sarma

The mind is a prisoner of the body in the
same way that the blind are prisoners of
the seeing who lead them
Paul Valéry

1.
It is far from easy to put explanatory captions to the scenic images which Jan Fabre has created and showed over the years. Fabre's scenographic work oscillates between "reality theatre" and "theatrical reality" between the staging of "reality effects" within the fictional space known as the stage on the one hand, and the exaltation of the theatrical, of "appealing appearances" and formal fiction on the other. In both cases a language of images is developed which is by turns repellant and enchanting, a language which not only goes beyond the limits of normal human language, but actually renders it redundant. What more can then be said about this oeuvre than what Jan Fabre himself says: "It is wonderful to watch without words. Total simplicity, complete chaos, perfection in one - what an unbelievably beautiful, untameable image"? Fabre's doublejointed imagery does indeed render the by turns irritated and enchanted audience speechless, and sometimes even robs the critic of words. All attempts at commentary, explanation or interpretation prove inadequate in the face of the internal criterion which dominates Jan Fabre's scenographic work. Anyone seeking to measure with words the stage images produced by Jan Fabre will be constrained by the lack of power and intensity of those words. In short, theatrical madness can be very powerful....

The scenic (un)reality allows a great deal of wizardry to be employed, but is also hemmed in by a number of absolute limits. The game of truth and appearance, of life and art, of the authentic and the artificial, of real bodies and fictive personae, is based within the various theatrical genres on a sort of excluded third party. This absent "character" has a double name, since it doubles the doubleness of the stage-play. In every form of "reality theatre", actual bodily death and its physiological limbo surpass the power of the stage to portray; in every form of "theatrical reality", by contrast, the impossibility of ah absolute death of reality, the inability to cause the real to dissolve completely in "appealing appearances", and to cause Reality to dissolve in Imagination, place insuperable limits on what is represented. And it is precisely these two limits which are the themes of some of Fabre's work. The theatre production 'Who shall speak my thought...' and the opera trilogy 'The Minds of Helena Troubleyn' make visible the limits not only of every other production made by Jan Fabre, but of every form of performing art or scenography. In contrast to Fabre's images, these limits on the scenographic language can be made clear and interpreted very well. 

2.
Jan Fabre began his artistic career as a performance artist. Performance art is the art of crossing the boundaries between reality and "mere art" through the input of the "hard reality" of the human body, or of "realities" associated with that body, such as blood, excrements, vomit, frontal nudity, wounds and pain, or real mortal danger. In this way every more or less successful performance manages to eliminate the distance between "presence" and representation, between life and art. The gap which normally exists in art between reality and representation-of-reality is bridged during a production in which the reality of what is showed appears to be undeniable. And what is more real than a genuinely suffering body or real mortal danger? What is more real than the possibility of death, for example because the performer - like Chris Burden in 1972 seals himself in a sack which is then placed on a motorway (Burden's work bore the apt title 'Deadman')?

Today, Jan Fabre's own performances are part of the prehistory of the scenographic oeuvre with which he has re-written the history of the performing arts since the beginning of the nineteen eighties. That oeuvre however, bears the unmistakable mark of Fabre's past as a performance artist. In more than one stage play Fabre has used the basis of the performance art to unmask the stuge as a fictive space. The naked body is used both literally and figuratively to produce a reality effect within a theatrical reality which is by definition unreal, to introduce an alarming and at the same time fascinating kind of "reality theatre". Real time, real bodies, real action (and also real disturbance) - before long the stock elements of the performance formula became well known within the visual arts circuit; in theatrical context, however, this formula was (and is) still very capable of creating an effect - as we have become aware since 'Theatre spelled with a K is a Tomcat' (1980).

3.
Three prototypes of reality theatre can be identified in Fabre's oeuvre to date. In the eight-hour long production 'It is theatre like it was to be expected and foreseen' (1982), the "reality effect" derives primarily from the (superior) power of the physiological body. Fabre has the "actors" repeat the same, often banal, but strenuous movement over and over again, e.g., constantly running on the same spot or continuously dressing and undressing, so that they first start to sweat, then begin to puff and pant, and finally fall down from fatigue, even exhaustion. Every human body, however well-trained, has certain physiological and biological limits which cannot be exceeded - and it is precisely as a result of the making visible of these physical boundaries that the theatre stage appears to change into an authentic space within which nothing and no-one is pretending. In short, the reality effects produced in this way rest on two simple maxims. One: the physiological body does not lie (tiredness and exhaustion are real), and two: the insurmountable power of the invisible physiological "inner body" can completely defictionalise the perceived "outer body", and thus break down once and for all every trace of roleplay or theatrical pretence. 

