Il pensiero religioso di Romeo Castellucci è formalmente radicato nel satanismo.
Non si tratta di una deduzione, che sarebbe peraltro facile, visto l’uso di escrementi associati al Sacro Volto, onnipresenti nella performance teatrale che porta la sua firma. E’ piuttosto una constatazione di fatto, in quanto l’interessato lo ha apertamente ammesso. Eppure i suoi estimatori, che sono legione anche fra i “cattolici”, sembrano ignorarlo, benché questo individuo, in due occasioni negli ultimi anni, abbia fatto aperta professione di fede gnostico- satanista, con esplicito riferimento alla dottrina manichea ( come da citazione che segue): è questo l’ordine di idee sta alla base della sua produzione teatrale. Un ordine di idee,lo gnosticismo, peraltro ben noto alla storia del pensiero religioso, contro il quale già si scagliarono i Padri della Chiesa, che lo consideravano una lebbra. Così Romeo Castellucci:
“ Lucifero è una figura molto ambigua, che non incarna solo il male, perché il male è anche Dio, che è bene e male (!), tant’è che, in alcune tradizioni, è Lucifero il primo martire”. (Cfr. Stefania Chinzari, Paolo Ruffini – Prefazione di Goffredo Fofi “Nuova scena italiana: il teatro dell’ultima generazione”. Castelvecchi 2000, Roma, p.105)
Due anni dopo la pubblicazione del libro, il nostro eroe riaffermava il suo credo nel corso di in un’intervista demenziale rilasciata alla rivista di arte australiana Real Time Arts (n. 52, dicembre-gennaio 2002), in occasione della presentazione della sua opera Genesis. From the museum of sleep, messa in scena dalla società “Raffaello sanzio” da lui fondata, al Festival di Melbourne. Il titolo dell’intervista, “L’Angelo dell’arte è Lucifero” è già un programma:
Ne proponiamo i passi più significativi, tradotti dall’inglese.
Dall’ introduzione all’intervista ( a cura della redazione della Rivista)
“La storia di Dio che crea amorevolmente l’universo, dopodiché l’uomo che commette il peccato originale e viene perciò espulso dal Giardino dell’Eden, è ben nota. Meno nota, invece, è la versione mistica giudaico-cristiana che troviamo nello Gnosticismo, nella Cabala e nella filosofia Rosacroce. È questa la versione che Castellucci ci presenta, per mezzo di suoni, di performance fisiche e di spettacolari effetti visuali. Castellucci attinge alle stesse tradizioni [gnostiche] che hanno ispirato artisti come Baudelaire, Antonin Artaud, Peter Brook. (…) “In questa versione più tenebrosa della Genesi, l’atto creativo non è frutto dell’amore, ma di un terribile errore. La Cabala, per esempio, parla di come l’universo sia stato creato quando i vasi sacri che portavano la Parola di Dio sono caduti e si sono frantumati in milioni di pezzi imperfetti. L’atto della creazione è stato dunque una trasgressione violenta contro le leggi dell’universo. In questa ottica, tutta la Creazione contiene in sé il caos agitato di un proto-universo precedente all’atto creativo. Non è l’Amore che regna nell’universo, ma la Crudeltà. Non è l’uomo ad aver peccato, ma Dio.
Dall’intervista “L’Angelo dell’arte è Lucifero” a cura di Jonathan Marshall
http://www.associazionelatorre.com/2012/01/castellucci-langelo-dellarte-e-lucifero/
Marshall: “Lei ha detto che ‘La Genesi mi spaventa più dell’Apocalisse’ perché rappresenta “il terrore delle possibilità senza fine”. Questo sembra essere ispirato agli scritti di Antonin Artaud e di Herbert Blau, nonché alle dottrine gnostiche e cabalistiche che ispiravano Artaud. Lei è d’accordo con le idee di solito associate a questa cosmologia? Per esempio, Artaud sosteneva che prima della creazione regnava un caos terrificante, che è poi rimasto per sempre presente, latente o immanente all’interno dell’esistenza quotidiana. Egli ha sostenuto che questo caos è il vero senso del teatro. L’obiettivo più alto, la virtù più eminente del teatro sarebbe quindi di poter rappresentare — o almeno avvicinarsi a rappresentare — il caos attraverso una performance dal vivo?”
Castellucci: “C’è un genere di teatro occidentale totalmente dimenticato, cancellato, represso: la tradizione del teatro pre-tragico. È stato soppresso proprio perché è un teatro intimamente legato alla trasformazione di idee e di pensiero in materia e, quindi, con l’angoscia della materia stessa. (…)
Se il grande campo delle possibilità aperte appartiene a Dio, secondo la tradizione cabalistica il fatto che alcune possibilità si mettano insieme per produrre un effetto deve appartenere al peso del corpo.
Dio deve trasformare se stesso in qualcosa di “carnale” per poter attuare possibilità che altrimenti rimarrebbero insoddisfatte in un mondo incoerente. (Secondo questa tradizione cabalistica)Si possono esperimentare queste possibilità invocando elementi materiali, carnali e mettendole insieme. Il teatro non è per ‘riconoscere’. Io non vado al teatro per riconoscervi gli studi che ho fatto su Shakespeare.
Non dovrebbe essere così. Il teatro è piuttosto un cammino attraverso l’ignoto verso l’ignoto. Ciò che io e i miei colleghi abbiamo cercato di fare nel corso degli anni è di portare lo scandalo scenico al parossismo e di mantenerlo sempre vibrante. (…)
Il palcoscenico è un luogo di alienazione, e niente deve essere risparmiato per impedire che questa alienazione sminuisca. (…)
A questo proposito, credo che il pensiero di Antonin Artaud sia di fondamentale importanza per la piena comprensione della forma occidentale (di teatro). Egli sommerge il problema della forma in un bagno di violenza che sveglia ciò che, in realtà, costituisce il fondamento del vero teatro. Ecco dove la forma diventa spirito. Stiamo parlando, infatti, dell’alchimia della trasformazione, della trasmigrazione da una forma all’altra.
