Unruly master.

The Unruly Protagonist

Augustus Powa, by the boar.

Statement

STATEMENT

The copyright is the original author.

This does not necessarily represent this public position.

Have a nice trip.

There is little information available on the origins of Greek theatre. Because of the small amount of documentary evidence and the fragmentation of documentation, we can only speculate about its beginning: I'm sorry, we have to use imagination.

In ancient Greece, as elsewhere, workers were happy to celebrate a temporary break in order after their hard collective work had ended. Discipline is essential to enable collective labour to function. During the construction of the house, the painter could not paint the wall before it was erected; he could also build the roof only after the foundation had been laid, rather than backwards.

Rules are necessary for building a house. However, once the work had been completed, it would be over. Upon completion of the house, at the "cap" party, construction workers drank beer, sang and danced, the atmosphere was relaxed, and quickly the gap between them was broken. Review relationships fall asleep and speak freely. The mission is complete and the rules can be broken.

During the harvest season, farm workers work under strict discipline for weeks or months from morning to evening. First the grapes, then the wine. And when it's all over, they'll be drunk, they'll sing and dance, and they'll pay tribute to Dionysus - the god of happiness, the god of carnival. Alcohol is essential, and it is no accident: it is free nitro. The celebrations of Greek farm workers after harvest are as spontaneous as the parties of today ' s construction workers after completion. Songs and dances come from the soul. It's creative anarchy - it can also bring chaos. Freedom needs to be kept in chains. There must be limits. But is freedom with handcuffs really freedom? The nobles think so. Because of the discipline of previous work, freedom must now be regulated as if it were a threat. In extreme cases, it may destroy what has already been built.

This is a necessary contradiction. When it is free, the body can create inner dances and can dance in space and time. At this point, the choreographer turns around, develops moves, explains positions, defines rhythms and limits space. Theatrical poets are here. Write down his poems. There is no longer free thought or creative confusion. The order has come. Dramatic poetry and dance formation are great advances, but freedom ends. The carnival outbreak was introduced into something more solemn - the Dithyramb. This chorus is confined, hymn, authorized implosion, civilized barbarism, joy, but measured in time. So far, not a show has become a show. Now, everyone dances and sings the same praise.

×

Tespis, a great talent: poet, choreographer, actor and alcoholic. He writes poems and joins the choir and sings himself. He plotted his movements and performed in the parade of the wine god and lived in harmony with the band. As a true artist, he was loyal to himself.

One day, Legislator Soren came to see his show. The great Soren, who has just abolished the Draco Code, which, in its present image, is threatening us with "the tooth for the tooth" and "the eye for the eye" before the Bible. Soren was a visionary, a legislator who later established democratic law. If I were to tell you exactly what he was, it seemed to me that he had the most incredible intuitiveness compared to other qualities: he ruled that all citizens would be forgiven for all outstanding debts. What a joy! Every soul is pure as the beginning: no one shall be indebted to another. Wonderful! Everyone who owes money likes the idea, even though the lenders are not so touched. Since then, Soren has forgiven all debts, but he has not abolished the unjust large inheritance system, which will create new and larger debts for many. Soren did everything on two sides: he did not stop prostitution, but first set up a red light zone for public women. In fact, much of Greece has been transformed into such areas. The Almighty Soren is coming to the show! Soren is in the audience - Zeus, bless us! People are so excited. Does he like our show? Soloun came with his ivory stick -- because he was bad, and he sat in the front row. Soren, head of government, with his special seat.

The hymn is a religious march (held in the field), but today, there is a royal box, there is a critical stage on which the teams have to perform for the authorities and become more religious. The show was modest at first, and it was normal for Tesspis to be self-sufficient. And he felt a strange state, and he shouted, "Hold me, I feel dizzy, I'm going to go!" And no one was holding him. So he jumped out of the band and started responding to them. When he did, he began to say anything that came out of his head. He's talking nonsense like a madman. He talks about politics, people and law. At first, it seemed to be an improvisational performance by a disciplined actor, an irresponsible joke, but increasingly a structured speech, which made it dangerous.