In similar vein, 'The Power of the Theatrical Madness' (1984) features a number of scenes in which the absolute power of physical exhaustion is central. Els Deceukelier attempts to climb onto the stage but is pushed off time and time again by her male opposite number, and sometimes actually thrown off; a group of young men each repeatedly carry a young girl from the back of the stage to the front - in these and similar scenes Fabre resumes the method of "reality production" which has become familiar from his previous stage play. The images from the performance which make the deepest impression, however, refer less to the power of the (inner) body than to the body of power. According to a long, essentially premodern tradition, the powerful - the king, the bold knight, the fearless warrior, the gang-leader - deserve honour and respect because they defy the possibility of mortal physical injury, even of death itself. "The body of power" disdains the physical integrity of his own body indeed, it puts that body at risk in a totally unmoved way, without the slightest sign of fear or panic. In this imperturbable, almost stoic attitude in the face of Death, we can recognize, according to a particular tradition - which Bataille provided with philosophical patents of nobility - the truly powerful, truly sovereign human being. In 'The Power of the Theatrical Madness' Jan Fabre portrays this human being on the stage by having two blindfolded "actors" performing a stylised danse macabre at the edge of the stage - in which one of the performers continually swings a knife towards the throat of the other - or by having a naked pseudo-king march forward, controlled and unmoved, at the back of the stage, despite the fact that someone is continually pressing a large butcher's knife in his back. This playing with the risk of physical injury also dominates the well-known plate scenes: a set of plates in one hand is smashed using a plate held in the other hand. Again, the stoic pose of the "actors" contrasts with the possibility of injury. And it is precisely this contrast which produces a strong effect of reality in every one of these scenes. Bodies are in real danger, but the risk is superciliously ignored, thus emphasizing the possibility of real injury, even of real death. Or, put another way, the bodily form intensifies the real content - the content named Reality of what is shown.
In 'Sweet Temptations' (1991), and to some extent also in 'Theatre spelled with a K is a Tomcat' and 'Der Palast um vier Uhr Morgens....A.G.' (1989), Fabre creates reality theatre in yet a third way. It is neither the power of the Body nor the body of Power, but the body of the night which in these productions changes the theatre scene into a Reality-filled space. At night the body is possessed of an insatiable "lust for life" and eagerly indulges in the familiar triumvirate of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. In 'Sweet Temptations' Fabre accordingly has his "actors" engaging repeatedly in debauched merriment. Clichés are not shunned, and it is precisely for this reason that the on-stage wriggling of singing, dancing, babbling or simply naked bodies creates such a realistic impression. The viewer knows the codes of the nightly camp and trash, sees that the bodies-on-stage behave accordingly, and thus becomes convinced of the reality of what he sees. The nightly reality, however, also has its physically limits. The whirl of excitement cannot last endlessly, since human flesh is not only figuratively weak, but literally weak as well. It can never follow the swings of passion or the frivolous caprioles of the libido through to the end because it quickly becomes tired, exhausted, overpowered by sleep. In the final analysis, according to 'Sweet Temptations', the body of the night has to submit to the power of the body. 

4.
Although Fabre's "reality theatre" employs the basic ingredients of performance art, it also differs from it. The produced reality effects presuppose the theatre context in order to be able to achieve any effect at all. Off the stage, an exhausted body is simply a tired and wearied object which does not represent something like Reality; outside the theatre, every confrontation with the possibility of physical injury or death has a completely different status than inside the theatre; and naked dancing or anonymous sex at a private party or in a dark room is no more or less than naked dancing and anonymous sex. In short, the evoked Reality in Fabre's "reality theatre" is an effect of the (on-stage) attempt to suspend the theatre reality. Not reality, but theatre triumphs, because what is evoked in terms of quasi-metaphysical reality remains dependent of the concrete theatre-context in order to pass as Real and Authentic, as Reality with a capital "R". Only on and through the stage can "the physical" change into an apparently indisputable index of "the real". In this way the actual context of the performance sets a limit to what can be represented, including - and especially - the representation of physicality as a sign of the Ultimate Reality. Fabre's "reality theatre" therefore does not escape the laws of representation which govern the theatre and L'art bourgeois in general.

