyer kështu në një teatër veprimi. Eshtë një akt që rivendos komunikimin e drejtpërdrejtë midis spektatorit dhe spektaklit, aktorit dhe spektatorit, duke e vënë spektatorin, pra publikun, në qendër të vëmendjes, veprimit dhe hapësirës që ta ndjejë fizikisht dhe të preket direkt nga ai”. (Artaud)

Atëherë mund të themi se kjo levizje aktiviste përbën një ‘minor’ arkitekturë, vanguard-izmi i së cilës nuk qëndron tek efekti shokues (sic mund të them psh për disa ‘top-down’ ‘fake-avant-garde’ ‘arte bosh’) por boshti i tij është vetë fakti që vë në dyshim dhe shtron pyetje mbi legjitimitetin e shumë gjërave që bëhen në emër te tij, të publikut. Pra është (dhe duhet të jetë) një përgjigje përtej reaksionit dhe indinjimit fillestar. Edhe pse asimetrike në formë apo fuqi duhet të jetë propocionale në veprim.

Lëvizja mund të kuptohet si një ndërgjegjësi dhe pergjegjësi shoqvrore që edhe pse e di margjinalitetin e saj vazhdon ta mbajë qëndrimin/pozicionin e vet, nuk pretendon për hegjemoni, e kupton domosdoshmërinë e formave të qeveritjes dhe ligjeve demokratike, ashtu si dhe praninë e forcave politike (pluralizmin) – pra, si një praktikë kritike-kreative, ky aktivizëm është (mund, dhe duhet të jetë) ‘creatively parasitic’ dhe ‘insistently oppositional’ që “kërkon (apo të paktën shpreson) të arrijë një sintezë të rigorozit politik (political rigor) dhe lirisë estetike (aesthetic freedom) duke rritur ndërgjegjen historike të publikut pa e intimiduar atë apo duke perdorur thjesht retorikë”. (Barthes/Brecht)

Një ide për #ejanëteatër? Leximi, recitimi, interpretimi i dhe dialogu midis ligjit, projektligjit, dhe procedurave ligjore si vetë karakterë të ketij konflikti, ku publiku i komunikon këto tekste ashtu siç i kupton . . . dmth duke nxjerrë në pah mangësite apo trillimet e tyre, dhe duke i shprehur e materializuar nëpërmjet gjesteve individuale që manifestojne një polifoni qëndrimesh dhe fuqish. Në këtë mënyrë, ai publik që është pothuajse gjithmonë një spektator, të vijë (në skenën publike, ashtu sic e ka të drejtën e tij) dhe të vihet në qendër të spektaklit që e rrethon.

Siç thotë dhe Brecht-i: Ky akt duhet të luhet si një pjesë (copëza) historie, dhe spektatorit ti jepet shansi të vihet në një pozicion ku mund të krahasojë dhe të kritikojë influencat e ndryshme që e bëjnë atë, dhe shoqërinë në të cilin ai jeton, të sillet në një mënyre apo tjetrën. Nga ana astetike, kjo do të thotë se gjesti shoqëror i kujtdo që del në skenë, aktorit apo dhe spektatorit, mbart një rëndësi të veçantë. Artet duhet të fillojnë ti kushtojnë më rëndësi gjestit, d.m.th. gjestit me rëndësi shoqërore, jo atij ilustrues apo ekspresiv. Parimi i gjestit, në këtë rast, zëvëndëson atë të imitimit. [...] Kur përmbajtja e aktit kthehet, teknikisht, në një pjesë (komponent) të pavarur, ndaj së cilës teksti, muzika dhe skena 'përvetësojnë qëndrimet' e tyre; pasi iluzioni që kërkon ti shfaqë publikut sakrifikohet për një diskutim të lirë me të, dhe spektatori, në vend që të përjetojë një eksperiencë ndryshe, detyrohet të marrë pjesë aktive ashtu sikur të ishte tek kutitë e votimit; atëherë mund të themi se ndryshimi ka nisur dhe po ndodh përtej çështjeve formale, dhe për herë të parë po fillon të prek/ndikojë rolin/funksionin shoqëror (social) të teatrit.

