Following Decroux’s words, in technique training and sometimes in the making of a piece we strive to avoid falling into being “human, too human”. In practice it frequently amounts to talking exclusively about, and making corrections only to: geometry, getting lines straight enough, making curves curvy enough, placing your foot here, not there.
This meticulous precision is part of the technique, part of the form, but I’m beginning to think that this is not the whole story.
The struggle to do something absolute and beyond human and yet failing because of being human – I believe this is what an audience gathers to share and experience. Our common struggle against limitation, decay and inevitable death.
It couldn’t be more human.
So what is “human, too human”?
Is it maybe the opposite? To stay in the safe place, to hide weakness or make a virtue of it so as to protect our illusions about ourselves, to be concerned about looking good instead of giving all?
‘Pooping out’, taking the easier position or stance, taking only the familiar perfect stance, posing instead of finding true form. That’s being “human, too human.”
Because the form is so difficult we forget easily that we need to allow our human struggle to show, while simultaneously striving for, and holding true, to the form.
When the members of the SITI Company train and take each other’s Suzuki technique classes, which are physically challenging, rigorous and formal, they work to high and exacting standards. It shows. They are much better than the less experienced students in class. But they also work to challenge themselves at the very edge and limit of their abilities. So they don’t just show perfect form; they do crash and burn. More importantly they allow their struggle and vulnerability to show through. Not because they are trying to show off to younger students that they are working hard but because THEY ARE WORKING ON THEIR OWN WORK AND TEMPTING FAILURE.
I suspect they are also working on their ability as actors to be open and vulnerable to the audience. Being on the Suzuki training floor is to them a microcosm of being on a stage, performing.
Similarly, Beckett’s demands in his plays for “no colour, no colour,” in the text and absolute precision is tight Form. It’s in the very human struggle to hew to the form that makes his drama an experience between actor and audience. The container for his words (the form) bears out the truth of them. As Beckett himself said, “I do give a fuck about people!”
