» research lab readings Hal Foster, Prosthetic Gods, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
Phenomenology of Perception, London: Routledge, 1962. essay 1 Rivalling Scenes .............................................................................................................................................................. The live creation of video images in the theatre, in contradistinction
to the use of precorded footage, fascinates us because the real-time projection
of filmed action on a screen onstage opens a second, rival "scene".
The first production in which I observed this use of video was Fred Kelemen's
staging of "Desire" (after Eugene O'Neill's "Desire under
the Elms") at the Prater, Berlin Volksbühne, in 2001. Bert Neumann
had created a unfied stage design for the entire season - the set of a
Western, with a farm in midst of a cactus desert, and with a huge screen
in the background on which classical Western landscapes from old movies
were projected. Thus, the live action onstage and the projected film scenes
began to compete with each other for the "right image." Above
the roof of the farmhouse, furthermore, there was a second screen attached,
much like an advertising billboard. On this billboard Kelemen showed the
live video (or certain prerecorded scenes) of the actions that were taking
place inside the house. But here the director goes one step further: After
Abbie, performed by Kathrin Angerer, begins her seductive temptation to
attract the desire of both father and son, she disappears as a real stage
person and from now on only appears as the desirable woman (projection)
on the screen. The tension between the stage characters now shifts toward
the tension between the action onstage and the action on screen. .............................................................................................................................................................. Translated by Johannes Birringer |