UC San Diego

In this paper I discuss how I went beyond commonplace, rational ways of theater-making and relied on certain “extreme”, irrational gestures to create my production of Charles Mee’s Orestes 2.0. I discuss the circumstances that led me to unlock my subjective artistry, the manner in which I tackled and fulfilled my “directorial concept”, and how I created a production that challenged the tyranny of rationality both on the stage and within the culture of the theater department. 

I relate personal experiences entering school during a time of national suspicion, and I discuss how a more expansive artistic outlook developed in response to my environment. I go through the execution of my directorial concept and show how I “projected a world” from my interior into the theatrical concrete, drawing on the work of master Polish director Tadeusz Kantor. I describe the “rules” of my theatrical world in terms of its diegetic reality, its method of construction, and its aims. I then describe the rehearsal process, highlighting the ways that irrational methods and a focus on body and imagination drove the process. I discuss my creative state of mind, my performance as the character Farley, and the way in which I hoped authority and sense-making functioned in the audience experience of the performance.

Throughout, I accompany my ideas with supporting quotations from Mee’s play and the writing of French theorist, poet, and director Antonin Artaud, situating my use of the power of the irrational inside the theatrical tradition and the play-text.