Eugenio Barba

The Nature of Dramaturgy:

Describing Actions at Work
Eugenio Barba's Odin Teatret has recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, and a full
retrospective of the company's work - based since 1966 at Holstebro. in Denmark - will
appear in a future issue of NTQ. It is a mark of the insularity of English-speaking theatre,
however, that Barba himself probably remains best known as an early collaborator of
Grotowski's. whose ideas he was responsible for assembling into Towards a Poor
Theatre, But Barba's own work has in fact developed in entirely distinctive directions,
always substantiated by a framework of theoretical debate - most recently through his
involvement in the International School of Theatre Anthropology, whose activities will
also be documented in forthcoming issues. Here, Barba discusses the concept of
'dramaturgy', and how methods of theatre analysis may best be utilized in discussing
theatre works based in performance rather than in written texts.

THE WORD TEXT', before referring to a through the words which the characters in its
written or spoken, printed or manuscript text, performances spoke. Such a distinction would
meant 'a weaving together'. In this sense, there not even be conceivable if the objects of the
is no performance without 'text'. examination were the performances in their
That which concerns the 'text' (the weave) of integrity.
the performance can be defined as 'dramaturgy' In a theatrical performance, actions (concern-
— that is, drama-ergon, work, the 'work of ing the dramaturgy, that is) are not only what
the actions' in the performance. The way in the actors do and say, but also what sounds,
which the actions work is the plot. noises, lights, changes in space are used. At a
superior level of organization, actions are the
episodes of the story or the different facets of
It is not always possible to distinguish between a situation, the arches of time between two
what in the dramaturgy of a performance may accents of the performance, between two
be called 'direction' and what may be called the changes in the space — or even the evolution,
'writing' of the author. This distinction is clear according to a relative autonomy, of the musical
only in theatre, which seeks to be the score, the variations of the lights, the variations
interpretation of a written text. of rhythm and intensity which an actor develops
The distinguishing of a dramaturgy autono- following certain precise physical themes (ways
mous from the performance relates back to of walking, of treating the scenic objects, of
Aristotle's attitude towards the tradition of using make-up or costume). The objects used in
Greek tragedy - a tradition already well in the the performance are also actions, transforming
past even for him. He drew attention to two themselves, acquiring different meanings and
different fields of investigation: the written different emotive colorations.
texts, and the way they are represented. The Actions are all the relationships, all the
idea that there exists a dramaturgy identifiable interactions between the characters, or between
only in an autonomous, written text and which the characters and the lights, the sounds, the
is the matrix of the performance is a space. Actions are what work directly on the
consequence of those historical situations in audience's attention, on their understanding,
which the memory of a theatre is passed on their emotiveness, their synaesthesia.

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 The list could become so long as to become
useless. It is not so important to define what an
action is, or to determine how many actions
there may be in a performance. What is
important is to observe that the actions come
into play only when they weave together, when
they become texture: 'text'.
The plot can be of two types. The first is
realized through the development of actions in
time by means of a concatenation of causes and
effects or through an alternation of actions
which represent two parallel developments. The
second occurs by means of simultaneity — the
simultaneous presence of several actions.
Concatenation and simultaneity are the two
dimensions of the plot. They are not two
aesthetic alternatives or two different choices of
methods: they are the two poles which through
their tension and their dialectic determine the
performance and its life: actions at work
— dramaturgy.
Let us return to the important distinction —
investigated especially by Richard Schechner —
between a theatre based on the mise-en-scene of
a previously written text, and a theatre based on
a 'performance' text. The distinction is useful in
order to characterize two different approaches
to the theatrical phenomenon and therefore two
different performance results.
For example: while the written text is
recognizable and transmissible before and
independently from the performance, the
'performance text' exists only at the end of the
work process and cannot be passed on. It would
in fact be tautological to say that the
'performance text' (which is the performance)
can be extracted from the performance. Even if
one used a transcription technique similar to that
used for music, in which different horizontal
sequences can be arranged vertically, it would
be impossible to pass on the information: the
more faithful one tried to make it, the more
illegible it would become. Even aural and visual
mechanical recording of the performance
captures only a part of the 'performance text',
excluding (at least in the case of performances
which do not use a proscenium stage) the
complex montages of the actor—audience
distance-proximity relationships, and favouring,
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in all those cases in which the actions are
simultaneous, a single montage from among
many. It reflects in fact only one observer's way
of seeing.
