The Pirandellian Politics of ‘Information’
Junior Jesse Green reimagines the repressive atmosphere of Grisleda
Gambaro’s 1972 play
by Thomas Lee
Argentine playwright Griselda Gambaro’s Information for Foreigners
is a challenging dramatic piece for any director, and certainly a challenge
for an undergraduate in the process of directing his first major theatrical
production at Harvard.
The 1972 play consists of 20 scenes, all of which are intended to take
place in different rooms in an actual house. Led by guides, roving groups
of audience members witness these scenes at random. By turns horrific
and farcical, the play foretold Argentina’s infamous "Dirty
Wars," a period of government-sponsored terrorism in the 1970’s
and 80’s when many of the country’s citizens were routinely
kidnapped (or "disappeared"), tortured, and eventually murdered.
Jesse Aron Green, a junior Visual and Environmental Studies concentrator
with a special interest in filmmaking, read Information for Foreigners
as a sophomore and was immediately caught up in the play’s daring
content and unusual structure. "I read it and immediately felt it
was something I had to direct," he states. "At the same time,
I recognized that employing a multimedia approach in its staging would
help make it contemporary for a Harvard audience, while also engaging
my skills in film and video, something I was eager to do."
That initial enthusiasm has led to a production of the play which will
be presented in the Loeb Drama Center’s Experimental Theater May
2-11. But instead of Gambaro’s intended site-specific environmental
staging and large cast of live actors, Green is utilizing video to be
played on a bank of eight television monitors situated in the Ex’s
black box space. As he wrote in his Office for the Arts grant application
for the project submitted last fall, "Live actors performing in the
Ex, in conjunction with the television footage, will complete the experience,
firmly situating the audience at the center of a media-based panopticon."
(Green was awarded a $400.00 Thomas S. Mayer Grant.)
"There isn’t an exact through-line for the play; it’s not
a clear narrative," Green added in a recent interview. "There
are a few recurring characters, and definitely recurring themes. The power
of the play, however, lies in the juxtaposition of the different scenes
being displayed on the televisions, and the meanings that arise from those
juxtapositions, almost like ‘third-meanings’ in a filmic sense."
As he began planning the production, Green realized that his limited playing
space would not be able to accommodate the more than 40 actors required
by Gambaro’s script. Blocking all of the play’s movement, including
the movement of the audience members roaming the space, would be a considerable
challenge.
"What I decided to do is videotape the bulk of the 20 scenes in different
locations of the Loeb Drama Center," Green explains. "So what
will happen is that the audience will enter the Ex and see a ring of TV
monitors, and watch them during the performance. On the monitors, a guide
character will lead the action throughout the other areas of the building:
the waiting areas, the hallways, the offices and the rehearsal rooms.
The scenes of the play take place in these different locations. Hopefully,
the audience will recognize these spaces, and realize that the action
of the play is happening immediately around them, outside the doors that
mark the boundary between the theater space of the Ex, and the ‘real’
space outside. In this way, the theater space becomes a space of inaction,
and of pure observation."
In a sense, Green is co-opting or deconstructing the concept of reality
TV shows like "Survivor" and "The Real World" that
present supposedly real-life drama in a very staged way. As he says, "A
theme that runs through the play is, what is ‘real’ and what
is ‘acted?’ Are these people acting in a play called Information
for Foreigners, or are they part of this construct that is perpetrating
torture and kidnapping? It’s unclear. The distinction between what
is theater, or representational, and what is real is blurred. I’ve
been thinking about the American Repertory Theater’s famous productions
of Pirandello’s plays, especially Six Characters in Search of an
Author and Tonight We Improvise. Both played with the audience’s
expectations of what is rehearsed and staged, and what sometimes appears
to be reality."
At the same time, Green realizes that bringing the play into the contemporary,
Harvard-based theater realm may pose a challenge for his audience, especially
in regards to audience members’ connection with the play’s political
concerns. "Gambaro’s themes need to be illuminated a bit,"
he says. "The play is about Argentine history and politics, and many
of the scenes are based on actual events; the guide character even reads
from real Argentine newspapers from the 1970’s. The power of these
references is lost on a contemporary American audience, and I’m striving
to make the play relevant by re-forming it and re-presenting those references,
by bringing it out for the audience."
Above all, Green hopes that the production will be a "transformative
experience."
"Implicating her audience in a system of complicit voyeurism was one of Gambaro’s central concerns," he notes. "In Argentina, there is a history of people turning away from what they see in the streets, of ignoring the violence and kidnapping; of not getting involved. Unfortunately, recent events in Argentina include the rise of another military government, and seem to show that the public continues to turn a blind eye to the events of the past. I’m hoping this play brings Argentina, and its history, into light, but also makes a more general statement about how people watch events, action, and history unfold. To transpose that to America: how does one react to what one sees on TV, as opposed to what one sees in ‘real life’? I’m trying to force that attention to viewership in the formal aspects of this production, so I use different filmic ways of depicting the scenes. For instance, one scene is like a situation comedy; another is like a 40s film noir, with harsh lighting and sharp angles. I’m depicting the different ways that we are told to view the world by quoting from the way that images are presented to us, by referencing different genres. A lingering question is, who is presenting these images to us, or who has the authority, the power to author these representations? Who is in power, who is controlling the images we see? What is behind the screen that is offered up to us as reality?
"I’ve been trying to be aware of the fact that this is a piece
being produced at Harvard, that it’s happening in this community,
and very specifically in the Loeb Ex," Green adds. "It’s
a real place that has a certain tradition of performance, a history, and
the audience attending the play will be aware of that. I want the audience
to feel as though they are a part of the structure."
Performances of Information for Foreigners are May 2-5, 9-11
at 7:30 pm; May 4 and 10 at 9:30 pm; and May 5 and 11 at 2:30 pm in the
Loeb Drama Center’s Experimental Theater at 64 Brattle St. Free tickets
may be obtained at the Loeb box office. Information: 617-547-8300 or http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~jagreen.
