Performance occurs over a time which will not be repeated. It can be performed again, but this repetition itself marks it as “different.” Peggy Phelan
The word theatre comes from the Greek theatron, which literally means “the place for seeing.” Theatron derives from the verb theaomai, meaning to see, to observe, to behold, to contemplate. Theatre, therefore, is not primarily about acting, text, or representation, but about organizing seeing.
This project investigates what it means to be an actor at a fundamental level. Instead of re-presenting something already given, we attempt to evoke something within the situation. We move beyond role interpretation, character construction, and psychological motivation and instead ask:
What happens when a person stands before others and something unforeseen emerges?
What is set into motion?
How can this unforeseen movement or shift be received and carried by the one who watches?
We explore what arises in the interplay between actor, space, and sound. Can they be separated? Or are they already intertwined within the situation itself?
The point of departure is that the actor does not merely perform something, but evokes something in a space where the gaze is gathered. The actor exists in the relation between evoking and being seen. The work therefore concerns precision of attention as much as expression.
Here, theatre is understood not primarily as representation, but as the organization of seeing within a charged now. The situation itself is the material.
The questions we work with are:
What is an actor? What is a sound? What is a space? What is possible in this charged now?
What makes theatre theatrical? How can we open or intensify theatre’s power in its potential state? When do the slippages between the real and the fictional arise?
How do sound, light, and space function as autonomous co-players in these slippages?
The aim is not to show what theatre is, but to investigate what it does—reduced to the most essential: human beings, space, the gaze, and something set into motion.
By and With: Saila Hyttinen, Fredrik Hannestad, Solveig Laland Mohn, Jakob Oredsson, Per Platou. The performance is part of the scholarship of Fredrik Hannestad and Saila Hyttinen at Oslo Academy of the Arts. Co-produced by Oslo Academy of the Arts.