Stunned! Horror! How dare a member of a popular song team respond - in front of the head of State. I can't believe I can do that, but I've never thought of that before. They all spoke with due diligence in the band: no one was aware that freedom was possible. Tespis is a red-faced and dedicated voice to the song team. The team sings in poems, he responds in essays. When the song team sings religion as a recognized morality, Tespis preaches his own ideas, using his own words as he sees fit and emerges. These words are very beautiful. This is incredible: what happened? In the band, everyone sings, dances, that's what they do. How can a person - even a Tesspis - dance with a hard-on-birth choreographer and respond to a forced "wrong" over offensive?

Sitting there, trying to ignore it, it's as if it had nothing to do with him, or if he didn't hear it, it seemed a little deaf. But after the show, he went to the dressing room and found the actors and congratulated them. The popular legislator must fulfil his duties. He said to Tesspis, "Don't you feel ashamed when you lie like that in front of so many people? Such a happy song team is honest, harmonious and orderly. And you're going to say some naked lies."

Taspis argued that he was not lying: he was telling the truth. Tespis, without knowing it, created the Protagonist, Proto, First, Independent, Rebel, and those who think and act on their own - without imitation, without writing, without imitating anyone. Finding out who he is, opening new paths, revealing the possibility that Tespis is becoming a person who is throwing himself into the unknown. If he makes a mistake, he'll have to bear the consequences - growing melons, growing beans. Taspis looked into the eyes of Soloun and answered without shyness: "No, I am not ashamed, the respected Soloun, because I did not lie. What you see is not a picture of reality itself, but a game." In his interpretation, he used the word "play", as the French said "jeu" or the British said "play". His real meaning may be drama, fiction, possibility, imagination, or even re-enactment of reality.

"It doesn't make any difference, it's also a dangerous thing." Soren countered. "People may not understand your little game, and they will be affected by it. In time, this game, this lie, will tarnish our culture - it will not be of any benefit. It's good enough that what the team sings before you sing has been written down and reviewed. Your ideas of free thought are extremely dangerous."

To scare Tespis, he gave an example of the horror of punishment: "Look what happened to Prometheus - he was a good man, but he did bad things. He gave the human species fire, which was quite dangerous. Flames burn. Prometheus set a bad example. He shows people that things of God can be played by mortals. He played on fire. Prometheus was finally tied to a rock and pecked by vultures. Why? It's a fire. Where does it end? Human beings are greedy. They always want more."

At the end of the threat, he concluded, "You will suffer the same fate. It doesn't matter what you actually say or what you use. It's important that you show that things can be said. You show people it could be said. You show people that everyone can think in their own minds. That is wrong: it sets a bad example. I know people can, but the public should not know."

Before he left, he said, "Don't do this again, do you hear me? I hate it, not at all!" With this short sentence, Soren almost strangled Western drama in the bud. But Tespis is very stubborn, very stubborn. Even in a difficult situation, he wanted to remain a master. After all, being a master makes me happy. He wanted to continue to live as a master, even though the song team continued to follow the lines and the clichés. It's hard to get back in position when you've been the hero once. Nobody likes that.

On this memorable first night, the audience - not to mention a small group of complainers who will always be - liked the idea. They want more. Improvising is everyday life. A stalemate. What do we do? Tespis did not want to give the impression of a liar, nor did he want to use him as a pretext for lying. It's a lie to say he's lying - it's not the truth. He has told the truth about him, and that is one of the possibilities. The song team was worried, "How is it now? What should we do?" No one knows. "Can we do it? Should we delete it? We liked it, but the big boss didn't like it. He's got a face." Where's the truth, where's the lie? The truth about Tesspis denies the song team. If someone was lying, it wasn't him! So, how is it now?

So, in order not to let anyone lie and let them tell the truth about themselves, Tespis, a creative man, has a wonderful idea. He invented costumes: masks (this guy, it looks like me, but it's not me, it's someone else - it's a character) and costumes (I wouldn't dress like this, it's a role). And he's wearing high boots, which are tragic high boots. Once in a costume, the character is no longer Tesspis: he's another person. Actors and characters, who were the same person in the past, are now divided into two persons: this person and the mask. Tespis can continue to be himself, by pretending to be someone else, hiding in costumes, standing in high boots and hiding behind masks.