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Hidden Cities & Walls of Language (excerpts)

No More Masterpieces - A.Artaud

This may begin to delineate a line of scrimmage between making architectural objects and writing architectonic texts. - J.Bloomer

The problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; their roots are as deep in us as the forms of our language and their significance is as great as the importance of our language. - Wittgenstein

Does the visual image destroy the walls of language? The true significance of visual images must be rethought after thoroughly examining the thickness of the walls of language. - Abe Kobo

© PERfACTs "The ACTIVATION of the Traditional Games (Lojëra Popullore)"

** The text below is from William H. Gass's essay Invisible Cities, in his book Tests of Time, p. 37-68. The reading emphasis is mine. I have selected these excerpts (sometimes out of the original context) as a tool to make sense of Tirana now, to question the [in]visible gestures and mediated narratives found in the city. My main concern here is 'the scrimmage' between making and writing architecture (architectural forms / forms of our language) - and how we can 'activate' the line of demarcation between what is intrinsic and extrinsic to one and the other.

(Granted, W.H.Gass has written this book with Calvino's work in mind (and what it might teach us about the modern city), but some of the points he brings up cannot be ignored in today's neoliberal Albania. Thus, my interest in posting it. I recommend you read the original essay to draw your own conclusions.)

© PERfACTs "Theaters quietly unseat themselves and perform their plays outdoors." 

Think of the word polis – “city” – itself: a word which will be young still when every other city is a midden or in unsieved dust. It is the wretchedness of this truth, it is the injustice of any one word’s overweening reality which has made this truth so invisible.

Imprisoned by either walls or words, it is all the more important to try: to dream beyond the bricks; beyond the outer courtyard with its watchtowers, guards, guns; beyond the words which screen us from the world, beyond our own aims, fears, normally trivial aches and pains, which we nevertheless enlarge and objectify as bruises in hillsides, as knocks in walls, as cuts through mountains, as the leveling of plains.

Cities can be cleansed even of themselves when they do not understand the true nature of their inhabitants...

Scheherazade, staving off death with her stories, must borrow or invent...

[T]he camps of catastrophe, cities of sewers and open wounds... scalded by their atmosphere, whose admired autumnal sunsets are caused by clouds of foetid gas; cities where growths of garbage define the parks, and every alley is intestinal; the cities we can only forget, it seems, by repeating them, by reproducing… reinvesting, rebuilding, reinhabiting… by reenacting their several and similar hells, not smoothly and professionally, but stupidly and clumsily...

We have fables Aesop might have managed, not by imagining animals but by imagining cities.

From our journeys, we may return with other wares, but that won’t matter, for what will render them significant will be their placement on the pavement, the flights of influence they suggest, the orders they elicit from the eye … returning, not with these images alone, but with the wonder of their relationships. 

The chessboard is also the grid of every great city. It is only incidentally a set of paths, for these paths are principally corridors of power, influence, force.

What we frequently fail to understand is that the city is not an assemblage of buildings streaked by highways and streets; it is a subtle pattern of powers, like the board.

At times he thought he was on the verge of discovering a coherent, harmonious system underlying the infinite deformities and discords, but no model could stand up to the comparison with the game of chess.

[B]eneath the pieces the board is bare, the stones of all his cities’ buildings dissolve in the lines which bound them, and these run pointlessly – invisibly – off into space… On that slick ivory surface, on the fired clay, in that open square of wood which is at once a piece of playing field and a square of the city, what can one further see? the footprint of a pavement? perhaps a taut and angry fiber? the glaze of a dreaming eye? logs lazily adrift in a slow-moving river? a woman peering from an upstairs window? Every object is itself a cell which would contain us, yet every end has its outlet as well; and as we pass through a cave’s yawn to the hollow of a hollow tree, from that hollow to an open door or window, we cross one threshold to achieve yet another, even more wondrous, wider world.