The distinction between a theatre based on
a written text, or in any case on a text composed
a priori and used as the matrix of the mise-en-scene
and a theatre whose only meaningful text is the
'performance text', represents rather well the
difference between 'traditional' and 'new'
theatre. But this distinction becomes even more
useful if we wish to move from a classification
of modern theatrical phenomena to a micro-
scopic analysis or to an anatomical investigation
of theatrical bios, of dramatic life: dramaturgy.
From this point of view, the relationship
between a 'performance text' and a text
composed a priori no longer seems like a
contradiction but like a complementary situation,
a kind of dialectic opposition. The problem is
not, therefore, the choice of one pole or another,
the definition of one or another type of theatre.
The problem is that of the balance between the
concatenation pole and the simultaneity pole.
The only negative thing which can occur is
the loss of balance between these two poles.
When a performance is derived from a text of
words, there is a danger of the balance in the
performance, lost because of the prevalence of
the linear relationships (the plot as concatena-
tion), causing damage to the plot understood as
the weaving together of simultaneously present
actions.
If the fundamental meaning of the per-
formance is carried by the interpretation of a
composed, inscribed text, there will be a
tendency to favour this dimension of the
performance, which parallels the linear dimen-
sion of language. There will be a tendency to
consider as ornamental elements all those
interweavings which arise out of the conjunction
of several actions at the same time; or simply
to treat them like actions which are not woven
together: in the background.
The tendency to underestimate the impor-
tance of the simultaneity pole for the life of the
play is reinforced, in the modern way of
thinking, by the kind of performance which
Eisenstein in his time was already calling the
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'real level of theatre', that is, the cinema. In the
cinema, the linear dimension is almost absolute,
and the dialectic (the life) of the weaving
together of actions (the plot) depends basically
on two poles: the concatenation of actions and
the concatenation of the attention of an abstract
observer: the eye-filter which selects close-ups,
long shots, etc.
The cinema's grip on our imagination
increases the risk that the balance between the
concatenation and simultaneity poles will be lost
in the composition of theatre pieces. The
audience itself tends not to attribute a meaning
value to the interweaving of simultaneous
actions and behaves — as opposed to what
normally happens in daily life — as if there was
a favoured element in the theatrical performance
particularly suited to establishing the meaning
of the play (the words, the adventures of the
protagonist, etc.). This explains why a 'normal'
theatre audience member, in the West, often
believes that he doesn't fully understand
performances based on the simultaneous
weaving together of actions, and why he finds
himself in difficulty when faced with the logic
of many oriental theatres, which seem to him to
be complicated or suggestive because of their
'exotic-ness'.
To impoverish the simultaneity pole means
to limit the possibility of making complex
meanings arise out of the performance. These
meanings derive not from a complex concatena-
tion of actions, but from the weaving together
of many dramatic actions, each one endowed
with its own simple 'meaning', and the
assembling of them by means of a single unity
of time. Thus the meaning of a fragment of a
play is not only determined by what precedes
it and what will follow it, but also by a
multiplicity of facets whose three-dimensional
presence, so to speak, makes it live in the present
tense of a life of its own.
In many cases this means for an audience
member that the more difficult it becomes for
him to interpret or immediately to judge the
meaning of what is happening before his eyes
and in his head, the stronger is his sensation of
living through an experience. Or, said in a way
which is more obscure but perhaps closer to the
reality: the stronger is the experience of an
experience.
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The simultaneous interweaving of several
actions in the performance causes something
equivalent to what Eisenstein describes in
reference to El Greco's View of Toledo-, that the
painter does not reconstruct a real 'view', but
rather constructs a synthesis of several 'views',
making a montage of the different sides of a
building, even those sides which are hidden from
view, showing various elements — drawn from
reality independently of each other — in a new
artificial relationship.
These dramaturgical possibilities apply to all
the different levels and all the different elements
of the performance taken one by one, as well as
to the overall plot. The actor, for example,
obtains simultaneous effects as soon as he breaks
the abstract schema of movements, just as the
audience is about to be able to anticipate them.
He composes his actions (in the sense that
'compose' derives from cum-ponere, to put
together) into a synthesis which is far removed
from a daily way of behaving. In this montage
he segments the actions, choosing and dilating
certain fragments, composing the rhythms,
achieving an equivalent to the 'real' action by
means of what Richard Schechner calls the
'restoration of behaviour'.