Because it is not true, the actor's skill is known in Greece as that of Hypokri-tes, i.e. he pretends not to be a role. He pretends by becoming a role, because it is clear that he is that role - and if he is not that role, he cannot be that role. Even if it was just a sign, it was a real one. Now, the actor's skill is twofold: the actor behind the mask, and the mask itself. And that's why actors' skills are called disguises. By the way, it can also be shown here that drama and disguise are born in one parent at the same time. This dichotomy of actors and roles has since become one of the most fascinating themes in theatre and psychology.

Tespis has set his own creative path, but has to make concessions in an important area. In the next season, he turned to find his own Mace-nas, the patron and protector of the arts. At that time, the cost of the theatre was as expensive as it is now - it must be paid for. Today's Messenas have a different name: they're called Angel Investors on Broadway; they're called Culture in France; they're called Tax Relief in Brazil. They were there, or are now, as old as the hills. The producer of Tespis was a nice, big guy who immediately told Tesspis: "I understand you very well, dear Tesspis. You're a real artist, a creator, a genius. I'm sure you'll make history. The idea of inventing the protagonist is surprising, and whatever comes to mind, he wants to say it. Congratulations!' Taspis is happy, but Messenas is not finished. The worst is still behind us.

"But the problem is, I'm not an actor, I'm just a producer. Our names are closely linked. Whatever you say on stage, it's like I said it myself. I'm telling you, dear Tesspis, if I only knew what the play was about that night, I couldn't put the money in it. I'm not trying to review you, far from it. All artists should be free. But before I spend it, I have to know where I spend it. Yeah, yeah, you should say something you like to say, but I should just pay for something I like. In other words, if you want my sponsorship all the time, you have to bring me the paper script before you start rehearsing. I don't just want to read the song, but I want to read the improvs of your hero!" Unfortunately, once improvisation is censored, they will no longer be in the creation of electric flaming stones. And Greek drama, no matter what historians say, is subject to censorship. It was reviewed by Messenas or those like him, who under their early tax concessions only paid for the approved theatres, and by the priests of Dionisos. In the Acropolis, you can still see the marble seats of the priests of Dionysus. They're there, mighty and lonely. The reviewers are in the front row of those chairs.

××

Esculos, a nobility, created the second leading actor. There are now two masters, one who can endorse or oppose the other. Sophokles, another nobleman, created the third leading actor. Tragically, people now own three actors and three masked disguises for their use. Every actor can play more than one role, thereby increasing the number of roles - they will not be recognized when they change their masks and their voices.

Conspiracy has been established once and for all. In this impossible break-up, Tespis is both a post-separation actor and a post-separation role, just like all good actors. It's a complicated disguise: an actor pretends to be a role that he's not, and he pretends to be. All of this has gone too far: the singers are still singing positive history, but with the invention of the dialogue, ideas are presented and nothing can ensure that the views supported by the authorities prevail. Dialogue is always dangerous, because it creates discontinuity between one idea and another, between two opinions or between two possibilities, where infinity highlights itself. All opinions were thus possible and all ideas were allowed. It is no longer possible to create when "two" no longer exists and there is only one absolute idea left. Dialogue is democracy.

With that in mind, Plato was terrified, and he was very worried, so he gave a speech: "Now, listen to me, I will not let any of your drama-like nonsense appear in my Republic. This is ridiculous! This is wrong! This is a fucking pain! You can shove your play to a place where the sun cannot see." He knocks door to door in the street and shouts, "This world we live in is so corrupt!" (he says so right, he might say modern Brazil.) "The reality is corruption in the world of ideas, the world of ideas, which exists, but it does not exist, and it is perfect, sacred, wonderful, the world of ideas. We are nothing but a pale reflection, a shadow that should be. The drama is even worse, it's a thin shadow of our shadow, the palest of paleness, a groove of corruption. Down with drama!"