This "seeing through" the constructed nature of Fabre's "reality theatre" does not, however, take away from its real effects oh the "seeing" itself; the observer is very definitely impressed by what takes place on the stage. The reality effect works, and thus the commentator's words are no match for Jan Fabre's language of images.... 

5.
Fabre's "reality theatre" is limited not only by the theatrical context, but also by the object evoked within that context. In contrast to the bourgeois theatre, Fabre dries not use impressive actors or characters on stage, nor does he evoke great emotions or sentiments. A significant part of his scenographic work encompasses a completely different sort of inner nature and authenticity than the psychological, namely the physiological essence, "the depths of (the) layers of flesh,... the areas of pain, circles, poles, vibrating bundles of pain" (dixit Valéry in 'Monsieur Teste'). In the performances just discussed Fabre continually depersonalises his actors and stages the anonymous reality which Sartre defines in his 'L'etre et le néant' as être-en-chair. As a creature of flesh and blood, every human being is a nameless being, a faceless object which, like every organic being, is exclusively governed by the possibility of a figurative or a literal death, of a greater or lesser degree of finiteness, of exhaustion or death. This is also the reality to which the well-known vanitas prints and paintings from the baroque tradition allude; the very same reality is continually evoked in Fabre's "reality theatre", which as a result makes an undeniable moral point: it reminds the audience of the virtual ruin every human body is. Or, put another, way, death does not stand outside Me, but is "carried along" within-it as an ever-present possibility every minor sign of physical finiteness - tiredness, exhaustion, etc. - alludes to. Consequently, many of Fabre's scenic images can be seen as emblems or symbols, allegories which make visible, if only for a moment, the invisible mortality.
The principle referent in Fabre's “reality theatre", then, is the physiological body, the vulnerable - because it is subject to both fatigue and mortality - human flesh. The representation of this body on the stage operates unavoidably within two absolute limits which together form the fork within which Jan Fabre is able to create his "reality theatre". The first of these boundaries is the skin: only the external signs of the physiological essence can be shown. Sweat, puffing and panting, and eventually also blood and sperm, are external signs which indicate what is happening within the body; that "within", however, is necessarily hidden from the human gaze outside the operating room. The second limit is death. Suffering and death are naturally possible subjects for staging. Artaud's "theatre of cruelty" can definitely be put into practice, for example by means of public torturings and public executions or - within the field of art - through performances in which the artist loses the game with death (as did Rudolph Schwartzkogler, who died in 1969 from self-inflicted mutilations). Death, however, redraws from any form of representation as an event. The death on stage is akin to the orgasm of a woman in a pornographic film: both remain out of the picture, both remain invisible, both are literally impossible to represent as inner-physiological realities. Death can be foretold and subsequently confirmed; we are always too late, however, to witness the spectacle of the actual dying. "La mort est une surprise qui fait l’inconcevable au concevable", thus Valéry once rightly remarked... 

6.
In one of his writings on "the theatre of cruelty", Artaud affirms that "the theatre is the state, the place, the point where the human anatomy can be captured". In the solo-production 'Who shall speak my thought...' (1992), Jan Fabre demonstrates the pertinent untruth of this statement by clearly articulating the double limitation of every form of "reality theatre". The entire performance is dominated by symbols of Death. In this way, what cannot be presented directly is re-presented using the intermediary device of signs. First and foremost there is the small theatre space, which refers to a modern operating room or an old-fashioned anatomy theatre; there is the clothing of the actor Marc Van Overmeir: an outsize rabbit costume in which a large open - and mortal wound has been placed, with a lot of clotted blood; in addition to the rabbit costume, there is also the subtitle of 'Who shall speak my thought...': "Bloody electricity: rabbit in space", which together evoke involuntary associations with the well-known TV commercial for Duracell batteries, in which a group of drumming mechanical rabbits gradually slow down and stop one by one, while the Duracell rabbit carries on unperturbed; and, above all, there are the words from Fabre's script: "from far, far away the sound of scythes being sharpened, a penetrating sound..."  