When the concept of the city, with its concrete streets and concrete towers, has been replaced by that of the game, with its architectural grid and gun range, its system of implicit threats, its irregular spheres of influence; and when that game, furthermore, has been, in its interest, exhausted; then the materials of the contest, its dinky tools, the ivory itself, its fingered skin, the shape of the cross on the king’s crown, are entreated for results. A pillar becomes a tree, a tree a totem.

Let me recapitulate our progress. It is a pattern to be found in all the arts. We begin our pursuit of the city by examining the particular, the things that cities are made of – squares, streets, buildings, bridges, people, parks – allowing the least leaf to be engraved upon our faces as though it has been long pressed there. We endeavor to give to the shallowest saucer great depth, but we do so through the intensity of our attention, by dwelling on the small bob of its basin, the thin rule of gold around its rim, the cup which will squat there when the tea is finally ready. We collect facts. We describe things as we believe they really are. Not only our streets, but our lanes, our halls and closets, are named in this realm of reference, this freeway of denotation. The procedure will give us one sort of city: a city of idle odors and random sounds, a city of character, of what is popularly called “place.” Our city will have a personality, for we shall have rendered the gestures of its spirit, the way in which it resembles a young girl, a lecherous uncle, an old maid. Our city will be a richly human body made of countless bones. Many a corner will strike us like an elbow. Many a path will wear like a hole through our shoe. Many a brick will stiffen at our touch. The light will fall irregularly throughout the city, palely in this place, brightly in another, after the manner of our understanding.

Not content with this, we soon seek – in the playing fountain, the shaded courtyard, the kneeling man, the fan, in the look that leaps like a tree through the stone pavement – a pattern of powers, of influence and agitation; and like the Great Khan we withdraw toward the game, although it is still people we see moving about like pawns, and not yet pawns we see moving about like people. This method will give us still another sort of city, a city in which system is beginning to be born, in which terms are beginning to be replaced by relations, in which roles are beginning to define their representatives, and not the reverse.

The signifier has swallowed the signified, although you may still observe it as a swell in the stomach, like a bulge beneath the bedclothes of a bereaved and sleeping body.

What has really happened to us?

We have begun to listen to the sound of our own words, not merely to their meanings; we have begun to circle their shapes like a walk around a town; we have turned to the representatives of thought for sustenance, not to the thoughts themselves, or to the things those thoughts were presumably about; for just as trees are bark and leaves and light, and the forest is trees and leaflight too, so the city is made of millions of small forms and fine textures, of the very near and the quite far, and like the wilderness may have its own mountains, depending on place and point of views, tiredness and timing.

A city is a wall for words, misunderstood or simply imitated in spray paint; but it is a house for houses too, and so should have its doors and sudden windows, its stairs and stories, its halls and dining rooms and dens. We have explored our chosen city through dreams of its streets and derelict alleys, its suspension bridges and bridle paths. Now we remain with the mute sign itself. The map of the city is the city.

Shortly new words will begin to be heard in the sounds which old words make, as for instance in “swoon,” which I understand, now that I speak it clearly and listen with a pure ear, is not the languid faint I formerly feared, but the casual and quiet glide path of a paper airplane.

Not only are there cities which belong to the past, and are now invisible for that reason; but there are cities of the present whose existence is quite evident to any traveler with eyes alert and curious, but which are hidden to the inhabitants, who no longer need to experience their postboxes, their scented trees, in order to allow their dogs to piss against them on their twice-daily walks. A neighborhood may be missed entirely by a preoccupied visitor. I certainly do not notice now the soles of my feet, my weight, my restless or resentful ears, opposing opinions. … Great stretches of so many cities are indistinguishable, and even when we peer at them, they are simply stretches, highways which have thrown out little asphalt lots along them like oozes of rust on a pipe. Amid so much tastelessness, it takes a pretty tasteless gesture to create a locale.

But when are cities invisible because they have no identity, and when is it because of our indifference, our bemused eye?

Our cities are like seas, and it is not uncommon to see one building seize and swallow another like a shark.

All future cities are invisible as a matter of course.

To illuminate the landing of a stairway, panels of stained glass foresee the development of the city. Which are the true forms and which the false? We can ask this question even when we believe we know which is the solid city and which the reflection.