C’è ovviamente un aspetto del cattolicesimo che influenza e che è insito in questo tipo di teatro, che è legato al momento, durante la Messa, in cui l’Ostia si trasforma nel Corpo di Cristo. Questo evento eucaristico è un’idea che si trova in Artaud: l’idea di trasformare un corpo, di dare corpo, di tagliare un corpo a pezzi, liberandolo in questo modo dei suoi organi. Sono tutti elementi che provengono da un tale concetto cristiano”. (…)
Marshall: “Lei crede che queste idee siano diventate particolarmente importanti alla luce degli eventi del ventesimo secolo come l’Olocausto, e anche di eventi più recenti come la guerra in Jugoslavia, l’11 settembre e la guerra in Afghanistan?”
Castellucci: “Gli eventi che Lei ha ricordato, i massacri, i genocidi, i disastri che l’umanità ha conosciuto nella storia recente, costituiscono un abisso, che è necessariamente connesso con la Creazione. Durante la Creazione, è la Parola di Dio che crea; in questi eventi, invece, c’è il silenzio di Dio. Spetta al teatro abbracciare le altezze e le profondità dell’esperienza umana, ma non per illustrazione, o attraverso la produzione di informazioni.
L’esperienza dell’abominazione è troppo profonda per essere consumata nella superficialità delle mere apparenze. Ora è necessario che cominciamo a considerare, tutti, il termine “tragedia” per ripensare collettivamente il destino dell’umanità.
Il teatro è chiamato a realizzare questo compito con la sua forma radicale, che è quella di un’arte viva.”
Marshall: “Su questa linea, Lei è d’accordo che ogni atto creativo sia un atto di violenza? O per lo meno una violazione del tabù contro la Creazione? Ho in mente qui la sua dichiarazione che Lucifero, l’angelo caduto, sarebbe il primo artista con cui l’umanità si debba identificare.”
Castellucci: “Naturalmente, la Genesi affronta il problema del Principio. Ogni artista sa che, al Principio, il palcoscenico vuoto è un mare aperto di possibilità. Questo è anche ciò che costituisce il ‘terrore della scena’.
Non si tratta — almeno in ciò che mi riguarda — di un terrore o di una paura del vuoto in sé, ma piuttosto del terrore della pienezza e della perfezione: c’è troppa Creazione.
La quantità ci travolge. La materia è oscura. Quindi, ogni volta che l’artista affronta questo caos per tirarne fuori qualcosa, egli mette in connessione queste possibilità, creando linee e costellazioni. (…)
Per quanto riguarda il Principio e la Fine, è chiaro che il teatro possiede in se stesso, ontologicamente, nel profondo delle sue strutture, questo problema del Principio e della Fine. (…) Che senso ha ripetere oggi queste parole che costituiscono l’incipit del Genesi? Queste parole del Genesi sono le stesse che hanno causato l’esistenza del mondo e, quindi, anche l’esistenza del palcoscenico?
L’unica persona che ha potuto reggere il peso di queste parole creative, e che per prima ha parlato in “doppia forma”, il primo che ha assunto le vesti di un altro, è Lucifero. In tutta la storia dell’umanità, Lucifero si è sempre mostrato in travestimenti e costumi, adottando le parole di qualcun altro.
Ha fatto questo sin dal Principio, quando ha rivestito la pelle del serpente e la lingua del serpente. Per la prima volta egli ha parlato per bocca di qualcun altro, facendo al serpente dire: “Ma è proprio vero ciò che Dio ha detto?”, e creando così una forma di mimetismo, una forma di duplicazione del linguaggio. Lucifero è il primo ad aver esplorato la sovrabbondanza del linguaggio, avvalendosi del teatro come fonte di energia, dando così origine all’arte stessa.
L’arte contiene, in questo modo, il mistero del Male già nel suo nucleo originale. D’altronde, il Male è anche l’aspetto più radicale della libertà che Dio ha concesso a tutti gli esseri.
Lucifero vive nella sua condanna che è, appunto, la zona del non-essere. Per tornare allo stato di essere, Lucifero è costretto ad assumere le sembianze di qualcun altro, la voce di qualcun altro. L’arte diventa necessaria quando non si è più in Paradiso. In questo senso, l’unica persona che potrebbe reggere l’atto di ripetere le parole di Dio, e ancor più nella loro lingua originale ebraica, è Lucifero.” (…)
Marshall: (…) “Questo sembra suggerire che sia il contenuto che lo stile della Genesi siano pensati per creare uno strano senso di tempo e di temporalità, o forse uno stato dove il tempo sembra non trascorrere. Lei si è descritto come in uno stato di sospensione che ‘annulla il tempo’. Come funziona questo?”
Castellucci: (…) “Il mio spettacolo Genesis non è solo il libro biblico della Genesi, ma è anche una genesi che reca al mondo, usando il palcoscenico, le mie proprie pretensioni di creare un mondo.
Lo spettacolo mette in scena gli aspetti più volgari del mio essere, cioè l’artista che vuole rubare a Dio l’ultimo e più importante Sefirot. Questo è il segreto dell’artista: rubare a Dio (Nella Cabala, i Sefirot sono dieci attributi mistici o strumenti di Dio, che forniscono la chiave della comunione fra il Finito e l’Infinito).
(…) In sintesi, la Genesi mi spaventa molto di più dell’Apocalisse. Nella Genesi sento il terrore puro di stare davanti a un mare aperto di infinite possibilità. E allora io mi perdo nella forma. L’Angelo dell’Arte è Lucifero. È Lui il primo che assume le sembianze e le fattezze di un’altro. È Lui il primo ad aver sdoppiato il linguaggio, salvo poi tradurlo.
È Lui il primo, e l’unico, ad aver dominato l’arte della trasformazione. Egli proviene dalla zona del non-essere. L’unica possibilità per lui di tornare alla zona dell’Essere è farlo con la voce, il corpo, il nome di un altro. A questo serve il teatro. Questa zona del non-essere è la zona genitale di ogni atto creativo. Questo permette la distruzione, che è condizione per scongiurare ogni eventuale superstizione.”
La superstizione, per Castellucci, è Cristo stesso, incarnazione di Dio tra gli uomini, Verbo divino che ha assunto la natura umana. Il pensiero gnostico nega la divinità di Cristo alla radice, perché concepisce la vita umana come un male in sé, in quanto “caduta” dalle regioni superiori del puro spirito.
