Another kind of theatre museum in the 21st century?
Lisbet Grandjean (Director of Theatre Museum in
Copenhagen)
Documentation des Arts du Spectacle dans une Société
en Mutation / Documentation of Performing Arts in a Changing Society
Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des
Musées des Arts du Spectacle / International Association of Libraries and Museums of the
Performing Arts
19ème Congrès International, Lisbonne 7-11 septembre
1991 / 19th International Congress, Lisbon 7-11 September 1992
Ed.: José Carlos Alvarez. Lisboa : 1994, p. 21-24
In very few years we are leaving the twentieth century. A
century which has more than any other century has given us an enormous technological
development. Today this development has also reached the world of the theatre, and its
technical material is used in the museums day's work.
I want to discuss in which way theatre museums in the next century will be able to produce
documentary evidences of the art of the theatre in relation mostly to the guests in our
museums, but of course also to the different kind of researchers.
When I look back on the way we have documented performing arts through some hundred years,
we have been able to work with paintings, drawings and photos combined with set drawings,
set models, costume drawings and costumes. Besides we have had scripts, promptbooks, the
notations of the stage mechanics, letters and other written documentation, and perhaps we
have also had sound recordings. And finally we have had programmes, posters, tickets and
reviews. With all that sort of material displayed for our guests, we have had a
possibility to give an impression of performances and making it accessible for the
researchers, it has been possible to form a general view of the performing arts.
But many of the things mentioned above are about to disappear in our daily work. The set
drawings are going to be replaced by the models, which not infrequently, thanks to our
use-and-discard-time, are spoiled before the museums can seize them. Today you can even
create set designs the electronic way.
The costumes are often damaged before the end of the performance, the notebooks of the
stage mechanics are now on EDB, not suitable fax display; you don't write letters, you use
the telephone instead. (The fax machine perhaps will change that pattern).
The interesting contents of the programmes are about to disappear for the benefit of
advertisements of the firms, which are sponsoring the different performances, and the
tickets which at least in my country in former times were a mixing with characters from
each theatre are now all over the world a scrap of paper from the EDB-machine.
Since the beginning of the seventies there has been a change in the way in which you
create a drama and also in the way in which you perform dramas or operas, ballets or
musicals. I think these alterations are going to change the documentation work in the
theatre museums. I should like to illustrate my assumption with some examples showing that
it might be more difficult in the future to collect the above-mentioned things.
In 1978 the playhouse DRAMATEN in Stockholm launched into a gigantic experiment. With the
performance The Tempest - not that of Shakespeare's, but a new written kaleidoscopical
Gesamtkunstwerk, a sort of a happening - the theatre wanted to take part in the discussion
whether one should approve or reject atomic power. The Tempest was partly a term of the
atomic
holocaust, partly the tempest in each person, who had to consider if it would be possible
to live with the powers we were about to release, and partly a storm blowing all over the
Swedish playhouse.
Now we are approaching the facts which must have made it very difficult to document this
performance as a totality. For the performance in Stockholm was formed in such a way that
it actually consisted of several performances at the same time.
Already when you bought your ticket, it was decided which of the performances you were
going to attend. If you wanted to see other parts of The Tempest you had to buy tickets
for another day. During the performance the audience was only gathered twice: during the
interval and during the last performance in Dramatens auditorium, a performance which took
place after 3 hours, in or outside the theatre.
Here is what I experienced on my day. My ticket informed me that my entrance to the
theatre was not through the normal entrance. Instead I had to climb up a 5 to 6 meter
provisional wooden staircase, built from street level to Dramaten's outer balcony. From
here I entered the foyer in which kind people gave me lessons in the advantages of my
housekeeping, if society turned to atomic power.
After a short briefing in the auditorium my party was taken over the house to small stages
in the painting workshops and in rehearsal rooms. Here I attended several performances,
all discussing different aspects of using the atomic power. Another party was taken to a
famous restaurant in Stockholm. In the bus they were told that the food in the restaurant
was poisoned by nuclear waste, but the guests didn't know that. The party just had to pass
through the restaurant considering for themselves what would happen if it was true. Today
we know what happens.