I live, myself, in a city of defeated expectations, a city of inept lies.

When will shopping centers become warehouses if warehouses are already galleries, ateliers, or rifle museums? Theaters quietly unseat themselves and perform their plays outdoors.

But the falsehoods began when the first earth was moved.

Not every building remarries readily.

There are timeless cities, not because they seem eternal, but because everything about them is the same age, like the nose, ears, chin of a face.

[Invisible Cities is a book about still another book, Dante’s Inferno, composed as nearby to The Travels of Marco Polo. The nine sections of Calvino’s text resemble the nine circles of Hell through which Virgil escorts Dante, although Marco Polo carries the khan with him largely by turns of the wheel of the word. There is a definite, not to say plummetous, descent from the first part, which opens with “Cities and Memory,” to the final one, which begins with “Cities of the Dead,” after which we fall more precipitously toward those cities which are said to be “hidden.” In Calvino though, we meet cities on our journey, not Dante’s miserable men.] 

Below that point we found a painted people,
who moved about with lagging steps, in circles,
weeping, with features tired and defeated.
And they were dressed in cloaks with cowls so low
they fell before their eyes, of that same cut
that’s used to make the clothes for Cluny’s monks.
Outside, these cloaks were gilded and they dazzled;
but inside they were all of lead, so heavy
that Frederick’s capes were straw compared to them.
A tiring mantle for eternity!
[Inferno, canto XXIII, 11, 58-67]

The technique of this magical and fabulous fiction concerns the recognition of the Real, which is its insistent subject. … Reality does not consist of things, their collections, or their shallow denominations. Reality is not a set of simple situations, nor is it one shade of anything. It is not even a single system of relations – invisible as they all are. The experience of the city exceeds our experience of Proust. A great city’s life lies in the details, in the details as they fulfill a whole. Consider what a little grass does to a set of steps, and then multiply… multiply…. Consider what a crack of light does to the dungeon, and multiply for freedom and for sky. Consider the multiplication not only of niceties but of vulgarities as well: signs, poles, wires, trash, broken glass, peeling paint, rotting boards. And multiply… multiply….

Isn’t that what happens to the elements of a successful city: they satisfy our needs, allow our lusts, remind us of our past, inhabit our future, encourage our reveries? What is a text but a community of words?

We have seen cities clothed in colored tiles, courtyards composed of images and ancient scripts and antique statuary, streets lined with streams, lined with inclining tables and dissipated awnings… A single building can sometimes overpower an entire city and, become more than an emblem, more than a feat to be admired: a conscience to be obeyed. [The cities] the text takes us through, including those that disappeared ahead of history and before we reached the title page; governmental cities too, capitals with a capital C, and those which will be paraded by our absent or our sleeping eye as the text turns silently inside itself, thinking like a drill bit does, bringing more aspects to inner view … continuously, invisibly.

“The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born.” Yet cities come to an end when they lose their boundaries, when neighborhoods, districts, regions flow together with the sameness of a flooding river, masses of indistinctly different men covering the country.

[Lastly] the unjust city, a meat grinder… Here, hidden, the just recognize one another by their manner of speech … Here, however, within the very virtues of the just and their secret city, lies the sense of their superiority like the celebrated canker in the rose. To realize that your righteousness deprives you of the pleasure and privileges the unjust enjoy drives you to despise justice and resent your own virtue. By means of this grim dialectic another unjust city, hidden beneath the hidden, begins to grow, a cancer called “just cause.”

In the unjust city – our cultureless world – the just – the cultured – recognize one another as citizens of the same secret city, but their very isolation and the protections of superiority they must adopt to survive encourage a bitter hubris, which costs them the esteem they have fancied was their fitting reward.

Notice how the same lesson lay unlearned in this city...

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On Expression | In search of missing pieces

Thoughts on voicing, expressing, and taste of the recent events in Albania (Tirana & Gjirokaster). A summary of not only the events, participants, media coverage, public spending, and the generated online waste, of time, effort, and criticism - but, our cultural heritage, folklore, gender identity and (in)equality, history, the making of history, the present, integrating the present, the future, inspiring a future, and so on - via Derrida's Economimesis.