Lo gnosticismo è l’anti – Vangelo, la “Cattiva Novella” che insegna a considerare un male la vita stessa, sin dal grembo materno. E’ il rovesciamento delle Scritture.
Dio ama la vita, ama la Sua creazione, che è bene.
Si legge in Genesi (1,13) che, dopo aver creato la terra, il mare e le piante ” Iddio vide che ciò era buono”. Per il satanista, al contrario, tutto ciò è cattivo. “.. La materia è oscura” dichiara Castellucci nell’intervista e aggiunge: “…i massacri, i genocidi, i disastri che l’umanità ha conosciuto nella storia recente, costituiscono un abisso, che è necessariamente connesso con la Creazione. Durante la Creazione, è la Parola di Dio che crea”.
Dunque per lo gnostico Castellucci, Gesù non è il Salvatore, ma un’entità ingannatrice, che salda le catene che trattengono la vocazione divina dell’uomo, nella prigione della natura e delle sue leggi.
In tal senso, la promessa di “liberazione” di Satana è la stessa della dottrina gnostico-satanista: “Diventerete come Dio”. (Genesi. 3,5)
Il pastore è dunque Lucifero, secondo Castellucci, perché conduce l’uomo dalla zona del non-essere, la materia, alla zona dell’Essere, alla dimensione del puro spirito che l’Arte presagisce e della quale Lucifero è l’angelo
La “condizione per scongiurare la superstizione” è distruggere, dichiara Castellucci. In questa logica, due sono gli strumenti della distruzione, della suprema anarchia che “libera”. La prima è l’apostasia: uccidere Dio nel proprio cuore. Per questo il satanista Castellucci lorda con escrementi il Sacro Volto.
La seconda è la trasgressione: cancellare la legge divina dai propri comportamenti. Per questo appare la scritta, nell’ultima scena, “ Tu non sei il mio pastore”.
La chiave di quest’ordine di idee, che oscilla tra l’empietà e l’idiozia, è il concetto di “puro spirito”che, nella teologia gnostico-satanista, sovrasta le tenebre della natura creata. Il concetto di “spirito” è qui volutamente fuorviante: non significa ciò che sembra significare. Il puro spirito, nel credo satanista, rappresenta da una parte l’esito finale del cammino iniziatico – la sapienza suprema – ma insieme il mezzo per conseguirla. Il mezzo è la trasgressione, simbolo e realtà di un “superamento” della natura che, si ripete, per lo gnostico-satanista è in sé oscura, malvagia. Superamento delle leggi di natura che conduce nella regione del puro spirito che non ha leggi.
Calpestare la legge di natura,violarla, permette quindi all’iniziato gnostico di accedere a stati superiori dell’essere. Lo gnostico, in una parola, è l’uomo che si pone al di là del bene e del male, e fa di se stesso, Dio.
La trasgressione, linfa del pensiero democratico-progressista, è dunque una categoria dello spirito che nasconde più di quanto non mostri ai suoi utenti, inconsapevoli discepoli dei Gran Maestri della trasgressione, individui della stessa razza di Castellucci, che educano la collettività ad un nuovo ordine, e ad un nuovo Dio, attraverso il sistema delle comunicazioni di massa. Compreso il teatro.
I passi citati dell’intervista, nella versione originale
Introduction
The story of God lovingly creating the universe, after which Man committed the first sin and was expelled from the Garden of Eden, is well known. Less familiar however is the mystic, Judaeo-Christian version found in Gnosticism, the Kabbala and Rosicrucianism. It is this version which Castellucci portrays through the use of sound, physical performance and massive, spectacular effects. Castellucci is tapping into the same traditions which served as the inspiration for artists such as Baudelaire, Antonin Artaud, Peter Brook (…)
In this darker version of Genesis, the act of Creation is not one of love, but a horrible mistake. The Kabbala for example talks of the universe being created when the sacred pots carrying the Word of God were dropped, exploding into millions of imperfect shards. The act of Creation is therefore a violent transgression against the laws of the universe–and hence all of Creation contains within it the seething chaos of a proto-universe just prior to the act of Creation itself. It is not Love which rules this universe, but Cruelty. It is not Man who sinned, but God (…)
Interview
You have stated that “Genesis scares me more than the Apocalypse” because it represents “the terror of endless possibility.” This would seem to draw heavily upon the writings of Antonin Artaud and Herbert Blau, as well as the Gnostic and Kabbalistic doctrines which Artaud himself was influenced by. Would you agree with the ideas usually associated with this cosmology? For example, Artaud contended that a terrifying chaos existed prior to Creation, and that this remained forever present, latent, or immanent within everyday existence. He argued that this “chaos” is the logical “double” of theatre. Is theatre’s highest aim and greatest virtue therefore that it can represent–or at least come close to representing–this chaos through live performance?
There is a tradition of Western theatre that is totally forgotten, cancelled, repressed: the tradition of pre-tragic theatre. And it is repressed precisely because it is a theatre that is closely linked to [the transformation of ideas, thoughts or ideal forms into] matter and hence with the anguish of matter itself. This form of theatre is linked moreover to a primal presence or power that is doubtless female. It is necessary to understand how the female aspect (in the mystery of the gestation of life and in the wardenship of the dead) is an aspect that is also involved in artistic expression, which has in turn found in this female component a relation with real life. This ‘female force’ runs from birth to burial.
If the great domain of open possibilities belongs to God, the fact that certain possibilities are joined together and made to happen must therefore belong–according to some Kabbalistic traditions–to the weight of the body itself. God must transform Himself into something “of the flesh” so as to be able to manifest possibilities that would otherwise remain unrealised within an inconsistent world. It is possible [according to these traditions] to experience possibilities through the invocation of material, carnal elements, and, through a conjunctions of these, to experiment with them.
Theatre is not something that must be ‘recognised’: “I-go-to-the-theatre-to-recognise-the-Shakespeare-studies-that-I-have-completed”. It is not [or should not] be like that. Theatre is rather a journey through the unknown, towards the unknown. What myself and those of a similar mind have tried to do over the years has been to hold high the scandal of the stage and to keep it constantly vibrating. Even the word “theatre” itself has to be continually re-invented, because it is a word that has completely lost its radical meaning. The stage is in fact a place of alienation, and nothing must be done to anaesthetise this alienation. The ‘problem’ of the author, of the text, of the tradition of narrative theatre has always been, in actuality, an attempt to solve this ‘problem’ by filling in the scandal which theatrical creation represents with various discourses, by forcing the actor–and therefore the actor’s body–to become nothing more than a repeater of these elements, diminishing the energy of the stage itself.
