LIVESTREAM THEATER: THE DAWN OF A NEW LANGUAGE

by Guido Luciani

"BECOMING A ROSE: An Artist's Survival Guide According to Jean Genet"  is, in essence, a peek into my private world of dreams, sexual fantasies and the incantatory rituals of the theater. It is a bold and uncompromising exhibit of art aroused by sexuality and a celebration of my creative communion with Jean Genet.

I'm first and foremost an ImageMaker, a Sensory-Somatic Artist who communicates and expresses through images: visual representations of an idea as well as sensory-somatic impressions recorded in our unconscious. These images, in addition to the written word are the fundamental building blocks of Luciani's Absolute Theater's Sensory-Somatic theater language.

At first, the idea of virtual theater, a theater without a live audience ... without the traditional four-wall space did not sit well with me. I rejected the idea the same way that as a photographer I dismissed digital photography or as a filmmaker put down videography. But, after the initial judgement, it became clear to me that virtual theater is not just a digital recording of live theater nor just a product of social distancing but a full blown new theatrical language. Just like digital photography and video share some components with their analog counterparts, the livestream virtual theater language contains some common elements not only with traditional theater but also with film and video.

Devising BECOMING A ROSE for livestream theater both, challenges me to remain true to the Sensory-Somatic language and, offers me the great opportunity to create using some tools, that in my opinion, are unique to this new theatrical language. 

I performed my first play in a friend's living room and my first theater ensemble operated out of a small basement we transformed into a small theater. These were just the first in a series of living rooms, garages and small theaters in which I have performed my plays throughout my career so, I think it's safe to say that my theater work is personal and intimate in nature. As member of the audience, I also prefer to watch plays , physical theater and dance performances in small spaces and, if possible, I like to sit in the first row so I can smell, see -and sometimes get splashed by- the performers' sweat, hear their breathing, etc. In sum, I like to take advantage of the opportunity that only live performances can offer us of immerse myself in the show or, invite my audience into my world. I supposed that is why I devised the Absolute Theater's Sensory-Somatic language but, although I have tried it, I'm not a fan of participatory immersive theater or forcing the audience to take part of the production. I believe in a voluntary connection with the audience through the senses: a reciprocated sensory-somatic seduction but ... no matter how small of a theater you are in or how close you sit to the performers ... we are not alone, there are other members of the audience and cast there to break the magic spell that is bringing us together.

There are many other unique components of the livestream theater language that fascinate me and I'm excited to explore but, it is the "intimate" quality of the virtual connection with each and everyone in the audience what makes this platform the right canvas for my work, the perfect "crack" -as Sartre puts it- through which to slip "alone" into my sacred creative space without anyone around to judge you ... just you, me and Jean Genet.

BECOMING A ROSE

GUIDO LUCIANI’S NOTES ABOUT JEAN GENET

from promotional  material created for
Luciani’s Absolute Theater’s production of DEATHWATCH

Informed by his own experience in French prisons, Jean Genet’s first play, "Deathwatch," is an explosive exploration of the inversion of moral order.  Essentially a dream, the play is a dramatization of impersonation.  Three young convicts share a cell. Locked into a world of dangerous rivalries, criminals Lefranc and Maurice compete for the attention of the charismatic condemned man, Green-Eyes.

For Genet, the stage offered the most effective literary form for the incantatory expression of dream and ritual.  Divinity can be reached both through spirituality and sexuality, which for Genet are not only the same but also the starting point for everything else, and the point to which all returns.  His plays are sacred dramas during the course of which the deepest parts of man are moved communally through the common sharing of the theatrical ceremony. Genet’s work is concerned with a search for the Absolute - whether for an Absolute Good or an Absolute Evil is, in the long run, essentially indifferent, and indeed, in those ultimate domains of thought, beyond time and space, to which he eventually leads us, the one becomes indistinguishable from the other.  Genet is fundamentally interested in metamorphosis, or the development of the individual in society, his/her transcendence or rite of passage from on mode of living to another.  These and many others shared beliefs make Genet’s “Deathwatch” the perfect totemic conduit for this, the first non-devised production from Luciani’s Absolute Theater.