In his essay Economimesis, Derrida examines the terms of the contract to see if it actually does sustain an economy of expression rather than of representation, taste rather than consumption. As fine art is a form of speech, the aesthetic turn away from bodily consumption towards taste does not leave the mouth, which is the site of both bodily consumption and ideal detachment. For Derrida, the privileging by philosophy of expression disguises an economy of secret consumption, of covert representation governed by desire. Everywhere it carries out its work of consumption behind the disguise of detachment, consuming what it detaches itself from. Detachment is but a disguise entrapment. [1]

“If hearing-oneself-speak, in so far as it also passes through a certain mouth, transforms everything into auto-affection, assimilates everything to itself by idealizing it within interiority, masters everything by mourning its passing, refusing to touch it, to digest it naturally, but digests it ideally, consumes what it does not consume and vice versa, produces disinterestedness in the possibility of pronouncing judgments. 

What is excluded from it and what, proceeding from this exclusion, gives if form, limit, and contour? And what about this over-board with respect to what one calls the mouth?

There is no answer to such a question. One cannot say, it is this or that, this or that thing. We will see why.

What this logo-phonocentric system excludes is not even a negative. The negative is its business and its work. What it excludes, what this very work excludes, is what does not allow itself to be digested, or represented, or stated-does not allow itself to be transformed into auto-affection by exemplorality. It is an irreducible heterogeneity which cannot be eaten either sensibly or ideally and which-this is the tautology-by never letting itself be swallowed must therefore cause itself to be vomited.” [2]

[1] Mark Wigley, Postmortem Architecture: The Taste of Derrida, Perspecta 23, p.159.

[2] Jacques Derrida, Economimesis, p.20-21

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Brecht's 5 Difficulties in Writing the Truth | Introducing the Idea of a Possible Podcast Form of Communication

“Unhappy the land where heroes are needed.”- Galileo, in Brecht's Life of Galileo (1943)

A few weeks ago, I made my usual seasonal trip to the local bookstore John K. King, which happens to have one of the biggest, internationally praised collections of rare and used books. (It is also the best Indie Bookstore in Detroit.) This time I was interested in finding pieces that (somewhat) relate to architectural spatial qualities of ‘security’ and ‘desire’, as well as to satisfy my hobby of hoarding opera librettos and haikus. 

John K. King Rare and Used Books, Detroit

Anyways, long story short, I stumbled upon a book written in 1962 by David I. Grossvogel and titled “THE BLASPHEMERS: the theater of Brecht, Ionesco, Beckett, Genet.” I admit, when it comes to history and theory of the theater, I am still a student, but since I've been researching spatial qualities of ‘desire’, a quick look at the title and a few of the intro pages, I was hooked. So, I ended up buying the book and a few others on ‘stage’ and ‘storytelling’ (as well as some on ‘security’ and WWII aircrafts, battleships, and other spy goods ☺). Needless to say, I was a happy gal (with a lot of homework).

I've just recently started to (really) read the book, so I'll give you a sneak peek of (the difficulty of) its content:

          I.      Bertolt Brecht: The Difficulty of Witnessing 

          II.    Eugène Ionesco: The Difficulty of Living 

          III.  Samuel Beckett: The Difficulty of Dying 

          IV.   Jean Genet: The Difficulty of Defining 

          V.     Postscript

And of course what captured me right off the bat, the Introduction:

“THE four playwrights considered here have in common an aggressiveness: each has come to the theater in his own way, but with anger. Every age expects its theater to be oracular, but age and oracle lapse sooner or later into familiarity. When this occurs, a blasphemer rises to voice his indignation at this meretriciousness, castigating with equal contempt and little logic the stage that allows such familiarity and the public that is content with such meretriciousness.

[...] Part of the evidence of a corrupt world was a corrupt stage. 

[...] These four have been blasphemers.”

