Partial Eclipse: Caracas, Venezuela

off. Their latest, Quarantaine, is more a minimalist sculpture-like dynamic installation, a far cry from their earlier language-tied and relatively baroque explorations of William Burroughs' work and their theatrical tributes to Dufresne and Guyotard. Despite its non-representational, modernist stance, the current work cannot but fail to be seen as an outgrowth of a Belgian historical sensibility vis-a-vis Breughel and, relatedly, Bosch and Max Ernst. If Le Plan K is aligned with the modernist avant-garde as we know it here, then Laboratoire Dur-an-ke and Ideal Stand-art's Artefact, realized by Patrick Roegiers, is the supra-technological, punk-endowed, "postmodernist" sensibility that sees anarchy as the final solution to humankind's ills. Howsoever failed as a project, Artefact does, in retrospect, throw light on the Belgian situation of today. Isolated economically amidst the more wealthy nations of Europe, having suffered (in the world's eyes) as a cultural nonentity, its loss as a political/colonial power, and a day-to-day social life propped up by diplomatic dollars (Brussels is the seat of NATO and other international agencies), native Belgians and the artists among them see their nation ripe for a major upheaval. So far, the upheaval remains confined to their arts, but what it augurs in the country's political life should remain as the larger question. Partial Eclipse Caracas, Venezuela Michael Earley What the Fifth International Theatre Festival held in Caracas this past summer seemed to demonstrate, above everything else, is the cultural ellipsis that most world festivals of this kind have begun to suffer. What is fast disappearing is the notion that has persisted for some time now that there is still a "community" of world theatre. That the joint celebration and solidarity of doing theatre together, which once marked these festivals,was still a commonly shared goal is simply no longer true. Like a good deal else in the world, the theatre has retrenched to some degree or else split up into a variety of gestures and preoccupations that are no longer general but are 129 Poland's Cricot 2 in WIELOPOLE, WIELOPOLE (Dir. Tadeusz Kantor) really quite specific and on some levels quite local. And there is nothing wrong with that. It simply means that what theatre in other parts of the world Is saying, it may not be saying to you. In Caracas, the Latin American artists seemed 4s isolated and wary of one another as they were of their North American, East and West European, African, and Asian counterparts. Each huddled in their own group, affecting outward appearances of cordiality as though they were participating in an international sports competition or, even worse, a trade fair. And it wasn't just the language barriers but rather something more-the growing Individual sense of one's being in a world apart from others. While the Caracas setting, relying on its position as one of Latin America's "freest" countries, promised polemics of sorts (both Andrzej Wajda with his newly completed Man of Iron film and Vanessa Redgrave with her Palestinians film were invited), they never delivered (neither came nor were the films shown). A series of seminars/debates organized around the global topic "Theatre and Society," featuring such festival participants as Arthur Miller, actress Nuria Espert, critic Ernesto Schoo, directors Augusto Boal, Enrique Buenaventura, and Tadeusz Kantor, lapsed into a haze of academic rhetoric, fond memories, and limp observations. Its largely youthful audience (the next generation?), strong at the start, quickly sized up the situation and faded as the festival progressed. Meetings between Latin American playwrights and visiting Spanish ones-a rather historical occasion -moved towards some sort of sensitive dialogue only after they had 130 Argentina's Teatro Planeta in BODA BLANCA [White Marriage] (Dir. Laura Yusem) collectively agreed that the individual playwright was not a compelling factor on the Latin American theatre scene. Polemics and politics, while anxious at every moment to surface and exert themselves, oddly and shyly kept their peace. Self control seemed to be the watchword. And by and large this was true of the actual performances, too As a theatre festival, Caracas programmed about 22 productions from 18 countries, most "experimental...