The theatrical rabbit costume also refers to the real situation of the laboratory rabbit in which Jan Fabre places his actor. Marc Van Overmeir sweats and visibly gasps for breath because Fabre continuously administers electric shocks to him from a distance, outside the field of view of the audience. This "bloody electricity" turns the speaking of the script into a truly martyrdom, and transforms the performance into an authentic experiment in the physically bearable. And yet what actually happens inside Van Overmeir's body cannot be seen, and cannot be made visible. The boundary of the skin is relentlessly sealed to the penetrating gaze of the audience. Externally observable sweat drops indicate inner exhaustion, physical weariness, organic fatigue - anatomical processes, in short, which produce unmistakable reality effects, but whose actual anatomic source remains invisible. Only the text has the power to bring the suffering "inner body" into the audience's field of experience. What the actor "really" feels or hears can only be expressed or represented by means of words and sentences, i.e. via linguistic signs. The text of 'Who shall speak my thought...' does indeed deal with "the murmurings" of the physiological body, with heartbeats and "sounds deeper than deep, farther than far". The laboratory situation presented on stage imbues the spoken words with a real semblance of plausibility, a genuine credibility. At the same time, they denote the absolute limits of the theatrical situation, the impassable limits of what can be seen and portrayed on the stage. For it is not ideas or thoughts, but thoughtless flesh, the physiological "inner body", shut off from the outside world by the skin, which needs human speech (or writing) to become in any way representable. In short, only words and, more generally, signs and symbols are capable of going beyond the limits of the theatrical situation. In 'Who shall speak my thought...' Jan Fabre therefore portrays the impotence of his theatre. The production learns that every form of "reality theatre" requires a textual supplement in which the ultimate referent - the physiological body - is turned inside out, forced to speak. That is why 'Who shall speak my thought...' is a cardinal production in Jan Fabre's scenographic oeuvre to date. 

7.
In more than one respect, 'The Power of Theatrical Madness' (1984) forms a turning point in Jan Fabre's oeuvre. In this production the two basic lines within Fabre's stagework cross each other. The main issue the play rapidly becomes clear, and is fully reflected in the title. Fabre does indeed seek to unmask the power of theatre as a collective form of infatuation, as a medium of pure illusion and foolish belief. To this end he uses first and foremost the basic physical ingredients derived from performance art. The game with "the power of the body", with fatigue and exhaustion, on the one hand, and "the body of power", with physical danger, on the other, produces strong reality effects and powerful moments of "reality theatre". At the same time, Fabre introduces among other things a caricature of the theatre of power. In these scenes the stage does not change into a space filled with Reality; rather, the power of theatre, the illusory theatre reality itself, is intensified and condensed. Fabre's mockery of the theatre of power is highly transparent. On the back wall of the stage images of classic paintings are projected while opera music - including compositions by Wagner - can be heard. Meanwhile the crown is literally stripped: the kings presented on stage are naked, wear children's paper crowns, carry imitation sceptres, and in one scene are even degraded to dustbin keepers, And yet - yet through their proud attitude, their exalted gestures and their disdain for death, they still come across as highly credible regal figures or characters. What apparently begins as a farce, a jolly unmasking of both the power of theatre and the theatre of power, ultimately reinforces only "the power of theatrical madness". On the stage, kings can apparently still be portrayed as kings even without cloak or clothing, at least in so far as they act like or pose as kings.

The magical power of theatre is also shown in another scene during the performance, a scene which, not by chance, anticipates 'The Dance Sections' (1987) - itself a production which was a preliminary study for 'Das Glas im Kopf wird vom Glas' (1990). In the fifth Act of 'The Power of Theatrical Madness' Fabre has a naked man standing in the middle of the stage making simple arm and leg movements, some of which refer to the basic movements in classical ballet. Most of the movements are repeated slowly and carefully. The monotony does not exhaust the body, and therefore does not result in "reality theatre". Rather, it produces an effect which is related to the theatre of power; for the unfocused, completely aimless repetition evokes involuntarily connotations of honor, dignity - in short, majestic grandeur. The effect needs the theatrical context, but also reinforces it: the formal theatricality of the monotonously repeated movements multiplies the theatrical reality, the impact of the stage illusions. 