It is very curious (and fascinating) that a book written over half a century ago still echoes to this day and resonates with the reality of arts and culture as we witness them daily, especially in the small Mediterranean country of Albania. The author uses the playwrights' ‘stage’ but I am sure we could just as easily (lost in) translate it onto other mediums, performances, and publics that witness, define, give birth and kill Albanian arts and culture. 

Maybe in this context ‘The Iron Curtain’ really finds a role within the actual and/or metaphorical ‘stage’ and ‘spectatorship’. I can go on to make the case and critique about what's being done to the Albanian arts, culture, and lately history - but they have been already voiced by people more qualified than myself. I wholeheartedly agree with the points they make and I echo their frustrations. 

I will only say that ‘The Iron Curtain’ is bigger than one project and it casts a shadow on all creative fields (if we're even calling them that). ‘The Iron Curtain’ is still relevant because we still haven't dealt with what was beyond it (behind, it was hiding us) and we haven't taken enough peeks to the other side. Blame it on the sturdy ‘iron’ material or the incompetency and laziness of the ‘iron-workers’ but I gotta say, this last project really materialized the (somewhat peripheral?) idea that we are (still) dealing with a series of ‘iron curtains’ (be that political, institutional, or artistic) that we have been building systematically, (even though) on a smaller scale, ‘cookie-cutter’ style molded from the original one. This is a copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy... pieces that turn out to be larger than the original whole. In this sense, the success of the recent ‘Iron Curtain’ project exists only in climaxing our realization that this idea hasn't been peripheral at all, it has been hiding in plain sight.

Myself, I would've gone with something awesome like ‘Ideological Bubble’ or ‘In Vain’. Spatially it would've made more sense (but oh well). ‘Curtain’ vs.‘Bubble’ bring out the boxing gloves.(☻) And, to be fair to Brecht, add a few of his contenders in the mix: ‘Servant of Two Masters’, ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’, ‘In the Jungle of Cities’, and so on. Pardon my dry sense of humor, but to quote Metahaven: “Jokes are political weapons and design objects.” Thus, my tone is en pointe!! ☺

NO CAPTIONS needed if you're familiar with the genius of Luis Buñuel's in the surrealist film

Viridiana and specifically the ‪#‎LastSupper‬ scene. (photo is my edit)

***

“Buñuel isn't interested in social institutions themselves, but in those human beings 

corralled by such institutions into large, unruly groups, and how quickly their conduct 

devolves into spasms of primal behavior.” via

In the spirit of difficulties, the blasphemers (of the above book) and other blasphemies (of a different kind) happening to the Albanian arts and culture, I'd like to mention for those of you who don't know ‘The Five Difficulties in Writing the Truth.’ A manifesto written by Bertolt Brecht even earlier in 1934.

“Nowadays, anyone who wishes to combat lies and ignorance and to write the truth must overcome at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognize it, although it is everywhere concealed; the skill to manipulate it as a weapon; the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective; and the cunning to spread the truth among such persons. These are formidable problems for writers living under Fascism, but they exist also for those writers who have fled or been exiled; they exist even for writers working in countries where civil liberty prevails.” (via)

He's got some valid points, considering it was written right before WWII broke out. And I think that we should bring them to the table when talking about the Albanian arts and cultural scene, institution, mentality and complexes. Granted, it might seem like a big muddy mess (fighting in the trenches) considering that truth nowadays has no real definition and it is interpreted, used, and flat out denied, but I am speaking of the common truth, humane truth, civic truth, patriotic truth, artistic truth (although, if you're a runner you might want to chase after that one for awhile); meaning simply: ethics, transparency, original talent, love for a better quality (of anything really), communication, access, help, preservation, participation and basic willingness to do so. 

Here are the Five Difficulties again:

1. The Courage to Write the Truth.

2. The Keenness to Recognize the Truth. 

3. The Skill to Manipulate the Truth as a Weapon.

4. The Judgement to Select Those in Whose Hands the Truth Will Be Effective.

5. The Cunning to Spread the Truth Among the Many.

Technically, all these have been used in Albania to lie (ironically enough) and without difficulty at that either. (Arghh, why are they so difficult to use otherwise?!)

