Immediate actions for the Theatre

Opening statements from my upcoming untitled book on the state of theatre.

The theatre needs more public martyrs.
The theatre needs fewer patrons.
The theatre needs more insight
The theatre needs fewer cues.
The theatre should remove cushions from all seats.
The theatre needs a new space.
The theatre needs a burning of the books.
The theatre needs fewer playwrights.
The theatre needs more scents.
The theatre does not need more sense.
The theatre needs fewer fundraisers.
The theatre needs more productions.
The theatre does not need equality
The theatre needs more adaptations and fewer revivals.
The theatre must have more languages.
The theatre should vacate the bars and the church – leave them to the priests and whores – and move into the city square, alley ways, and garages.
The theatre must have more languages.
The theatre needs to forget itself.
The theatre needs to remember who's watching.
The theatre can embrace technology – but it is not necessary.
The theatre needs new full time positions: a mechanic, a doctor and an oracle.

The theatre is in need of a good shave.

Weir's DAS LIEBSVERBOT to play Brussels

More weighed upon than a criminal in hiding sat the auteur Nikolas Weir, at the farthest corner of the Café Reggio wearing sunglasses, looking glumly at his coffee. His thin wire frame was evident even under a barrel sized coat and various scarves. It wasn't until I said his name out loud that he looked up and nodded, “Sit down, sit down.”

For the past three years Mr. Weir has been on a string of creative exploits that range from bewildering to repulsive, depending on who you ask and what night you happen to be in the theatre. His work has rarely been met with praise, his only New York production to date; an adaptation of Genet’s The Balcony, was poorly attended and slaughtered by critics. However it can hardly be argued there are few people in the field moving so boldly (albeit, often blindly) forward without any concern to audiences, market and taste.

When asked about his audiences Mr. Weir is known for shrugging the question off with, “What do they know?” But in his more heated moments his articulate responses are colored with insight to a theatre culture that not only ignores convention, but behaves is if were being born for the first time. At a time when most artists seem fit to bask in ironic glory, Nikolas Weir is keeping it honest.

“You cannot repeat anything,” he says, “Isn’t this the nature of the form? So we can and must do everything. I happen to think the nose is the gateway to deeper rooted experience. I don’t want an intellectual theatre or a generous theatre, with heart. I want a sensory theatre. Like, with curry.”


From his small studio apartment in the East Village Weir conducts all of his business which includes his production company, Theatre for/of the Blind, and his various freelance projects. He is currently attempting to transfer Das Liebsverbot (The Ban on Love) from Munich’s Figuren vom Dunklen, where it played last spring, to the U.S. but has failed to find a venue that suits the production. On top of which, Weir is struggling to find backers. The aggressive beat-over-the-head tone, a customary trademark of Hermann Doucher, artistic director of the Figuren vom Dunklen and co-director of the opera, has turned off many producers and stateside theatre companies.

“Increasingly difficult it is to find philanthropists who believe in spirited ideas,” Weir says. “There is this need of validation. What I would love to see is everything untested all of the time. But this is not the culture of attending an event. We have coordinators and staff. This is not a spontaneous thing, this is not a spontaneous thing – this is what we are constantly reminding our audiences.”

The New York Times reviewed his take on Genet as “…the work of a lone individual who cannot tell the difference between high and low culture." As harsh this may seem, Mr. Weir’s new book on the state of modern theatre, due next summer, is expected to change all of this, potentially catapulting him into a new arena and validating his wild pursuits for a New Theatre.

What are you writing on?

NW: What?

What is your prompt – what is the book going to be about?

Two things: What we expect to see, hear, smell, feel. And what really happens when we sit down and experience an event.

What happens?

Nothing.

(At this point Mr. Weir stopped the interview and left. We met the next weekend, again at the Café Reggio and he was in much better spirits, the hulking coat was gone, but the sunglasses remained.)

If you could describe your theatre to someone who has never seen it, what would you say?

I wouldn’t say anything. I cannot possibly impart anything to anyone about something I don’t even understand. I would rather not talk about it at all. I would like to give a gift to someone. But I’m not going to tell them what the gift is just so they'll open it. They just have to open it. This expectation is the rudest gesture in our culture.

That’s very limiting though, if you can’t talk about your work.

You say that. I don’t associate myself with that comment.

Alright. You’ve done mostly adaptations up to this point – Genet, Wagner, Shakespeare, Lorca – are you at all interested in original work?

I don’t see any difference. I could sit down and compose a drama for the stage and I could write the dialogue and the movement, but it all seems a bit contrived and boring to me. It’s a matter of priorities. I don’t write because it’s not a priority to me. However, I am writing currently, but certainly not for the stage.

Are you still using the smell machine in productions? Last time we talked you were insistent on it.

