3. Going Out: On the Street (17 Jan, 2024) – Part 1
Updated: May 8
OK, so learning starts…outside…on earth…neither inside (not staying indoors or turning inward) nor from above!
Like (conventional) theatre, a classroom is also isolated, which is an intentional design with reason. But it does not mean that students, or people who want to be learners, should always stay there, or start there. Learning is…about life after all, isn’t it? So why not got out and learn…from lives, “real” lives?
It is exactly what Brecht suggested, not only in his famous article ‘The Street Scene’, but also in his poem ‘On everyday theatre’ (the former was actually an elaboration of the latter), where he encouraged:
You artists who perform plays In great houses under electric suns
Before the hushed crowd, pay a visit some time
To that theatre whose setting is the street.
The everyday, thousandfold, fameless
But vivid, earthy theatre fed by the daily human contact
Which takes place in the street.
……
Our demonstrator at the street corner
Is no sleepwalker who must not be addressed. He is
No high priest holding divine service. At any moment
You can interrupt him; he will answer you
Quite calmly and when you have spoken with him
Go on with his performance.
But you, do not say: that man
Is not an artist. By setting up such a barrier
Between yourselves and the world, you simply
Expel yourselves from the world. If you thought him
No artist he might think you
Not human, and that
Would be a worse reproach. Say rather:
He is an artist because he is human. We
May do what he does more perfectly and
Be honoured for it, but what we do Is something universal, human, something hourly
Practised in the busy street, almost
As much a part of life as eating and breathing.
(Brecht, 1938)
So, following Brecht’s advice, we did not stay in the classroom, but were going out for this lesson. It was divided into two parts, going out on the street to observe and visiting a museum for an exhibition…about “objects”.
Yes, the street…the street is really full of performance, or say, the happenings on the street are very performative, when we experience them with intentionality of searching for performativity. Just as Brecht’s poem describes:
Here the woman from next door imitates the landlord:
Demonstrating his flood of talk she makes it clear
How he tried to turn the conversation
From the burst water pipe. In the parks at night
Young fellows show giggling girls
The way they resist, and in resisting
Slyly flaunt their breasts.
A drunk Gives us the preacher at his sermon, referring the poor
To the rich pastures of paradise.
How useful Such theatre is though, serious and funny
And how dignified!
They do not, like parrot or ape Imitate just for the sake of imitation, unconcerned
What they imitate, just to show that they
Can imitate; no, they
Have a point to put across. You
Great artists, masterly imitators, in this regard
Do not fall short of them! Do not become too remote
However much you perfect your art
From that theatre of daily life Whose setting is the street.
(Brecht, 1938)
As I experienced in the exercise, even the poster on the wall, stickers on the lamp pole, or the logo of a shop are all performing! These daily performances are normally “effective” when we are not aware of its performativity and just live in and through the performance as part of it, but its status of being performances stand out when we actively pay attention to it and see them reflectively, as Brecht pointed out, or when things go wrong—or off—as Heidegger reminded us, almost at the same period of time when Brecht developed his new theatre!
(Oh, so…Brecht, Heidegger and Moreno, all explored and developed their revolutionary approaches during the 1920’s! I was curious: Was it some kind of Zeitgeist?)
References:
Brecht, Bertolt. Poems 1913-1956. London, England : Methuen, 1976, pp. 176-179.
Brecht, Bertolt. “The Street Scene" Brecht, Bertolt, et al. Brecht on Theatre. Vol.2. Edited by Tom Kuhn, Translated by Jack Davis et al., Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. pp.61-71
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