I would like to focus on the fourth difficulty: selecting those who would be effective in handing the truth you're trying writing.

“But the truth cannot merely be written; it must be written for someone, someone who can do something with it. The process of recognizing truth is the same for writers and readers. In order to say good things, one's hearing must be good and one must hear good things. The truth must be spoken deliberately and listened to deliberately.” (Brecht 4)

So, whoever (and wherever they are) is voicing their frustrations, opinions, lingering thoughts and are pushing these difficulties to write the truth of what's been happening this quarter century in the Albanian arts and culture and what needs to happen next (which is not blaming the previous half century, but feeding off it), you're ALL on the right path. It means the process of getting there (and maybe latter getting better) is underway. 

Though, one thing worries me: all this writing that we do. Who is reading it? What are they doing about it when they agree with what's being written? What are they doing about it when they don't agree with us? Other than screaming of course. Screaming has never solved anything, and (in my book) it is as useless as regret or gloating. Let's call screaming our kick-off moment toward a common truth onto the right path of (hopefully) getting somewhere good.

Another alternative I've been thinking about (that it might bring better communicative results) is PODCASTING. I don't know if anyone is already doing it in Albania, but wouldn't it be the greatest tool for communication and putting some tone and attitude to the words other than just punctuation?! Podcasting happens in different ways and formats and I have considered doing it many times, but I am so far away from this tiny Mediterranean country that I don't want to speculate or spectate (even more) from such distance. 

Wouldn't it be awesome? An interactive podcast that connects local artists with the rest of us (dispersed) all over the planet. I don't usually follow Albanian Television because it is the same thing over and over again: interviews that say nothing, journalists that have no clue, grasp or sensibility toward the arts, and artists that just want the spotlight and a mediocre visibility (if that). 

I am looking for a medium of communication that says something, means something, changes my mind, adds to the discourse. And yes writing does that, but I feel we need to introduce audio/visual elements to our writings, rants and Facebook posts to be taken seriously. A podcast can be short and as frequent as there is momentum in wanting to tell the truth and create a dialog around it. It can follow the Public Radio format and even have a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign. We are missing the independent media in Albania and a podcast (of sorts) might be a good move in that direction. People (in general) and creatives more specifically can be as revolutionary as the (shiny or rainy) cloud they've buried their head in, but if they go to one or all the existing Albanian media entity, they somehow conform or lower their voice or just answer the poorly written questions or promote their work. No say on where they stand, what they deal with, what their work strives to do, and how they're going to change their world. I might be wrong, but from what I've briefly seen, this is definitely the case. Difficulties in telling their truth. What's the alternative then?! Podcast anyone?! Here's an excellent example.☺

**As always thanks for reading!!

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Featured Event | A Cultural & Artistic All-Nighter in Tirana

Start the Holiday Season RIGHT!! 

Nata e Bardhë / White Night 

(better known as “Nuit Blanche”) 

November 29, 2013 

18:00 - 04:00 hrs

@Galeria Kombëtare e Arteve / National Gallery of Art

 

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and also

@Teatri Kombëtar i Operas & Baletit / National Theatre of Opera & Ballet

@Teatri i Kukullave / Puppet Theatre

@Muzeu Historik Kombëtar / National Historical Museum

@Cirku Kombetar / National Circus

@Kinema / Movie Theatres

The National Gallery of Art, for the first time ever, is joining over 120 other European cities on the tradition of “Night of Museums.” The first Lange Nacht der Museen (Long Night of Museums) took place in Berlin in 1997, where a group of institutions and galleries open their doors to the public until late into the night. Since then, it has been a successful event with a growing number of participating museums worldwide, a cultural tradition that is now coming to Tirana on November 29, 2013.

From that afternoon on, NGA will pull an all-nighter, granting an all exhibit access pass to the public and offer other happenings. It is a great way to introduce to newcomers and tourists the Albanian traditional, video and alternative arts, music, and celebration. “Nuit Blanche” becomes a “Night of Museums” for the NGA.