No. We had planned to use it in the Wagner piece but it is, in many ways, a failure. I am currently working with an architect to imagine a building with an exhaust system where you would constantly be assaulted with scents. We found an old green house in Pittsburg we thought we could restore, build piping throughout so that each individual audience member would receive a mask and breathe - individually together. But, it all seemed a little antiseptic. My idea is that we must build a new theatre from the ground up.

What smells are you into recently?

Don’t ask me a question like that.

Are you still looking to do this in Pittsburg?

I would like to keep it this idea in Pittsburg.

Why Pittsburg?

I came up with the idea when I was in Pittsburg. That’s a loyalty I don’t expect you to understand.


At this point Weir got up and left again. Later that week he called me and admitted to feeling frustrated recently and apologized for the brevity of our meetings. I caught him with one more question - I asked Mr. Weir what the biggest challenge for him is and he sighed, “Making impossible things happen while people try to talk to me about them.” Then he hung up.


Figuren Vom Dunklem’s Das Liebsverbot (The Ban on Love) will play Le Petit Cheval Théâtre in Brussels November 13-15.

Smell my Theatre

Originally published in Epilogue Magazine, February 23 ( http://www.epiloguemagazine.com/featurenikolasweir.html) - "Smell my Theatre":

Nikolas Weir is an international theatre artist hailing from Montreal, Quebec where he grew up with a mother of French descent and a father of German descent (via Greece). After graduating from Bennington College in 2005, Nikolas studied in Germany, where he founded his company, Theatre for/of the Blind. Nikolas, or Niko as his collaborators call him, is currently working with the Figuren vom Dunklen Theater Lab in Frankfurt, Germany where he is co-directing his adaptation of Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love) alongside Artistic Director, Herman Doucher.

So, you’re French, German, Greek, and Canadian?

NW: Please don’t tell anyone I’m Canadian. (laughs) What a pointed question.

You’re quite a global soul, though. Obviously there’s been some influence.

NW: Of course. I grew up in Quebec with my parents who, also artists, had lived all over the world. From a young age I had this sense that the world was still open for discovery and that, like my parents, I was going to involve myself in exploring culture through my art.

When did you begin working in theatre?

NW: My first produced play was entitled “Thomas Mann’s Summer Vacation” – a parody of Death in Venice told in a journal-like style. I was in eighth grade. My father played Thomas Mann and the next door neighbor friend played the object of his desire. My mother designed the lights. We performed it in my basement. I need to revive that play someday.

You read “Death in Venice” in eighth grade?

NW: You would’ve had to meet my parents. My mother was a sculptor, my dad a poet who taught writing. I can’t imagine growing up any other way. They were lovely talented people.

You’re a major proponent for this movement in the arts — theater for/of the blind. Tell me, how does it work?
NW: It was not something I was particularly interested until I committed myself to it. All ideas are ridiculous until you commit. We live in a culture that profits from Theatre Of the Blind, those who close their eyes in fear. We must create then a Theatre For the Blind. It’s both a socio-political movement and a performance style. It’s communicating through something above text. Traditional audiences go to the theater; we see, we hear, we take in our surroundings. What is beautiful about the theater is it takes active listening on the audience’s part. When I first began my work in Theater for/of the Blind I kept saying to myself, “I go into a theater. I close my eyes. I’m feeling something. What is that?” I began to watch performances with my eyes closed. Our goal is to create a theater that involves all the senses: dramas that have sound, movement — movement that can be felt by the audience — taste and smell.

Taste and smell?
NW: Yes, absolutely. How you can incorporate those elements which are usually overlooked in the theater? Releasing scents, unleashing rhythms — it’s all very ancient in tradition but innovative in how we relate it to a modern audience, specifically a blind audience – either physically or metaphorically. It’s particularly difficult as I challenge myself with something like an opera. Which, this is my first time working with opera.

How does that work with opera?

NW: I must say, it works beautifully.

You don’t see this demeaning to, say, blind persons?

NW: You mean offensive? I don’t know. I don’t consider that sort of thing. If you think about offending people you’re never going to get any work done. This is an idea, a big one, and I want to see how far I can take it. What people are going to think is my last concern – it’s what they’re going to feel that I’m invested in.

And this is Wagner’s “Das Liebesverbot” you’re working on?

NW: Yes.

What’s your take on it?

NW: What you have here is Wagner’s first performed piece, which people hated, isn’t that how it always is? It’s based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, a wonderfully nasty play. So, if you can imagine: I’m taking Wagner and Shakespeare and I’m inserting a somewhat punk-rock texture into the opera. I must say, this is why it’s great to work in Germany. Audiences want to tackle this kind of material when they go to the theatre. I think this may be true in America too – it’s a matter of recognition though.

American audiences don’t recognize they want this kind of work?

