Venice Saved: A Seminar
Date/Time: Every week: Sunday from Sun., March 22 until Sun., April 5, 6:00pm, Every week: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from Sat., March 21 until Sun., April 5, 7:30pm
Price: $20
via The Village Voice:
POLITICAL THEATER 101
Venice Saved: A Seminar at P.S.122
By Alexis Soloski
Director David Levine has described Simone Weil's 1943 historical drama as “an inferior piece of political theater [that] disappoints all your expectations.” So Levine has staged it as a graduate seminar where actors and audiences discuss the problems the script provokes: questions of translation, adaptation, and what constitutes good political theater.
via NYTimes:
Venice Saved: A Seminar
Off Off Broadway, Performance Space 122
'Venice Saved' is a performance piece that takes theater as its topic. For this inquiry into the nature of democracy and the value of "political theater," Levine has eliminated the "audience" and gathered everyone around a seminar table peppered with cast members who may, or may not, be acting. The topic of this seminar is Simone Weil's unfinished 1943 play 'Venise Sauvée,' an allegory of democracy and its overthrow, presented on the 100th anniversary of Weil's birth. Playwright Gordon Dahlquist has provided the discussion topics, which will be illustrated by fully staged scenes from Weil's play. — TheaterSource
via PS122 site:
150 First Avenue
New York, NY 10009
Sat, Mar 21 - Sun, Apr 5
Wednesday - Saturday 7:30 pm
Sunday 6:00 pm
Tickets online at http://www.ps122.org/
A performance piece that takes theater as its topic. Truly interactive
theater (ugh). Performance as education. A performance about the
nature of performance (ugh). Potential topics include: theater,
performance art, torture, outsourcing, anorexia, Israel, Palestine,
Blackwater, the TCG, Charismatic Leadership, the Shock Doctrine,
theater vs. performance, the exhibition as school,
theanyspacewhatever, learning vs. "learning," talking vs. "talking",
performing vs. acting, democracy vs. Authenticity. Totally Bitchen.
Simone Weil (100 years). Seminar format. Participatory. On the 100th
anniversary of Simone Weil's birth, CiNE takes the philosopher's
unfinished play and asks American Theater, "What were you thinking?"
Adaptor: Gordon Dahlquist. Performers: Jeff Biehl, James Hannaham, Jon
Krupp, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Christianna Nelson, Colleen Werthmann, and
David Levine.
David Levine's work fuses performance, theater, and visual art. His
performance work has appeared in Europe and the USA at Documenta XII,
Galerie Magnus Muller (Berlin), Gavin Brown@Passerby (New York), HAU2
(Berlin), and Galerie Feinkost (Berlin), Prelude '07, as well as appearing in
Cabinet Magazine, the New York Times, Art Review, BOMB Theater, and Theater
der Zeit. He is the recipient of a Kulturstiftung Des Bundes grant for
BAUERNTHEATER, and a NYFA award for Cross-Disciplinary/Performative
work. He lives in New York and Berlin, where he is the Director of
Performing Arts at the European College of Liberal Arts.
CiNE is an interdisciplinary collective dedicated to examining
the conditions of spectacle and spectatorship across a range of media.
Previous initiatives include BABYLON IS EVERYWHERE; RE-PUBLIC (design
portfolio, Theater 34:2); ACTORS AT WORK (Cabinet Magazine), and
Messalina (SPF Festival)
Image courtesy of Annerose Schulze
Made possible with the support of Etant Donnés,the French-American Fund for the Performing Arts
- The Brooklyn Rail, Dramatic interpretation of interview with David Levine and Gordon Dahlquist
- The Believer, Conversation between David Levine and poet Christian Hawkey
