Relational theatre
All actors are important with their voices, personalities and possibilities; they are all responsible for what happens. The Theatre Festival at the Goetheanum from 10 to 14 July offers practical insights into how Rudolf Steiner’s Speech and Drama Course lives today.
What is effective in theatre? There are numerous approaches, such as Bertold Brecht’s epic drama that interrupts the flow of a play, or Peter Brook’s trust in the ‘empty space’ and what happens there between the participants. The character has priority, the action is an expression of fate. In 1924, a group of actors asked Rudolf Steiner for inspiration. This led to him to give the ‘Speech and Drama Course’ which has not only inspired the performances on the Goetheanum Stage ever since but also training centres and productions in twenty countries.
The impulse for acting is taken from the periphery and from the words, enabling the characters to find their expression in the immediate interplay of attitude and gesture and of speech and sounds. The development of the actors makes it possible that not the one hero or the one heroine dominate the stage but that everything that plays into the dramatic events becomes tangible. Everyone takes responsibility for the whole: to whom the players open themselves, what they take in and how they take it in, how they find themselves on a higher level of consciousness and what can happen between them a consequence.
On the occasion of the centenary of the ‘Speech and Drama Course’ more than two dozen productions will be staged at the Goetheanum this summer, in Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Russian and Swedish. They illustrate what has been achieved by the engagement with the ‘Speech and Drama Course’ in the past hundred years. On the day after each performance, audience members will have the chance to join a discussion with the director and ensemble on the Goetheanum Terrace.
English by Margot M. Saar
Theatre Festival 10 to 14 July 2024, Goetheanum
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Cover image Theatre Festival 2024 at the Goetheanum: ‘Twelfth Night’ by William Shakespeare, staged by Marc-Alexandre Cousquer (Photo: Théâtre de l'Homme Inconnu)