Burkard's CHEKHOV TEAM BLOG

I want to focus on two things. 1. I thought Celso's comment on the connection of boners and theatre interesting. If I understood him, Greg Allen and Jose Rivera, then one important aim of theatre is, to produce any emotion. Emotions are precious for the producers of music, movies, plays, newspapers etc. If the people are able to put themselves in the position of a certain figure of a play or can imagine the play's actions, then it is a success. This also connects to Aristotle, who wanted to reach pity (eleos) and fear (phobos) by staging a tragedy. Of course many other aroused emotions are imagineable.
But I think it is also important to really aim the whole play at something bigger. If you lose the red ribbon, the firework of effects the playwright lights up flies meaningless in all directions and might hit himself or herself. That is, because the audience is going to recognize the lack of any, possibly moral, fundament. This kind of theatre is in my opinion meaningless and short-lived.
2. The second point I want to focus on is our blindfolded guided tour. I realize now that it was similar to the "white sheet of paper" which lies empty in front of the painter. That is, because the guide could have created any kind of reality, could have told e.g. (like mentioned in class) the stairs we climbed were African mountains. I connect this exercise to Rivera's # 18 (own genre) and # 23 (theatre = explanation of life to living). I think it is important, to create a world of its own in every play. And if we do so, we have to be aware of all the consequences of every idea, move, turn, dialogue etc. we write down on the white paper aforementioned. In my opinion this might also be, what Aristotle had in mind with his order of beginning, middle and end of the drama and the term "retrospective inevitability" Jenny mentioned in today's lesson.