Number Eleven Theatre's the Prague Visitor: A Journey into a Canadian Company's Creative Process

In Eugenio Barba's The Secret Art of Performer, Fernandino Taviani asks following question: Do those who make a performance think of it as a machine or as a plant? (259). In case of result-oriented approaches, Taviani notes that performance is considered to be a machine that works properly only it corresponds exactly to original plan and if each part functions correctly and at right time (259). He then contrasts this machine-like performance with one that unfolds as would a growing plant, and remarks that the processes which form a plant are not merely assembling of its vital parts, so that the final form a plant takes never corresponds to a plan, it is result-imaginable but unforeseeable-of an organic (259). In case of Barba's particular approach, Taviani concludes that the problem, then, is process of not planning of way it will end (261). Given that Canadian company Number Eleven Theatre belongs to what may be termed North American Barba diaspora, it is precisely question of creative process that I will address in this case study of making of The Prague Visitor, a production that premiered in Toronto on 13 March 2003. The main characteristic of Number Eleven Theatre is company's commitment to process-oriented conception of performance described by Taviani. Consequently, it would be pointless to treat The Prague Visitor as a machine and to strive to establish how its various parts function together to create meaning. Indeed, spectator's freedom to view this piece through prism of a multifarious network of personal associations is so pivotal to company's approach that there are necessarily as many interpretations of The Prague Visitor as there are audience members at any given performance. Furthermore, given collaborative nature of work process that led to creation of this piece, it is important when analyzing it to go beyond level of possible interpretations and to investigate complex ways in which process informs performance. In contrast with more conventional ways of creating theatre, actors and director that participate in this process may be considered co-authors: on one hand, actors work on creation of a precise physical score based on personal research, while on other hand, director organizes, edits, and orchestrates these actions into an overall structure that constitutes montage. Co-authorship also includes audience to extent that it actively participates in construction of signification. Although Number Eleven Theatre is a relatively new company, its conception of performance will be familiar to those audiences in Canada, United States, and Europe who have seen productions by Primus Theatre, Theatre Labyrinth (recently renamed Wishhounds: see TF #23), North American Cultural Laboratory, and New World Performance Laboratory. What these Canadian and American groups all have in common is their emphasis on a type of physical and vocal training inherited from Barba's and Grotowski's respective investigations of actor's process. These companies are mostly concerned with producing actor-based experimental pieces that do not rely on director's interpretation of a specific dramatic text. Members of Grotowski and Barba diasporas choose to make a long-term commitment to the work, as they often put it, that is to say, a commitment to a specific approach to training, rehearsal, and performance. Working within same group year after year is necessarily very different from pursuing an acting career in commercial theatre or entertainment industry at large. The most demanding and challenging aspect of process-oriented work may be its collaborative dimension yet, when successful, such artistic collaboration can be immensely rewarding for all participants, as routes taken by each lead to unexpected outcomes within an imaginary world echoing multiple voices and, in case of The Prague Visitor, multiple languages, since English, Hebrew, German, and Czech make up textual montage. …

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