8.
In his ballet and opera work, Jan Fabre has as it were isolated and enlarged the scenes described above from 'The Power of Theatrical Madness', and promoted them to form the basis of his scenography. The solemn formality of the essentially premodern theatre of power is constantly mixed with the modern power of theatre. The theatrical display, sometimes simulated by the slow repetition of a single basic movement, is combined with the "power to portray" of the theatre - or, more correctly, with that basic code which asserts that everything is possible on the stage because nothing real ever happens there. In this way a Theatre-reality-with-a-capital-T is created, which towers alongside, even above, everyday reality in every respect. The use of bic-blue walls or costumes scribbled with blue bic ink reinforces the impact of the scenic movements, although their power is not directly connected to the poetry of "the hour blue". The formality in the movements presented on stage creates of itself a quasi-closed stage-world within which purposeless perfection is the rule and nothing or no-one recalls the "low reality" of the physiological body - blood, sweat, tears, exhaustion or fatigue. What Fabre aimed at in his "reality theatre" is now rigorously locked out, because the bodies on the stage incessantly dissolve into an anonymous Form. This stage reality is never overfull of Reality, but transforms the stage into a proper reality which is satiated with of a highly uncontemporary Seriousness and Depth, of Stateliness and Glory. As a result, the stage is also totally immune to "the banal" or "the ridiculous". In Fabre's blue universe, the unimaginable accordingly occurs several times. Thus armoured dancers or women dressed in frivolous lingerie acquire on the stage and out of it unimaginable dignity, because the solemnity of their movements does raise their bodies above the banality of everyday life. 

Like his reality theatre, Fabre's ballet and opera work also contains an implicit ethical lesson. The point of this lesson is that neither personal singularity or individuality, nor the emphasizing of deep emotions or sentiments, but only an anonymous formality is able to dignify, even monumentalize, the human body. Between this moral wisdom and the moral of Fabre's "reality theatre" are running at least two invisible threads. One: both the evoked finiteness of the human body and the staged solemnity refer to a premodern and preromantic, essentially classical philosophy, which is filled with a tragic awareness of life. The hidden "message" of Jan Fabre's scenographic work is neither modern nor postmodern, but simply un-modern. Perhaps precisely for that reason, it should be regarded as being of the greatest importance: it reminds us of the possibility of a form of life in which - to use Foucault's words - "existence ethics" (the good life) and "existence aesthetics" (the beautiful life) merge completely. Thread number two: both the "death foretold" in Fabre's "reality theatre" and the physical stateliness evoked in his blue theatre reality alert the individual to the possibility of disappearing in a completely impersonal, radically anonymous bodily form - for facelessness or namelessness are characteristics of both the physiological "inner body" and the solemn "outer body". In short, Fabre's work revolves around the possibility of "de-individualisation", of actual loss of self. In this way it signals an implicit protest against the romantic modernity which crowns each individual as a king and raises personal sentiments to the status of Great Emotions, even to the status of a basis of the practice of art.