In the interval we all met in the foyer, but together with us were people from former
centuries walking between us as if they were covered by a glass case.
After 3 hours, in which we were stuffed with arguments for or against atomic power, we
were all gathered in the auditorium in order to witness the central part of the
performance, the play The 7th Question, which was a discussion between fictive politicians
and experts whether A-power and democracy could exist together. The auditorium was not
supposed to take part in the discussion, but it was difficult not to.
The whole idea of the performance was to make the audience aware of what was to come and
to have us make up our minds.
We were supposed to reflect after the performance.
My question is, how could we document this performance as a whole. Which primary sources
did we have to display in such a way that later generations could understand the totality
of the performance? That is one example.
Another one I have taken from a theatre in Copenhagen, Gladsaxe Teater, which for 10 years
mostly has created open performances based on well-known or new-written plays. As in the
16th century - the audience - was moving from one place to another; or wagons with small
stages were pushed around between the audience in a big square room with no possibility to
sit down during the performance.
Many of these performances were much depending on lighting effects, and the impression on
each person depended on which part on the performance you attended. In this way I have
seen Shakespeare's Macbeth and Goethe's Faust only to mention a few examples.
But how do we make a proper documentation of that sort of performance? We have the scripts
and we have photos, but the set models give you nothing, neither do the drawings and even
a video recording would give you a false impression.
I have another example from Copenhagen this summer. A group-theatre in Denmark, Teatret
Cantabile 2, decided to perform their version of Dante's The Divine Comedy in an open-air
version. Not in a theatre, but at several places around the town.
They performed 29 scenes from the comedy. The prologue was given in a big church in the
center of Copenhagen. From here you were taken by bus to hell, which was placed in a park
outside Copenhagen. In the park you had to walk 1 kilometer in the summer evening, passing
8 provisional stages, one of which was placed in a lake - the scene took place in the
water. The performance was created directly for the topography of the park and it was
using the light of nature in combination with artificial light.
It was a highly remarkable performance, but how would we by the means of yesterday's
documentation leave to posterity what was going on during such a performance?
My last example is taken from my own world, from a small performance at the Court Theatre
in Copenhagen, in which the Theatremuseum is situated.
The greatest Danish poet from the 18th century is Ludvig Holberg. In 1984 one of his
comedyies Henrik and Pernille was given at the Court Theatre in a set design by Bernard
Daydée. The set consisted of a bench and a big white screen on which a wonderful green
garden was projected. The illusion was perfect. We were in the middle of this garden. But
how can we today give a true documentation of this performance, which was not taken on
video. The bench exist today, but the rest of the set design was lighting effects and dias
show.
With these examples I have wanted to call the attention to the fact that according to my
opinion we shall not in the next century have the same documentary material in our theatre
museums as we have today and that it will be very difficult to set up exhibitions, which
can give proper information about the many different sorts of performances we already
produce nowadays.
I think the main task of theatre museums in the future will be much more that of
registration than of displaying in the old-fashioned way. I think our material will be
made available in form of videos; our photos will be on interactive disks; and we will
have far more information placed on EDB.
In other words, I think that theatre museums in the next century will change into a sort
of registration centers to some of which will be attached smaller exhibitions of material.
But is this a change for the better or the worse?
In spite of the fact that I come from a theatre museum with lots of things from the past,
things which have a connection either to performances in the theatres or to the artists -
in spite of that I feel a documentation for instance in form of video recordings combined
with what material is left is a much better way to document performing arts than we have
ever had. We can come much closer to the way of acting, to the set design and the way you
work with light.
Imagine if we have had videorecorded performances from the 18th and 19th centuries.
URL:
http://www.sibmas.org/congresses/sibmas92/lisb05.htm
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