Plato's pissed, he's really pissed. Aristotle didn't. He was smiling and shaking his head, and was happy to have the chance to rebut his teacher. He said in ancient Greek -- the modern Greek language at the time: "Amicus Plato, sed magis anica Veritas!" That sentence was passed to us in Latin, and it was possible that Aristotle did not speak Latin. In English, Aristotle means that although he loves his teacher, Amicus Plato, he loves truth more.

Aristotle goes on to explain: "It's not exactly what Plato thinks. I don't think he fully understands this. It seems to me that the protagonist can make all the mistakes he wants to make, even if the audience is happy with them and sharing his pleasure." He used the term "Em-pathia" to mean that the audience was so advanced into the protagonist that, at one moment, it interrupted its thinking, thinking with the protagonist's mind, that their own feelings became dull, and replacing them with their emotions. In other words, it's a de-sire illusion. The main character had divorced from the actor and now married the dumped audience, meaning that he had been mixed with the phantoms installed in the audience.

He went on to say, "But even when people get pleasure in certain prohibited things, it doesn't matter. Because, as Tespis rightly pointed out, it is only a game, a sign." One of the people on the street was Plato's disciples, who objected: "I think I understand, but again, if they find fun in the interpretation of reality, they also want to find pleasure in reality. It's not right."

"This is exactly where you and Plato were wrong! Let them enjoy their mistakes, their crimes are nothing but fiction. All it needs is for the master to go to failure (and let the audience get deeper and deeper) and then it's done. It was the Greek tragedy that everything fell apart after a dazzling opening. We call this reversal of destiny Peripeteia - Better give a name to everything. As a result, the tragedy transformed the atmosphere into a watershed. First happy, then painful. And, at the end of the story, the master should face a huge - and if you allow me to use another term, I intend to use it here - subversion."

"As such, the master has been given the disaster he deserves. But what about the audience? What did they get? What happened to them last?" The guy on the street wondered. "They got Catharsis!" Aristotle said, "Do you understand? Throw this over them - let it out! The audience will come out of the play and be cleansed! Wrong - if you don't mind, I'll call it a flaw - Those mistakes will first be called up in the emotions of the audience and will be driven away by reason."

"But when fate reverses or when you say it, the audience may come out of the play, and they may say, `This never happens to me.' `Then they will only enjoy what they want to enjoy, with the bad examples in their minds, with the evil desires in their hearts, without the moral sense of the story."

Aristotle may be conservative, but he's smart, explaining his makiavili-style plan: "Audiences enter the protagonists with compassion. They think with his mind and feel with his heart. All you have to do is make your master confess and read a sin against you and get things back on track. By the way, I call this confession discovery. Do you like it?" They all like, and even better, they can figure it out.

By moving -- a precious and indispensable thing that binds the audience and the master, it embeds the protagonist's desire into the audience. The audience, after hearing the confession of its master, will also repent for itself and ensure that it will never again commit such a mistake. The wrongs of the masters will correct the behaviour of the audience and correct the distorted. In order to dispel doubt, he continued: "Listen, tragedy is a mimic of an act. But imitation does not mean copying or copying something. It means recreating the essence of what was created. It is a living, dynamic force. In this way, the tragedy reaches deep into the hearts of the audience and corrects their unwelcome behaviour."

Aristotle lamented his own thinking, convinced himself, and ran home to write a very clear book and a very attractive title: Poetry - I suggest you read the book carefully. After a year, the passage of time remains "a positive history of tragedy", a constraint on the explosive Tespis tradition.

To be realistic, I must add two points. First of all, it is clear that not all Greek tragedy writers and not all times follow Poetry. Some opposed it, many died before it was written, and others did not even know its content. In addition, it emerged only as a model, an intended goal. Secondly, Aristotle is not as straightforward as I made him say. He is well educated, used to reading literature and can find nuances in it. And poor me, from Peña, a working community north of Rio de Janeiro, where we say anything. So I have to be more direct and objective. I shall tell the cruel truth. This is my fate, and I have been sent to the plain.