In this regard, I believe that the thought of Antonin Artaud is of fundamental importance for the whole consciousness of Western form. It plunges the problem of form [as in what form should an idea, thought, or aesthetic act take once made manifest within the material universe] into a bath of violence that re-awakens that which supports a true theatre. It is then that form becomes spirit. One is, in fact, here talking about the alchemy of transformation, of the transmigration of one form into another. There is of course an aspect of Catholicism which influences, and inheres within this type of theatre, which is connected to the moment during the Eucharist when the Host is transformed into the Body of Christ. This Eucharistic fact also is an idea that we find within Artaud: this idea of transforming a body, of donating a body, of cutting a body to pieces, of liberating a body from its organs: these are all elements that derive from such a Christian conception.
Do you think that these type of ideas have taken on a particular relevance in the light of 20th century events like the Holocaust, and indeed more recent events such as the Yugoslav Wars, September 11 and the decimation of Afghanistan?
The events that you have recalled, the massacres, the genocides, the disasters that humankind has experienced in its recent history, constitute an abyss which is necessarily connected with the experience of Creation. During Creation, it is the Word of God that creates; in these events however, there is His silence. The theatre is called upon to comprehend the heights and the abysses of human experience–but not through illustration, nor by means of the production of information. The experience of abomination is too deep to be consumed on the surface [or through such superficial means as by the representation of mere appearances]. It is necessary now that we should all begin to consider the term “tragedy” so as to collectively rethink the destiny of humanity. The theatre is called upon to address this task through the radicality of its form, which is that of a living art.
Following on from this, would you agree that all creative acts constitute an act of violence, or at least a violation of the taboo against creation? I have in mind here your suggestion that the fallen angel Lucifer is the first artist with whom humanity can identify.
Naturally, the theme of Genesis highlights the problem of the Beginning. At the Beginning each artist knows that the empty stage is an open sea of possibilities. This is also what constitutes the ‘terror of the scene.’ This is not–as far as I am concerned, in any case–a terror or fear of emptiness per se, but rather a terror of fullness: there is too much world. Quantity submerges us. Matter is obscure. Therefore, every time the artist elaborates upon this chaos so as to make something come out of it, one reconnects these possibilities. Lines and constellations are then created… by parthenogenesis, almost independently of one’s personality. With respect to the Beginning and the End, it is evident that theatre has in itself, ontologically, within its deep textures, this problem of the Beginning and the End–because they are co-penetrated. Theatre is a corporeal art par excellence which, by definition, when it “is really here”, in front of the spectator, it is also ending at the same time. Theatre is born at the same time as it dies, and vice versa.
What meaning does it now have to repeat those words which are the first words of Genesis itself and so are, indeed, the things themselves, the world itself? Are these words from Genesis the words which made the world happen, and so also those which have given rise to the stage? The only person who could bear the weight of these originating words is he who first spoke in a ‘double form’, he who first assumed the costume of another–namely Lucifer. Throughout the history of humanity, Lucifer has always made himself felt through disguises and costumes, assuming the words of someone else. He did this also at the Beginning, assuming the skin of the Serpent and the language of the Serpent. He duplicated for the first time the words of someone else, saying: “Is it really true, what God said?”, hence creating a form of mimesis, a form of duplication of language. He is indeed the first to work in the superabundance of language, to exploit the theatre as an energy, and hence also giving rise to art. Art finds in this originating nucleus its privileged relation to evil. Evil is moreover the extreme aspect of the freedom that God has conceded to all beings. Lucifer lives in the condition of his condemnation which is, quite precisely, to live in the region of non-being. In order to return to the state of being, Lucifer is forced to assume someone else’s disguise, someone else’s voice. Art becomes necessary when one is no longer in Paradise. In this sense, the only person who could endure the act of speaking again God’s words, let alone in their original language of Hebrew, was Lucifer.
This would seem to suggest that both the content and the style of Genesi are designed to create a very strange sense of time and temporality–or possibly a state in which time does not seem to pass at all. You have yourself described this as a “state of suspension” which “annuls time.” How is this achieved and is what I have described above what you are in fact trying to convey?
My show, Genesi, is not only a representation of the biblical Genesis, but it is a Genesis which brings to the world (using the stage) my rhetorical pretensions to remake the world. It puts onto the stage the most vulgar aspect of my being–namely that of the artist who wants to steal from God the last and most important of the Sephiroth. This is the secret of Polchinello too: to steal from God. [The Sephiroth are the 10 mystic attributes identified in the Kabbala as they key to the communion between the Finite with the Infinite (…)
In short, Genesis frightens me much more than the Apocalypse. The terror of pure possibility is there in this sea open to all possibilities. And there I lose myself in form. The Angel of Art is Lucifer. He is the first Being who puts on and assumes the costume and the clothes of another in order to Be. He has duplicated language and has translated it. The art of transformation is for him alone. He comes from the region of Non-being. The only way for him to return to the zone of Being is to write the name of another with his voice, with his body–and this is what the theatre is. This zone of Non-being is the genital condition of each act of creation. It allows the destruction which is necessary to ward off and avert all superstitions.
L’intervista completa
TheCastelluci interview: The Angel of Art is Lucifer http://realtimearts.net/article/issue52/7027
Introduction
An elderly, naked woman, possibly Eve (who has had a mastectomy), traverses a diagonal line towards the front of the stage and clumsily fondles some white thread. A monstrous spindle-machine starts behind her as her hair drops from her head and we realise that it is this which is being spun.
This is but one image from Romeo Castellucci’s staging of the Genesis myth–complete with elements from the Apocrypha (the non-official Bible) such as the Fall of Lucifer from highest angel to a hideous, deformed mimic of God who facilitates the chaos that underlies all of Creation. Like Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty tradition which the former-painter-turned-director is steeped in, the stuff of Castellucci’s theatre is stuff itself: matter, that which you and I swim in, yet which becomes strangely amorphous, slippery, weirdly sexual, deformed and impenetrable in his hands.
