The Paper Canoe, and: The Actor's Way, and: Towards a Third Theater (review)

When Eugenio Barba first went to the theatre, he was 15 years old. The production, Cyrano, interested but did not amaze him. Until, that is, the sudden appearance on stage of a horse: “Its presence exploded all the dimensions which until then had reigned on that stage. . . . [T]he scene was torn asunder” (81). This living horse, Barba recounts in The Paper Canoe, burst through the dull surface of the stage fiction to confront its audience with an absolute and irrefutable presence.

To study presence, or what Barba more broadly labels the “pre-expressive,” is to examine the principles of performance that recur universally and are the foundation of the performer’s art. Barba’s work—both with the Odin Teatret and at the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA), the research center he founded in 1979—focuses on studying the actor’s ability to fascinate, independent of context or meaning. Barba’s theatre anthropology attempts to “single out transcultural principles which, on the operative level, are the basis of scenic behaviour” (45). The empirical research conducted at ISTA (during symposia of professionals and scholars from East and West) revolves about these questions: what are the material bases of the performer’s art? What principles do performers hold in common across cultural boundaries?

The Paper Canoe is a contemplation and elaboration of ideas about pre-expressivity that Barba has developed in earlier writings. Here, Barba addresses the technique of the performer: how the body thinks and acts; how energy is channeled, molded, miniaturized; how thought and act are connected. Barba also examines the wellsprings of the actor’s energy, which results from “the collision of an effort with a resistance” (7).

Barba is interested in the techniques of the body, which ultimately are both physical and mental. The principles governing pre-expressive energy create a fictive body with movements that differ from the behaviors of daily life. The performer’s body is engaged in extra-daily behavior characterized by a nonefficient use of energy. All theatrical performance, regardless of genre, style or cultural tradition, is based upon this scenic behavior. Much of our gestural life is habitual, automatic, conditioned, and “culturally determined” (15). The performer’s scenic life, however, is governed by constant and recurring principles: a precarious or “luxury” balance, which refers to a controlled alteration or distortion leading to a “permanently unstable balance” in the performer (19); opposition of forces (scenic movement based on tensions between opposing energies); equivalence, or translation of form; and compression of energy, wherein a maximum of intensity is achieved with a minimum of activity. These principles imply “methods to break the automatic response of daily life” (32).

Barba’s theories are intimately connected to his work with his company, the Odin, which he founded in 1964. One of the defining aspects of the Odin is its longevity: thirty years as a producing company, punctuated by short sabbaticals, with a stable core of actors and productions as a living part of the repertory for years at a time. The Odin has functioned from the beginning as a theatre community characterized by a unified methodology, with a principal commitment to physical training, continuity of the community, and the autonomy of the actor. The company’s productions, which take a year or more to develop, are visual, visceral experiences that take their power from the biological presence of the actor. Typically, these are theme-based rather than plot-driven and characterized by a fluidity of time and space, synchronous scenography, non-literal use of language, and an emphasis on montage.

Though the final chapter of The Paper Canoe provides a detailed transcript of a week-long seminar led by Barba in 1985 (the text of which clarifies a great deal about Barba’s working methods...