The very use of the written text, when it is
not interpreted only as a concatenation of
actions, can guide the elements and details
which are not dramatic in themselves into a
simultaneous interweaving.
We can draw from Hamlet, for example,
certain information: traces of the age-old strife
between Norway and Denmark are to be found
in the conflict between Hamlet's father and the
father of Fortinbras; England needing to pay
taxes to Denmark echoes the days of the
Vikings; the life of the Court recalls the
Renaissance; the allusions to Wittenberg reflect
issues of the Reformation. All these various
historical facets (and what we can really use as
different historical facets) can make up a fan of
choices by means of which the play can be
interpreted: in this case one chosen facet will
eliminate the others.
They can also, however, be woven together
into a synthesis with many simultaneously
present historical elements, whose 'meaning' as
it relates to the 'interpretation of Hamlet' — that
is, what the play will show to the audience - is
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not foreseeable. The more the author has
worked with a simple logic in the weaving
together of the different threads, the more the
meaning of the performance will appear
surprising, motivated, and unexpected to the
author himself.
Something similar can also be said for the
play's protagonist, for Hamlet. The concatena-
tion of Shakespeare's assembled actions (his
montage) generally creates the image of Hamlet
as a man in doubt, indecisive, dominated by
melancholia, a philosopher ill-suited to action.
But this image does not correspond to all the
single elements of Shakespeare's total montage:
Hamlet acts resolutely when he kills Polonius;
it is related how he falsifies with cold
decisiveness the message from Claudius to the
King of England and how he defeats the pirates;
he challenges Laertes; he quickly sees through
the stratagems which are brought to his
attention; he kills the King.
For an actor (and for a director) all of these
details, taken one by one, can be used as
evidence from which to construct a coherent
interpretation of Hamlet. But they can also be
used as evidence of different and contradictory
aspects of behaviour, to be assembled into a
synthesis which is not the fruit of a previous
decision about what kind of character Hamlet is
going to be.
As can be seen, with this simple hypothesis
we come much nearer to the creative process
(meaning composition process) of many of the
great actors in the western tradition. In their
daily work, they did not and do not begin with
the interpretation of a character, but develop
their work following a route not based on what ?
but on how?- assembling into a formally
coherent synthesis aspects which would at first
seem incoherent from the point of view of
habitual 'realism'.
Actions at work (dramaturgy) live by means of
the balance between the concatenation pole and
the simultaneity pole. There is a risk of this life
being lost with the loss of tension between the
two poles.
While the loss of balance for the sake of
weaving through concatenation draws a play
into the somnolence of comfortable recogniz-
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ability, the loss of balance for the sake of
interweaving in the simultaneity dimension
brings about a falling into arbitrariness, chaos.
Or into incoherent incoherence. It is easy to see
that these risks are even greater for he who
works without the guide of a text which has
been previously composed.
Word text, 'performance text', the concat-
enation or linear dimension, the simultaneity or
three-dimensional dimension: these are elements
without any value, positive or negative. Positive
or negative value depends on the quality of the
relationship between these elements.
The more the performance gives the audience
member the experience of an experience, the
more it must also guide his attention in the
complexity of the actions which are taking place,
so that he does not lose his sense of direction,
his sense of the past and of the future - that is,
the story, not as anecdote, but as the 'historical
time' of the performance.
All the principles which make it possible to
direct the audience's attention can be drawn
from the life of the performance (from the
actions which are at work): the interweaving by
means of concatenation and the interweaving by
means of simultaneity.
To create the life of a performance does not
mean only interweaving its actions and
tensions, but also the directing of the audience's
attention, its rhythms, inducing its tensions
without trying to impose an interpretation.
On the one hand, the audience's attention is
attracted by the complexity, the presence of the
action; on the other hand, the audience is
continuously required to evaluate this presence
and this action in the light of the knowledge of
what has just occurred and in the expectation of
(or the questions about) what will happen next.
As with the actor's action, the audience's
attention must be able to live in a three-
dimensional space, governed by a dialectic
which is its own and which is the equivalent of
the dialectic which governs life.
In the final analysis one could relate the
dialectic between the interweaving by means of
concatenation and the interweaving by means
of simultaneity to the complementary (not
opposing) nature of the left and right hemi-
spheres of the brain. But that must be the subject
for a separate study.
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