The story of God lovingly creating the universe, after which Man committed the first sin and was expelled from the Garden of Eden, is well known. Less familiar however is the mystic, Judaeo-Christian version found in Gnosticism, the Kabbala and Rosicrucianism. It is this version which Castellucci portrays through the use of sound, physical performance and massive, spectacular effects. Castellucci is tapping into the same traditions which served as the inspiration for artists such as Baudelaire, Antonin Artaud, Peter Brook (The Mahabarrata, Marat/Sade, etc), Carmello Bene, the master of Italian avant-garde cinema Pier Passolini, Jerzy Grotowski, the founder of the Japanese avant-garde dance form butoh Tatsumi Hijikata, and others.
In this darker version of Genesis, the act of Creation is not one of love, but a horrible mistake. The Kabbala for example talks of the universe being created when the sacred pots carrying the Word of God were dropped, exploding into millions of imperfect shards. The act of Creation is therefore a violent transgression against the laws of the universe–and hence all of Creation contains within it the seething chaos of a proto-universe just prior to the act of Creation itself. It is not Love which rules this universe, but Cruelty. It is not Man who sinned, but God. All of art, theatre and history therefore constitute a retelling of this initial act of primal violence, in which events like the Holocaust, September 11 and the destruction of Afghanistan are the norm, rather than the exception.
Castellucci’s essential thesis in Genesi: From the Museum of Sleep is that in the shift between an idea, a thought or our conception of any given thing, to its actual manifestation, something monstrous has taken place. We have violated cosmic law, become like God (or Lucifer) and tried to create something. Castellucci’s theatre is therefore one of cosmic dreams and nightmares, of temporal shifts and suspensions, such as the incredible second act set in Auschwitz, bathed in an unsettling yet warm, white glow, where literally nothing happens–as though the Holocaust has somehow killed time. Genesi strives to be very nearly, if not actually impossible to consciously understand, a work which one must apprehend, experience or perhaps merely endure. It exists in a radical, Dionysian realm beyond tragedy, beyond description and possibly beyond language itself. It is a work as complex as it is compelling, as bizarre as it is raucous. Operatically boosted by an incredible electroacoustic score by Lilith [Scott Gibbons], it shifts from dense screams to low, crunchy disturbance. It is a work as full of piety as it is full of sacrilege, as dense with allusive meanings as it is a deliberate staging of the absence or failure of meaning.
Interview
Why do you use the performers that you do? What is it that these performers offer that formally trained actors do not? Could you also tell me about the use of the body in your performances, and the choices that you have made in casting performers with various physical attributes? I am particularly interested in your casting of Cain.
In truth, every body is worthy of being on stage. For me there are no deformed bodies, but only bodies with different forms and different beauties, often with a type of beauty that we have forgotten. I believe that each body expresses something–any form of body. The age of an actor is important, as is how much actors weigh, how they twist their neck one way or the other, what their hands are like: these are all fundamental elements, much more interesting than the actor’s profession or professionality. Actors, in the moment when they let themselves be truly seen, are always the worthiest beings, and in this respect they represent the only possible form of performance. So, it is no longer a question of graceful or unpleasant, of professional or not, of fat or thin, of being a child or an old person. It is about sharing problems of art with these people. It is about interpretation, and not the presentation of reality. When one attempts to represent ‘reality’ on the stage, this always transforms the spectator into a voyeur. But here, in my theatre, performance is not about making a ‘theatre of truth’ or ‘social-theatre’, in the older sense.
Often, moreover, non-professionals attain an amazing ‘truth’ in their acting because they retain a capacity of surprise and a naturalness which many professionals have lost. The choice of actors is therefore based primarily upon the discovery of the beauty that is present within each of them and upon the necessities of the theatrical production. My theatre is open to all experiences and I always learn a lot in my work with the actors. I assign the characters and then I give the actors the freedom to act how they feel. I do not have a ‘method’ as such, but rather proceed according to the show, relying on the qualities and the gifts of each performer. For example, the actor who plays Adam in Genesi is a contortionist, and that makes him a perfect presence for this production. The actor who plays the role of Lucifer is a singer. We have worked on rhythm, on voice and with the sonorities of the Hebrew language. [Act I opens with Lucifer in Marie Curie’s laboratory, reciting from the Torah, accentuating various cutting, consonant sounds, as he traces characters from the text in the air. Adam later appears in Act I as part of a museuml tableau, in a glass case, a mounted crocodile suspended above him, violent electroacoustic cracking sounds accompanying his contortions.]
For the choice of the actor that plays Cain I have taken into consideration the fundamental fact that the fratricidal act had to be, in some way, innocent, infantile. For this reason I searched for an actor with one arm shorter than the other. The un-grown limb immediately suggests childhood, and the homicide becomes more complicated by adding to the violence of the act itself the ambiguity of a game that has, unfortunately for Cain himself, become definitive or irrevocable. The shorter arm bears witness to the fact that this is a game which, unlike all other games, cannot be started again, because its result has been fixed once and for all with this act that causes death, in the same way in which the arm has remained fixed in its childlike size. [In Act III, Cain embraces Abel about the neck with his withered arm and Abel collapses, dead, after which Cain gently attempts to coax the body back into life before he lies on top of his brother.]
Could you tell me a bit about the use of sound in the production? Why have you and Gibbons used the granular synthesis of images to generate sound, in which the digital mapping of various images from the history of visual art and iconography (the classical statue of “The Thorn-Puller”, Massaccio’s painting of “The Expulsion From Paradise”, etc), as well as turn of the century photography and science (Henry Fox Talbot’s early photography, Curie’s laboratory, Étienne-Jules Marey’s cinematic studies of motion, Francis Galton’s studies of atavistic racial physiognomy, X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA, etc) are transformed into sonic patterns? Can you really translate images into sound, or does this process in fact create something else, something perhaps more comparable to an unimagined sound or what French composer Pierre Schaeffer described as music for the “astonished ear”?