×××

Many centuries later, Brecht made an opinion when he wrote about Aristotle. He began by saying that migration was appropriate for the ruling class, which even dominated the ideology of their role. But it is not appropriate for workers because it contributes to the perpetuation of exploitation. So, take it down. Replace it with Verfremdungseffert!

What is this thing, this weird term? The effect is to look away from each other and not get involved, like an observer, thinking and drawing his own conclusions. The actor no longer hides behind the mask, and he will appear next to it and show himself. What Brecht is now doing to his master through distance is exactly what Tesspis did to the team. The duality that was cast in the past in the conflict between masters and singers is now a challenge between actors and actors. The real unorthodox character is now an actor, not a role anymore!

However, there is still an insurmountable gap between the stage and the audience in the Brecht drama. The stage is for character and actor. Even when the role of the playwright is criticized and condemned, the playwright or actor is critical, not an audience. Through songs, bystanders or by making space, theatres reveal things and at the same time reveal themselves. He exposed his mind. He did not hide behind his role, nor did he join them. But the stage is still his private property, his space, his territory.

The viewers who sit in rows and eat fruit are encouraged to think in a way that is presented as the right way of thinking and as the truth. The playwright declared the truth and indicated the direction: he was confirming, not questioning. We have a long way to go from the Socratic dialogue, but we are close to the democratic concentration of some political parties.

As we all know, speaking is the taking of power: as long as we speak, we will be empowered. Even Brecht is a playwright and a non-citizen. It is true that Brecht once tried a more participatory theatre. He saw the future mobilization of the audience. In some of his poems, he had foreseen the possible use of theatre after the audience had become an actor. But in his great work, the wall between the stage and the audience did not collapse. As far as I'm concerned, I'm amicus Verfremdungseffert, but I think we can go even further - I prefer the oppressed theatre.

It is a great step forward to keep yourself out of the way. Is that enough? Should actors and characters continue to dominate the stage, and should I sit in the audience? I don't think so. I think we can go on: we need a reverse invasion! The audience needs to free not only its critical spirit, but its body. The audience needs to enter the stage and change the view of the show.

Change is also changing. Change is change.

The audience must become a role: to possess him, to take his place - not to obey him, but to guide him, to show him the way they think is right. As a result, the audience has become a "Spect-Actor" who, in a democratic opposition to other audiences, can freely enter the scene and divert the power of actors. Audiences must use their own hearts and minds to rehearse combat programmes that can free themselves from all oppression.

The impertinent master separated himself from the singing team. He rebelled. The mask hides the actor behind the role. Realism dramas once again combine the two, bringing actors together and subjecting them to the command of the heart of the role. Brecht, for his part, suggested separating actors and roles once again, so that the audience could think about both of them at the same time and reflect: Am I or him? But Brecht finally accepted the marriage of a poet (a customs actor) and an audience, keeping the audience on the sidelines as if the relationship were the same as the old marriage between husband and wife. The poet wears pants and says whatever he says, while the watcher continues to play the old wife.

××××

I, Augusto Powa, want the audience to play the role of actor, invade the role and stage. I want him to occupy his own space and give answers.

By taking over the stage, "opportunity" consciously carries out a responsible act. The stage is a reflection of reality and a fiction. But the term "opportunity" is not fictional. He lies within and outside the scene, in a double reality. By occupying the stage in the fiction of the theatre, his actions took place not only in fiction but also in the social realities in which he lived. By transforming his fiction, he was also transformed into himself.

This invasion is a symbolic intrusion. It symbolizes all the acts of aggression that we must carry out in order to free ourselves from what oppresses ourselves. We will never be free if we do not invade (and not necessarily through violence), if we do not go beyond our cultural paradigms, our oppressive state, the restrictions imposed on us, and even the law itself (and should be reformed) - if we do not invade in those areas. The way to free us is to invade and transform. It is through the creation of new things that what does not yet exist begins to exist. The way to free people is to invade. Intrusion is going to exist. The way to free us is to exist.

Emancipation is going to exist.

Gaul Stun Theatre.

This is Rotus. Let's dance here!

"Live yourself to exist."