George Hunka has an interesting post on Superfluities (go here to read it) about the manifesto by Erik Ehn that helped lead to the formation of the RAT Conference. Manifestos are strange and scary things, calling to mind all kinds of radical calls to action (communists, Warhol-snipers, militant feminists…). But theyre also statements of conviction, something thats utterly necessary to artistic creation. Nobody writes manifestos any more, a theatre friend of mine said a few months ago, and we spent torturous weeks wondering why and trying, with limited success, to come up with one for our ensemble. And its hard. Ive been scouring the RAT site, which has published missions and manifestos of a few theatres and groups that teeter on the border between conviction and gleeful zealousness. Are manifestos necessary to create good collective theatre? Or do they just create close-mindedness and ultimately limit the boundaries of exploration and experimentation? Whats so wrong with idealism, anyway?
manifest this!
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2 responses to “manifest this!”
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Thank you for the link, Kirsten and CultureBot.
Manifestoes serve the excellent functions of providing a theoretical rationale for an ensemble’s existence and of providing a jumping-off point for discourse. More than mission statements, they’re provocative theatrical documents in themselves. The difference between them and the artistic activity they seek to engender, I suppose, is where the shadow lies, but then, if we could say everything we wanted with our manifestoes, we wouldn’t be making theater at all. After all, there is a difference between Brecht’s Short Organum and Messingkauf Dialogues and his plays, just as there is between Erik’s manifesto and his own work. But they inform each other and provide the groundwork for future aspirations. So there you go.
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My ramblings about manifesto – (and they are just ramblings)
Idealism is awesome, I yearn for it. But, I’m afraid that the mission statement has killed the manifesto. Idealism has given way to the question…”can we get a grant?”
Manifestos should be as exciting to read as a lurid novel. But lurid novels don’t always get public dollars.
But, I’m afraid that manifestos can become albatrosses on our necks. The really good ones should enable ACTION! Anything else is fruitless, dilettantism, etc.
Make sure that the manifesto doesn’t become an additional entity in the rehearsal studio with you. Then it is this thing you always have to negoitate with when it should have just been your Yesman. “Can I do this Mr. Manifesto?” “why yes Mr. Idealist you can do any damn thing at all!!”
I wish we had fewer people who wanted to publish manifestos and more artists who wanted to right down something secret and special on the back of a book of matchsticks and pass it around.
I wish were more enabled to express ourselves through our art.
The wishlist as manifesto
Also isn’t the manifesto a politcal act? Perhaps we aren’t political enough to mean anything that we would put in a manifesto.
Perhaps the time of manifesto is over…to declare one’s politcal beliefs is to offer them to your opponent (a spin off of Mac Wellman’s Theater of Good intentions essay.) Perhaps we need to go back to secrets scrawled on matchbooks instead.
I don’t know if this is useful at all. Just some quick thoughts. Personally, in high school when all I was being fed was Miller, Neil Simon, and Show tunes…I read manifestos…by candlelight (not actually, but I hope you get my point)
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