sarma

1 I’ll tell here a sociological story. A story is not an analysis. The latter is based on concepts, or on a network of interrelated concepts (a "theory"). In order to tell a story, you do not need concepts but images, ideas, impressions, feelings, memories... something like a fund of experiences. By telling a story, the narrator tries to put some order in his personal collection of experiences. Thus, he silently hopes to rescue them from the oblivion. At the same time, every story attempts to diminish the ephemeral and contingent, anecdotal character that is the true hallmark of the experience. The story teller implicitly or explicitly believes that his words can give experience(s) a certain necessity. Therefore, every story is an impossible lie — a misrepresentation, a fictitious framing of what can never be framed without distortion(s). 

I call the following story a sociological one because it tries to connect some particular experiences of a regular Flemish theatergoer with broader social, political and economic developments. It is always hazardous to link up personal impressions, or individual feelings of dissatisfaction, with macro tendencies. But the chance is worth taking. The story cannot bridge the distance between the particular and the general - and, yet, the translation of idiosyncratic experiences into overall insights might give the reader the chance to compare. Perhaps I am not the only one who thinks the thoughts that are communicated hereafter. For after all, we do invent stories also in order to share experiences with others. Or rather, that is what we hope: by telling a story, we try to socialize our experience(s). Every story bets on the binding effect of the language.  

2 I start with a (hypo)thesis: traditionally, professional acting is the ultimate legitimization of professional theater. A theater company distinguishes itself from its amateur peers by the professionalism of the performers. And according to the ideology of professional acting, the professional performer is a trained or schooled one: his diploma guarantees his professionalism. If one has not a diploma of a certified theater academy, one has no access to the market of the professional theater: no diploma, no job. Also, the employment of trained actors legitimates the flows of money, in the form of subsidies, from governmental bodies to theater companies. In their early years, schooled performers invested in training, and this investment has to be financially rewarded.

The ideal of professional acting generates several intriguing paradoxes. One of the most striking ones, and also one that was decisive in several respects for the history of twentieth century theater, has to do with the idea of authenticity or realist representation. The professional actor is supposed to be capable of a convincing or plausible representation of specific emotions-, of a particular state of mind. His performance is a persuasive personification or embodiment of feelings or ideas. He acts, and yet, in and through his acting he creates a reality-effect that makes the public forget the act of acting; he performs on stage, but the performance resembles real life; he re-presents psychic or mental experiences, but in such a way that the emotion or state of mind seems to be present. This kind of professional make-belief necessarily undermines ("deconstructs") itself. Ultimately, it seems quite bizarre, even extravagant, to re-present in a trained way expressive actions or behaviors that many non-trained people may present in front of an audience in a much more direct way. So why not employ amateurs in subsidized theater companies? 

3 Nowadays, most theater directors and companies still subscribe to the ideology of professional performing. Yet, during the nineteen-eighties, several theater makers started to work with so called amateurs - with persons whose individual presence (whose auric presence) compensates, even transcends their lack of training. Thus, internationally acclaimed Flemish theater directors such as Jan Fabre or Jan Lauwers again and again preferred non-trained but "'strong" individuals over schooled professionals who can Mo the job' in a routine way. Of course, the tendency to work with amateurs was already before the eighties an important feature of the avant-garde theater. Therefore, perhaps the most conspicuous feature of the theater of the eighties in Flanders and the Netherlands, was the unremitting striving for a non-professional "look" by professional actors. In their performances, companies such as Discordia, Stan or Dito Dito tried to recapture the specific flavor of amateurism through what was often called "poor acting": no affected speaking manners, no carefully composed gestures, no trained phrasing of the text, and a lot of (studied?) clumsiness.

This tendency still marks many contemporary theater performances. But why subsidize this kind of theater? Why invest government money into companies that do not present well-made plays performed by well-trained actors? It is my second (hypo)thesis that especially in the domain of avant-garde theater, professionalism has changed shape. In a quite paradoxical way, the actual avant-garde combines theatrical "madness" with organizational professionalism. No longer the way you make theater, but how you manage a theater company nowadays makes all the difference between the professionals and the amateurs. Neither the certificate of the theater director nor the diplomas of the actors guarantee professionalism. Not the artistic work as such but the organizational work of the company manager and his staff secure the aura of professionalism.

4 The traditional border between avant-garde and commercial (boulevard) theater has become very thin these days. Not that avant-garde companies try to produce best-sellers. They still do what the theater avant-garde always has been doing: present theatrical forms that differ from established conventions and codes. But this aesthetic difference is literally produced in a different way: it has become the object of careful management. Government agencies encourage this trend. According to the dominant neo-liberal credo, which is nowadays also the political creed of the social democrats, the arts have to be run like a business. Therefore, an increasing number of cultural organizations - theater and dance companies, museums, libraries, and so on - enter the phase of hyper-reality. They act as if they are enterprises, they simulate entrepreneurship. Professional theater is taken over by the generalized theater of professionalism.

In the performing arts, managerial success has become synonymous with discipline (or rather, with a very civilized bohemianism), with the capacity to lobby for grants and subsidies, and particularly with the ability to arrange international tours. To put it bluntly: if you do not tour abroad, you do not exist. If you do not perform on trend-setting festivals or foreign stages, you are a failure. In these days, the loser is the theater company that does not succeed in selling itself on the international scene.

The new ideology of managerial professionalism does have an impact on the production of (avant-garde) theater. I’ll just mention two striking tendencies of contemporary theater - and dance! which are the net effect of the craving for transnational success. First, theater becomes more and more plastic or pictorial. The visual dominates tip verbal, the striving after strong images tends to drown out the traditional focus on the (representation of the) text. For images do communicate beyond linguistic borders: they are eminently transnational. Second, theater is increasingly ambiguous. The spectator does not know if the theatrical message is meant to be taken seriously or not - if the show is just a show, or a serious performance with a serious content. In this way, you can enlarge your public without taking risks. The work can be read or received in several ways: it can be appreciated by "intellectuals" as well as by people who tend to take the images for granted. There once was a time when critics termed this kind of theater "postmodern". We now know that the expression "postmodern theater" is just another word for successfully managed performing art.

5 A story needs an end, if possible a happy end. Here it is: Brussels, December 1997. I attend a performance of Bordes, a local theater company. This is poor theater in the strict sense of the word: no expensive props, no impressive lighting, no spectacular images. Just a few people who like to play, to act, to give life to a text. They do this already for years and years, most of the times before a very restricted public of twenty to fifty spectators. This is indeed a theater company: a small group of people who prefer being together with friends and acquaintances over a possibility of success outside Brussels. Small is beautiful, especially when it is combined with intelligence, devotion, and personal strength.

Some months ago, Bordes made a play about the figure of Ulrike Meinhof. It was a slap in the face. It was an unpleasant reminder of a suppressed memory - of the dilemmas of a true political commitment. It was a strong theatrical statement about the possible strengths of statements in theater. And since Bordes does not have a company manager, their professionalism is quite bearable.