The sound is an integrative element within my shows. It has a body that is born out of its own dynamic, under the impulse of the alternation between din and silence. In general, the sound is not derived from any particular visual, sculptural or linguistic figure because it constitutes, in itself, a figure. The quality of a work may often be conveyed in a clearer fashion through the use of sound than by means of images. Sound opens perspectives and prepares the [scenographic or dramaturgical] field for creation. It is like a stream that carries forms. Scott Gibbons’ “granular” music transforms the sounds in such a way that they seem as they would, if they were perceived by the ear of an embryo.
Gibbons has developed sounds using a numerical technique called “granular synthesis” which he applied to various photographs I sent him every week from my home. Scott has been able to transform them into sound impulses. [In the program, Gibbons notes that this involved such transformations as “height mapped to pitch, color to stereo position, brightness to amplitude, etc”.] Some were anonymous photographs dating from the end of the 19th century, as well as some other things which I found in old manuals. Gibbons has thus been able to give voice to certain images which I felt were intimately connected with the show. From this, some scenes were born with sounds, and other sounds were born from certain scenes. Here too, it is one single emotional wave. There is no distinction made between these elements.
What is the role of text in your work? Do you think that your work is more eloquent than traditional, scripted, text-based theatre? It is has been suggested that most of the spoken words in Genesi are predominantly there to create musical effects, rather than to impart specific information, specific meanings, or to relate details of character and plot.
All of the scenic elements have the same importance. The process is comparable to the one employed in developing photographs. There is a dark room and a bath of acid. All the components of the image (colours, forms) emerge at the same time. The different elements are not placed in an hierarchy–simply because the human organism perceives emotional waves in a global fashion. For me, an initial text cannot prevail over the other elements, because then everything that comes afterwards would be an illustration, and illustrations only release a compensatory force which does not interest me.
Nevertheless my theatre is based upon the strongest of all possible relationships with the text and its words. This is a relation of struggle and antagonism. If the text remains an essentially literary product, then this means that the theatre has become nothing more than an illustration of this text or, at best, a recontextualisation of it. Within theatre itself however, the text must be definitely brought out of the literary container and allowed to transform itself into a literal, carnal power. Words are not essentially spiritual things. No, the word is first of all a muscular contraction, something physical. The word must be a body which it is possible to weigh, to illuminate. It is necessary for the word to have a body [even if only to be spoken]. In this way, the word is treated technically. It is treated exactly as every other element of the scene, each of which also has a body, just as the word does. And each time words are framed, this is only really possible within the dramaturgical frame. [Castellucci is implying that the embodied actions of theatre constitute a superior and more profound realisation of textual material than any other form.]
Would it be fair to describe Genesi as a Medieval Mystery play (the Medieval works depicting stories from the Bible and the Apocrypha) for the post-20th century world?
It is an evocative question, because the Middle Ages offer important suggestions–not, however, in the theoretical field of dramaturgy, but in the sense that this representation is neither born nor develops within the context of the ecclesiastical pedagogy which was typical of the Medieval theatre. Nor does this version of Genesis communicate the revealed truths of [religious] transcendence. Rather, this production remains totally within the immanence of the human condition, not transcending it, which situates this production particularly within the condition of the artist. The dramatic morphology on the other hand, although it remains distant from the action-followed-by-consequences structure of previous sacred representations, may nevertheless be said to have a certain connection to the Catholic model of spiritual ‘stations.’ Genesi too is effectively structured according to such thematic pictures. [The 14 Stations of the Cross are a series of devotional paintings or sculptures representing the Passion of Christ. The Stations mark His progression towards martyrdom and Transfiguration.]
You have stated that “Genesis scares me more than the Apocalypse” because it represents “the terror of endless possibility.” This would seem to draw heavily upon the writings of Antonin Artaud and Herbert Blau, as well as the Gnostic and Kabbalistic doctrines which Artaud himself was influenced by. Would you agree with the ideas usually associated with this cosmology? For example, Artaud contended that a terrifying chaos existed prior to Creation, and that this remained forever present, latent, or immanent within everyday existence. He argued that this “chaos” is the logical “double” of theatre. Is theatre’s highest aim and greatest virtue therefore that it can represent–or at least come close to representing–this chaos through live performance?
There is a tradition of Western theatre that is totally forgotten, cancelled, repressed: the tradition of pre-tragic theatre. And it is repressed precisely because it is a theatre that is closely linked to [the transformation of ideas, thoughts or ideal forms into] matter and hence with the anguish of matter itself. This form of theatre is linked moreover to a primal presence or power that is doubtless female. It is necessary to understand how the female aspect (in the mystery of the gestation of life and in the wardenship of the dead) is an aspect that is also involved in artistic expression, which has in turn found in this female component a relation with real life. This ‘female force’ runs from birth to burial.
If the great domain of open possibilities belongs to God, the fact that certain possibilities are joined together and made to happen must therefore belong–according to some Kabbalistic traditions–to the weight of the body itself. God must transform Himself into something “of the flesh” so as to be able to manifest possibilities that would otherwise remain unrealised within an inconsistent world. It is possible [according to these traditions] to experience possibilities through the invocation of material, carnal elements, and, through a conjunctions of these, to experiment with them.
Theatre is not something that must be ‘recognised’: “I-go-to-the-theatre-to-recognise-the-Shakespeare-studies-that-I-have-completed”. It is not [or should not] be like that. Theatre is rather a journey through the unknown, towards the unknown. What myself and those of a similar mind have tried to do over the years has been to hold high the scandal of the stage and to keep it constantly vibrating. Even the word “theatre” itself has to be continually re-invented, because it is a word that has completely lost its radical meaning. The stage is in fact a place of alienation, and nothing must be done to anaesthetise this alienation. The ‘problem’ of the author, of the text, of the tradition of narrative theatre has always been, in actuality, an attempt to solve this ‘problem’ by filling in the scandal which theatrical creation represents with various discourses, by forcing the actor–and therefore the actor’s body–to become nothing more than a repeater of these elements, diminishing the energy of the stage itself.