Program of Activities:

18:00 – 04:00
National Gallery of Art opens its doors to:

• The Solo Exhibition of artist Rexhep Ferri (Temporary Exhibitions Space)

• Permanent Collections:

1. Beginning of Painting in Albanian Cities (1883 – 1930) 

2. Realist Painting and Drawing School (1930 – 1950)

3. Academic/Sculpture Painting and Historic Themed Tableaux (1950 – 1980)

4. Socialist Realism. Construction of the New Man Models (1960 – 1989)

5. Formalist painting of Socialist Realism (1969 – 1974)

18:00 – 20:00
Balloon entertainment for kids of all ages. (outside courtyard)

20:00 – 21:00 
A classical repertoire performed by a string quartet. (inside)

21:30 – 22:00
“A Red Dot” performance by film director Arjeta Dhima and her staff.

22:00 – 22:30
A performance by the celebrated saxophonist, Ermal Rodi. (Socialist Realism hall)

23:00 – 04:00 
Video works by contemporary Albanian and international artists presented by Art Kontakt & T.I.C.A.

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Galeria Kombëtare e Arteve i bashkohet për herë të parë 120 qyteteve europiane të cilët kanë tashmë traditën e “Nata e Muzeve” e praktikuar që nga viti 1997. Kjo histori lindi në Berlin. Të gjithë muzeumet e qytetit do të qëndronin hapur për t’u vizituar nga artdashësit deri në mesnatë. Kjo natë u quajt LANGE NACH DER MUSEEN. Dhe pati aq sukses sa u kthye në traditë. Kësaj tradite do i bashkohemi edhe ne për herë të parë me 29 Nëntor. 

Gjatë kësaj nate vizitorët në Galerinë e Arteve do kenë mundësi të shikojnë falas ekspozitat dhe shfaqje të tjera të bashkëlidhura për këtë natë të veçantë. Në këtë mënyrë, piktura, skulpura, video arti, arti alternativ, muzika dhe festa shqiptare do të jenë të prekshme si për ata persona që vijnë për herë të parë në të tilla ngjarje, por dhe për turistët të cilët do të njihen më nga afër më kulturën tonë kombëtare. Në këtë mënyrë për Galerinë e Arteve “Nata e Bardhë” kthehet në “Natën e Muzeve”.

Gjatë Natës së Bardhë hapen dyert e Galerisë Kombëtare të Arteve dhe të gjitha sallat do të jenë në dispozicionin e vizitorëve. Në to mund të shikoni:

18:00 – 04:00
Hapen dyert e Galerisë Kombëtare te Arteve dhe të gjitha sallat do të jenë në dispozicionin e vizitorëve. Në to mund të shikoni:

• Salla e Ekspozitave të Përkohshme: ekspozitën e artistit Rexhep Ferri

• Linja Muzeale e Koleksionit të Galerisë Kombëtare të Arteve me 5 salla (Salla Fillesat e Pikturës në Qytetet Shqiptare 1883-1930; Salla Shkolla e Vizatimit; Salla Piktura/Skulptura akademike dhe tabloja me teme historike 1950-1986; Salla Realizmi Socialist , ndërtimi i modeleve të njeriut të ri; Salla Piktura Formaliste e Realizmit Socialist 1969-1974)

18:00 – 20:00
Në oborrin e Galerisë animatorë do dhurojnë tullumbace dhe do të argëtojnë jo vetëm fëmijët por edhe të rriturit që i shoqërojnë.

20:00 – 21:00
Kuartet harqesh me repertor klasik. Në ambientet e brendshme të Galerisë.

21:30 – 22:00
Regjizorja Arjeta Dhima dhe trupa e saj organizojnë performancën “Një pikë e kuqe”.

22:00 – 22:30
Ermal Rodi saksofonisti i mirnjohur do të performoj në sallën e Realizmit Socialist.

23:00 – 04:00
Art Kontakt dhe T.I.C.A shfaqin punë artistësh bashkëkohorë shqiptarë dhe ndërkombëtarë në video, në ambientet e jashtme/brendshme të Galerisë.

Enjoy!!

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