NW: Probably not.

Can you explain some design elements? I can’t really imagine it.

NW: Good. Then you’ll have to come and smell it.

Alright. Well then, can you describe what a piece of Theatre for/of the Blind might look like?
NW: We did The Balcony by Jean Genet. We included all the design elements you might see in a typical production, but we heightened the experience beyond the text. We do this by creating a constant soundscape that suggests mood and tone, one that has a dialogue of its own, even releasing certain scents into the audience. A friend of mine once called my shows “scratch and sniffs” (laughs), but it is all very specific. For The Balcony I found myself mixing a lot of industrial materials with spices. Like chlorine and curry. Or sulfur and lavender. Or my favorite, rubber and cinnamon. It was very strong, even harsh, I think – like a meal that’s too big and you can’t finish, but you want to leave it on the plate because the odor is so unique and off-putting in a very almost sensual way. Like staring at the sun. I’m seeking funders to assist in building another Scent-Releaser, one more state of the art. I built one for our inaugural production here in Germany in the summer of 2006, but right now it only really works in small houses. It works in a similar fashion as a fog machine – the downside is that it clogs up very easily.

A big question that I know you’ll have a lot to say about: Is theatre dying?

NW: Of course it is. But it’s died before and in the past century too. When a thing is dying there’s never a better time to be innovative. This isn’t just theatre, this across the board in the arts. I think in this decade there’s going to be a rise of the creative class. And, nay, this is not just me spouting some passing thought I have had. I’ve talked to collaborators from all the places I work regularly – Montreal, New York, Frankfurt- and everywhere I go I have had conversations about this idea of the Creative Class.

What is the creative class?

NW: One could stick to the socioeconomics of the term – but I’m misusing it on purpose. Perhaps we should call it the Artists Class, but that suggests elitism. That would be inappropriate. This class dissolves the elitists approach to theatre, that is, the long standing tradition of showy, empty, money-fueled Sparkle Shows that appear on Broadway and in repertory houses throughout America. We have a lot of work to do and it begins with the individual, I think. But, I don’t know. Can we change the subject?

Sure. What’s your next project after the opera?

NW: I’ll be back in the states after the premiere in late April and I’d like to do a U.S. production of Das Liebesverbot with English speaking actors sometime by the end of the year. I am also writing a new piece that has absolutely no dialogue. Only movement, music and smell.

Wow.

NW: Like I said, it’s committing to the asinine and seeing how far one can take it.

Interview

A friend of mine, Adam Burnett, back from Bennington days, conducted the following interview with me for the Albuquerque Daily Lobo. I thought this would be an apropos time to begin a blog for Theatre of/for the Blind.

http://www.dailylobo.com/index.php/article/2009/10/question_and_answer

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Nikolas Weir is an international theater artist and advocate for the blind. He worked in communities across the globe before he moved to Albuquerque. He hopes to create a theater for the blind in the Southwest.

Daily Lobo: You’re a major proponent for this movement in the arts — theater for the blind. Tell me, how does it work?
Nikolas Weir: It’s communicating through something above text. Traditional audiences go to the theater; we see, we hear, we take in our surroundings. What is beautiful about the theater is it takes active listening on the audience’s part. When I first began my work in theater for the blind I kept saying to myself, “I go into a theater. I close my eyes. I’m feeling something. What is that?” I began to watch performances with my eyes closed. Our goal is to create a theater that involves all the senses: dramas that have sound, movement — movement that can be felt by the audience — taste and smell.
DL: Taste and smell?
NW: Yes, absolutely. How you can incorporate those elements which are usually overlooked in the theater? Releasing scents, unleashing rhythms — it’s all very ancient in tradition but innovative in how we relate it to a modern audience, specifically a blind audience.
DL: Can you describe a piece of theater for the blind?
NW: We do a show called “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett. We include all the design elements you might see in a typical production, but we heighten the experience beyond the text. We do this by creating a constant soundscape that suggests mood and tone, one that has a dialogue of its own, even releasing certain scents into the audience. A friend of mine once called my shows “scratch and sniffs” (laughs), but it is all very specific.
DL: Where have you been working primarily?
NW: Mostly in Europe, as we’ve gotten our funding primarily in Eastern European countries where theater has a more deeply embedded tradition. But my hope is to begin exploring theater for the blind in many communities, like here in Albuquerque.
DL: This seems like such a large project. What drives you?
NW: It was seeing the work of some of these innovators (in Eastern Europe) and understanding the significance of their work in a way I could articulate. I had a friend in high school. His mother was blind, but she always came to the performances. She always enjoyed the performances, I mean, to hear her son like that in the presence of others. I’m not saying I wake up every morning to vindicate her (laughs) but I do believe the power in theater is the ability to have a dialogue with the minority by inviting the majority.