Theatre

Maria Nora is actress of the Living Theatre since 1982.
She worked in several productions of the group. In the past
decades she conducted together with Stephan Schulberg
many workshops that concluded with a public performance.
In these workshops Maria Nora transmittes work
techniques and theatrical ideas by the Living Theatre.
Training of voice and body are part of the work.
Research into origines, foundations and directions
of social conditions are themes of the theatrical work,
also current issues proposed by the participants.
The theatre is a place of artistic and political expression
for everyone, a place for celebration of beauty and
community. Theatre is a space were the political and the
spiritual meet, the individual and the society.

Some Living Theatre scenes function as theatrical rituals.
A dramatical structure is given for research into deeper
lying resources of theatrical expression. These theatrical
rituals are scenes of meeting and renewal wherein
the individual as well as the group can set itself free.
New powers and unthought of posibilities emerge
and find their form of expression in the theatrical work.

Biomechanic

Biomechanic is a system of exercises for actors
designed by Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1939).
Under the influence of a vision of a new world
in a revolutionary time of discovery of new
social forms, new productions, and new aristic
forms in theatre and art Meyerhold developed
several etudes that train coordination in space,
stage presence, rhythm and precision of movement.
The Living Theatre developed in its street theatre
work new biomechanical etudes with text and
song of dramatic impact.

The Plague

The plague is a theatrical ritual invented as a scene by the Living Theatre. It is an exercise as well as a perfomance. Antonin Artaud gave the idea to it.

Antonin Artaud, (1896-1948) was an expressionist poet and playwright. In his Theatre of Cruelty he developed a critic of western theatre as representational art. According to Artaud the actor has to act sincerly, he has to burn on stage. No lies, no pretensions but true soul play as a rebellion against the lovelessness of the world.
When Judith Malina and Julian Beck discovered Artaud`s writings they found in his work and his understanding of theatre what they had been looking for: the expression of true feelings, of pain, of cruelty. Theatre as a purge. No fancying up, no exciting effects. No psychologization, no constructions but the enactment of a feeling that you may have felt some times before and express it with art. Artaud’s theory became fundamental for the work of the Living Theatre. The plague is a concret scenic expression of it.

“It must be art,
it must be real,
it can’t be real (no blood),
it must be political,
it must be spectacle
it must be as eloquent as text itself not subservient. Nothing subservient, Anarchy. Theatre of cruelty without political objective/social action becomes its opposite, seduction to sadism.”
Julian Beck, Theandric