Hope & Defiance
I mentioned earlier in another post that Arturo Ui was first and foremost about the students and their craft, but of course, there was something in it for me too. Something to reflect on, to express, to impress upon. It was a great opportunity to remind myself (and the students) that art is a public good, that it is inherently political, and that stories are such a powerful way to make sense of the world and to re-make it, perhaps in hope and defiance.
Looking back, I think this show was a subconscious manisfestation of the creative journey I've been on since 2015, from my time in the UK encountering Pina Bausch in all her compositional glory, reacquainting myself with Expressionism & Brecht, visiting the Anne Frank House one Christmas, experiencing the grief and loss of WWII during my little summer traipse to Berlin last year.
It started out as a curiosity, but it expanded into something I can't quite articulate. If anything, judging by the way I would burst out into tears while working on the show sometimes (only once in front of the students, sumpah), I think I was trying to express a profound sadness, and helplessness too, about the cycles of violence we humans tend to fall into, again, again, again. Why don't we ever learn? Brecht really wrote a incisive, absurd beast of a play and unfortunately, it is still so very reflective of the times.
In staging this work with the team, I was trying to make sense of where my place is in all this, and what I can do, as me right now at this point in my life, to stop perpetuating these cycles of violence even at the minutest levels. And I wondered if this was a question that others may ask in encountering the work:
How am I doing right by the people around me everyday?
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
It's so hard man, but I really hope for all intents and purposes that at least, the show was meaningful. I hope people laughed at the absurdity of the situation, and were disturbed by the ways they under-estimated the horrors that unfolded. I hope the students found meaning in the work too, and that they understood their power as story-tellers. Hope and defiance.
Hopefully this ghost is exorcised now? Who knows...It might be the start of something far deep-rooted than I realise.
I guess I'm still figuring out as I go along my journey. Questioning truths can sometimes take more courage and wisdom then I can muster, and now I realise what I need is time and deliberate practice and being connected to the world in order to do this uncomfortable work. I admit, I'm slow that way....So, with much gratitude for the time I have, time I will take.
Which leads me to say thank you goodbye and see ya next year. Issy can finally say time out.