9.
The formal "closeness", symmetry and solemnity of the blue universe Jan Fabre evokes in his ballet and opera work suggests a highly credible kind of eternity. Fabre transforms the stage into a space from which every reference to banality and temporality has disappeared. The stage makes a superterrestrial, metaphysical and sacred impression on account of the absence of "temporal reference points". There is movement and singing, but this is separated from any directly, observable narrative context, and therefore from any concrete fictional temporal dimension; movements are made, but their monotonous repetition ensures that both the experienced time - Bergson's durée - and the mathematical time as registered on the clock are banished. In this way the stage is "detemporalized": Time flows away, eternity and endlessness fill the stage. The combination with the blue walls and the blue costumes thus creates a space which has an elective affinity with heaven. In the second part of the opera trilogy 'The Minds of Helena Troubleyn' - 'Silent Screams, Difficult Dreams' (1992) - the connotation of "heavenliness" is in fact reinforced by its contrast with the black middle act in which the images refer to Hell as portrayed in Dante's 'Divine Comedy'.
The banishing of time means that in Jan Fabre's fictional heaven, physical suffering or death become totally unimaginable. Dancers, singers and figurants stand outside Time and move in a space imbued with eternity, which permits neither fatigue nor physical decay, neither ageing nor death. The stage perpetually changes them into living monuments, it petrifies their bodies, movements and voices. For a few hours the heavenly hereafter - familiar from the Roman Catholic catechism and from religious works of art - takes on the form of a scenic here-and-now. Here and now, in the reality known as the theatre auditorium, the unrepresentable is briefly represented, even made credible, thanks to "the power of theatrical madness", thanks to the illusion-machine known as Art. The illusion works, and in this way Jan Fabre is able to present us a pre-view of what according to some is the epitome of illusion: heavenly life, the eternity of the risen body. But Jan Fabre is no decadent neoCatholic, and his blue ballet and opera works are not a form of neo-religious art. Jan Fabre is an artist, and as such he believes in the Power of Imagination. And death does not indeed exist in that Imagination, except as an idea, as an unreal image or representation. At the same time no-one, not even a first-class artist - so not even Jan Fabre -, can live exclusively in the world of Imagination. It is precisely this impossibility which forms the subject of the opera trilogy 'The Minds of Helena Troubleyn'. The main character takes her dreams for reality. In the mind of Helena Troubleyn the usual boundaries separating the everyday from the dream-world, reality from imagination, have disappeared. One moment Troubleyn succeeds in actually crossing the boundaries, and bringing her imagined brainchild Fressia to life. Ultimately, however, her dreamworld perishes... Troubleyn is first mocked and ridiculed, later honoured and worshipped, but ultimately loses her power- over her audience. Perhaps this Helena Troubleyn once actually lived; the story Fabre relates about her, however, symbolizes above the condition artistique, the phases of the artist's existence. Like Helena Troubleyn, the artist fails to recognize the boundary between reality and imagination, and prefers the dream-world to everyday banality; like Helena Troubleyn, he is via this transgression occasionally able to make a real object in the form of a successful work of art, for which he is admired for a time; and like Helena Troubleyn, his empire will ultimately collapse and decay into ruin. The story of Jan Fabre's opera trilogy is of particular pertinence for the performing arts. In 'The Minds of Helena Troubleyn' Fabre portrays a timeless space on stage, a place filled with apparently eternal beauty which lends dignity to everything and everybody. This blue universe represents the Imagination, that place which is the main residence and working-room of the artist. The Imagination is governed only by the Eternal Laws of Symmetry and Beauty of Form; the real physicality is, like death, banished- And this is also how it is in Fabre's blue stage-universe. However, the evoked reality is under constant threat from "the return of the banished". For the banished Time always takes revenge on the timeless time of the imagination and of fiction, for a ballet or opera performance cannot last for ever. For a number of hours the stage-artist can enchant his audience, and that audience will follow him meekly in his journey through the Imagination, a journey made real on the stage. But beautiful songs do not last longhand certainly not for ever. At a certain moment the performance - the negation of the difference between reality and dream, the belief in theatrical or operatic madness, the power of the artist - must come to an end. In short, Time sets an absolute, never-to-be-crossed limit on what can be represented on stage. "Death foretold" dominates every performance, finiteness is an integral part of every on-stage movement. A theatre, ballet or opera performance, too, is akin to a mortal body which is doomed to the status of dead corpse. And what remains beyond the corpse called empty stage? Images, images-of-images, remembered images.

10.
Finally, three quotations:
"Vielleicht war das Sterben tatsächlich eine rasende Rückschau auf Bilder des Lebens und ein Sich-Erheben über die Erde." (Gerhard Roth).

"Kein sterbliches Kind wurde gezeugt sondern ein unsterbliches gemeinsames Bild... Das Bild, das wir gezeugt haben, wird das Begleitbild meines Sterbens sein. Ich werde darin gelebt haben." (Wim Wenders).

"Das Bild schweigt und erzählt nur seinen angekündigten Tod" (Jan Fabre, 'Die Reinkarnation Gottes').