In this regard, I believe that the thought of Antonin Artaud is of fundamental importance for the whole consciousness of Western form. It plunges the problem of form [as in what form should an idea, thought, or aesthetic act take once made manifest within the material universe] into a bath of violence that re-awakens that which supports a true theatre. It is then that form becomes spirit. One is, in fact, here talking about the alchemy of transformation, of the transmigration of one form into another. There is of course an aspect of Catholicism which influences, and inheres within this type of theatre, which is connected to the moment during the Eucharist when the Host is transformed into the Body of Christ. This Eucharistic fact also is an idea that we find within Artaud: this idea of transforming a body, of donating a body, of cutting a body to pieces, of liberating a body from its organs: these are all elements that derive from such a Christian conception.
The terror that you were alluding to from the Beginning derives from the fact that one no longer recognises language [at this moment when one encounters the chaos], and this causes terror. One no longer recognises that which connects us to each other within the human community [that which allows us to communicate, to think and to express ourselves]… Words become disconnected from the things we know and precipitate within this undifferentiated state. But only from there can “your” true language be born again.
Do you think that these type of ideas have taken on a particular relevance in the light of 20th century events like the Holocaust, and indeed more recent events such as the Yugoslav Wars, September 11 and the decimation of Afghanistan?
The events that you have recalled, the massacres, the genocides, the disasters that humankind has experienced in its recent history, constitute an abyss which is necessarily connected with the experience of Creation. During Creation, it is the Word of God that creates; in these events however, there is His silence. The theatre is called upon to comprehend the heights and the abysses of human experience–but not through illustration, nor by means of the production of information. The experience of abomination is too deep to be consumed on the surface [or through such superficial means as by the representation of mere appearances]. It is necessary now that we should all begin to consider the term “tragedy” so as to collectively rethink the destiny of humanity. The theatre is called upon to address this task through the radicality of its form, which is that of a living art.
Following on from this, would you agree that all creative acts constitute an act of violence, or at least a violation of the taboo against creation? I have in mind here your suggestion that the fallen angel Lucifer is the first artist with whom humanity can identify.
Naturally, the theme of Genesis highlights the problem of the Beginning. At the Beginning each artist knows that the empty stage is an open sea of possibilities. This is also what constitutes the ‘terror of the scene.’ This is not–as far as I am concerned, in any case–a terror or fear of emptiness per se, but rather a terror of fullness: there is too much world. Quantity submerges us. Matter is obscure. Therefore, every time the artist elaborates upon this chaos so as to make something come out of it, one reconnects these possibilities. Lines and constellations are then created… by parthenogenesis, almost independently of one’s personality. With respect to the Beginning and the End, it is evident that theatre has in itself, ontologically, within its deep textures, this problem of the Beginning and the End–because they are co-penetrated. Theatre is a corporeal art par excellence which, by definition, when it “is really here”, in front of the spectator, it is also ending at the same time. Theatre is born at the same time as it dies, and vice versa.
What meaning does it now have to repeat those words which are the first words of Genesis itself and so are, indeed, the things themselves, the world itself? Are these words from Genesis the words which made the world happen, and so also those which have given rise to the stage? The only person who could bear the weight of these originating words is he who first spoke in a ‘double form’, he who first assumed the costume of another–namely Lucifer. Throughout the history of humanity, Lucifer has always made himself felt through disguises and costumes, assuming the words of someone else. He did this also at the Beginning, assuming the skin of the Serpent and the language of the Serpent. He duplicated for the first time the words of someone else, saying: “Is it really true, what God said?”, hence creating a form of mimesis, a form of duplication of language. He is indeed the first to work in the superabundance of language, to exploit the theatre as an energy, and hence also giving rise to art. Art finds in this originating nucleus its privileged relation to evil. Evil is moreover the extreme aspect of the freedom that God has conceded to all beings. Lucifer lives in the condition of his condemnation which is, quite precisely, to live in the region of non-being. In order to return to the state of being, Lucifer is forced to assume someone else’s disguise, someone else’s voice. Art becomes necessary when one is no longer in Paradise. In this sense, the only person who could endure the act of speaking again God’s words, let alone in their original language of Hebrew, was Lucifer.
In Genesi, Lucifer’s conference is held on a little table, in the study of Mme Curie, in a drawer of which is contained a little stone of radium. Radium is, among other things, a stone that emits a light of its own [Ital. luce]. Radium is therefore mysteriously close in etymology to the word “Lucifer.” The true radioactive nature of radium’s glow was not known at that time. It was nevertheless a light which penetrated bones; it had something evil about it. It was also however the light of knowledge, which one could relate to the games which art plays as well–this exposing of oneself continually for one’s own ends.
Could you tell me about the evocation of time within Genesi? You have suggested for example that both historic acts of violence–and indeed their representation in the theatre–are only possible because of a “foetal amnesia” in which we forget the history of violence which this production is itself designed to depict. The Holocaust therefore repeats the murder of Able by Cain, just as the sacrifice of Christ repeats Abraham’s sacrifice of the lamb, or Marie Curie’s discovery of radium repeats the discovery of the Tree of Knowledge, and the actions of humanity repeat the sins of Lucifer (pride, creation, the desire to become like God, etc).
This would seem to suggest that both the content and the style of Genesi are designed to create a very strange sense of time and temporality–or possibly a state in which time does not seem to pass at all. You have yourself described this as a “state of suspension” which “annuls time.” How is this achieved and is what I have described above what you are in fact trying to convey?
This question of time in the theatre refers to the experience of another time which theatre founds. I mean the flowing of time. I am not referring to a chronology, but to the quality of time itself. The final lapis of this alchemy which defines theatre is time itself. All of the transformations which I was suggesting before are not designed to do anything other than to modify time, to inaugurate another time. [Lapis is Latin for a smooth stone, as in lapis-lazuli, an ingredient for many alchemical preparations.]
Theatre is, by its nature, an operation performed upon time. Dramaturgy can be defined as the art of modifying the flow of time. Time constitutes a material for the theatre worker, just as colour is for the painter or marble is for the sculptor. Time is a primary raw material to be worked, to be developed according to its dynamics, to be dilated or–on the contrary–to be condensed. This show embraces different qualities of time, which are proper to each of the 3 acts, yet without placing them into any kind of dialectic per se.
