about opening the rehearsal

I am interested how artists explore their secret practice on their blogs and how they write about the process behind the curtain. Because somehow this blog is a fascinating exercise for me which i do not understand completely. What I know is that it brings satisfaction by pinning down important bits-and-pieces of my every-day-life which i encounter and which are worth to talk about and most of all, my theatrical explorations . To my surprise, the blogosphere is full of directors and actors that are exploring their stage practice online. But the most extreme act so-far is made by The Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in New York (the name is not an accident for this type of exposure!). They are rehearsing a new show, Astronome – A Night at the Opera and the rehearsals are streamed online until the show opens. Of course, bloggers were excited by the project (in US at least), one guy puts it very simple: "Watch Foreman, his cast and his crew create a new work before your very eyes. You want the theatrical process available through the internet, you've got it."

But what is behind this Ontological-Hysteric Theatre? Well, it was founded in 1968 by Richard Forman. He explained later how he started: "They were normal bourgeois theater, domestic triangle situations. That's why I called my theater "Ontological-Hysteric," because the basic syndrome controlling the structure was a classical, boulevard comedy syndrome, which I took to be hysteric in its roots." The Ontological-Hysteric Theater puts together elements of the performative, auditory and visual arts, philosophy, psychoanalysis and literature for an unusual theatrical mix thrown on stage. They engage openly with what John Keats famously described as “negative capability” (or what i would call the creative element of hysteria) - i.e. "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." He seeks to make work that unsettles and disorients received ideas and opens the doors for alternative models of perception, organization, and understanding. From their webpage I found out that in 2005 Foreman began a second chapter in his work with the introduction of the digital video and film media as dominating forces in his redefinition of ontologically hysteric theater.
But back to blogs about rehearsals: one of the most interesting examples is the Hey Mathew blog, which goes into very intimate details of the rehearsal process of a new show. For me, rehearsals are the most private element of the staging process, I don't like people around when we start them and I rarely talk about them to externals. But on the other hand I am very interested in what is going to change in the staging process if you make it very transparent and like the New York theatre you open it to basically everyone in the world. What can be the effects on the performance? What are the effects on future spectators, actors and the director? Chris Wilkinson's article suspects these new methods of being just another marketing tool. By not ignoring the commercial aspect of opening the rehearsal room, there are also other external reasons for these methods. One of them is survival and I can give one example: during state socialist Romania strong censorship was making uncertain any performance that had a political perspective. Because censors were usually stopping the performance before the premiere one mechanism of making it work for some audience was to have open rehearsals for as long as possible. That affected the staging process of course.
A direct effect of opening the sacred space of rehearsals for public can be the subversion of director's authority and old-school dictatorship, so popular in Eastern Europe theatre at least. But on the other hand, it can work or not work from project to project and from company to company. Actors are very important at this point: if they see it as a form of agency and creative booster in the creative process and relation to the director. If they get scared and don't feel like working at all with a webcam transmitting live nearby, it can be a huge mess. Personally, I would try it at some point, depending on the team and also on the concept of the performance. If the full opened rehearsal can become part of the main concept for the show it would be great. I am reflecting on the idea of such a project.