The first is derived from Bere_it [first Hebrew word of the section of the Torah dealing with Genesis, meaning: “In the Beginning”]. It corresponds to a reality outside of time. The Creation occurs before the invention of time. The initial relationship of God with the Elements occurs in the obscurity of the darkness and in the absence of time. The second act, which has the name of a town, Auschwitz, precipitates the action into a historical time. The last act, Abel and Cain, evokes a mythical time. These 3 approaches revolve around the fundamentally intertwined themes of creation and destruction. The dramaturgical work therefore consists in making visible [through the action of the stage] the differences which these temporal structures effect upon one’s perception of the flow of time.
The first part ideally unfolds outside of time, and this is rendered symbolically by the obscurity that reigns upon the stage. But Genesis is also a frenzied act which is accomplished amongst the chaos. The stage starts to quake: one sees apparitions of lightning, lateral entrances, entrances from high and from below [several objects are flow in and off stage, including a clear tank of bubbling water, which may represent the unleashed power of radium and Creation], rotations, cacophonic machines that suddenly begin to shake [there are at least 2 of these: the first a flattened, bucking, metallic insect, which the program describes as “Something bronze that is writing”; the second an unadorned mechanical armature at the side of the stage which intermittently applauds the action], bodies that burn, cords which stretch across stage [literally in the case of Eve’s hair], objects that fall from the air, and ground that [literally] swells, which breathes… As if God was surprised by what he was doing in the process of creating.
The flow of time then becomes mechanical, fragmented. [At this point a naked black man appears and plants two carrots into a mound of soil; the Avenging Angel Gabriel appears and grasps the handle of sword suspended in the air, whose blade is aflame; etc.]
Auschwitz, on the contrary, evokes a sense of extermination–even of time. A time which relates to a historical moment seems suspended, swathed in the wadding of a nursery and the unctuous melodies of Luis Mariano. [Act II is set in an open white space where children play at serious, often symbolic games. One enters on a toy train, for example, a yellow star on the back of his jacket, and takes down a series of rubber, human organs suspended above the stage, placing them into the carriages, before departing.]
Abel and Cain however returns to the original homicide. Here, time becomes music. Cain is the first man to face the dramatic duel between the 2 fundamental polarities of human action: the Beginning and the End [ie this first act of human violence nevertheless contains within it the End of all things and hence serves as the final tableau in Castellucci’s exposition of Genesis]. The essential problem of the Creator, of artists, is their permanent confrontation with the void, with chaos. Each act of Creation presupposes a prior act of destruction. Creation becomes then a re-creation, and each phase which precedes this re-creation must be a systematic destruction of all acquired habits [if it is to be true act of novel creation]. It is therefore necessary to destroy the habits associated with words. The same holds true for the word “Creation” itself. It is a word which no longer means anything, as is also the case with the words “stage” or “scene.” These are words whose meaning has been forgotten, falling into oblivion, into inertia. The first task of the artist is to destroy this “tiredness” of words, to re-awaken their sense.
It is also necessary to destroy the habit of acts. It should never be a matter of habit to perform a show. Each time one performs a show, presenting it to view, it must be a scandal of reality. Each performance is a threat or provocation, a suspension of reality, a fissure in the real. The word “creation” is too strong a term if one reads it in the light of reality. One must rather read it as evoking this sense of re-creation.
It is this way that the act of creation and Genesis may be brought together. The only Genesis that I can conceive starts from the idea of this crisis of creation. I can only capture and hold onto such images as might, at least in my opinion, interest someone like God–a marvellous and unique God. The figure of the artist moreover is only extreme within the context of the monotheistic religions–and this is because it is within these religions that the price of shame is greatest. The artist, as creator, has a special relationship with God and the Book of Genesis because it is this Book that puts onto the stage the essence of artistic work or creation. The artist himself can only therefore be a Re-creator. The most violent aspect of this relationship which the artist entertains with this God (who is, above all, the only true Creator) is his capacity to be exposed to ridicule. Each artist is in effect a little Creator or God, but the artist’s creation is ridiculous when placed alongside the work of God. It is a false artefact.
I am not saying however that artists must measure themselves against God. To compare oneself to God is not only impossible, but, in the strict sense of the term, it is unthinkable. God is born incessantly–I tell you this above all as an artist, and there is nothing mystical about this. My show, Genesi, is not only a representation of the biblical Genesis, but it is a Genesis which brings to the world (using the stage) my rhetorical pretensions to remake the world. It puts onto the stage the most vulgar aspect of my being–namely that of the artist who wants to steal from God the last and most important of the Sephiroth. This is the secret of Polchinello too: to steal from God. [The Sephiroth are the 10 mystic attributes identified in the Kabbala as they key to the communion between the Finite with the Infinite. Polchinello was mischievous peasant character, highly disrespectful of his social betters, from 17th century French marionette theatre. Punch is a later, English derivation.]
In short, Genesis frightens me much more than the Apocalypse. The terror of pure possibility is there in this sea open to all possibilities. And there I lose myself in form. The Angel of Art is Lucifer. He is the first Being who puts on and assumes the costume and the clothes of another in order to Be. He has duplicated language and has translated it. The art of transformation is for him alone. He comes from the region of Non-being. The only way for him to return to the zone of Being is to write the name of another with his voice, with his body–and this is what the theatre is. This zone of Non-being is the genital condition of each act of creation. It allows the destruction which is necessary to ward off and avert all superstitions. [Castellucci is highlighting the paradoxical nature of the Judaeo-Christian mystical tradition he is heir to. If one communes with the divine by becoming like God, one also comes to doubt in the unique power of the divine. This is the condition of the director too.]
The author would like to thank the staff of the 2002 Melbourne Festival–especially Andi Moore and Ally Catterick–for making this interview possible and for providing translation services.
Archivio online della rivista Real Time Arts.
http://realtimearts.net/article/52/7027.
L’archivio suddivide gli articoli pubblicati in settori, ciascuno dei quali ne raccoglie molte decine. L’articolo “ The Castellucci interview- The angel of Art il Lucifer” si trova nel settore 52 (vi si accede, dal primo settore che si presenta, il 106, utilizzando la barra di scorrimento verso il basso) Nel settore 52, l’articolo in questione si trova al 51° posto.
Nell’archivio è presente un articolo su un’altra opera di Castellucci, dal titolo “Genesi:from the museum of sleep”. Questo articolo è il primo del settore 52.
Centro Studi Jeanne d'Arc 