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PRINZ BETTLIEGEND in Australia: “There must be some way to protect this young man . . . “

Tue, December 18, 2:30 to 4:00pm, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Amphitheater

Abstract

The making of performance work is by its nature collaborative. More, performance-making is, in all but the most exceptional circumstances, and partly because of its collaborative nature, hostage to circumstance: the best laid plans fall apart, while opportunities present themselves seemingly out of the blue. As a model for conducting research, then, performance-making offers fertile ground, presenting unanticipated insights and unexpected avenues for inquiry. This paper considers one such example: the emergence, through ‘accidents’ of casting, a process itself overdetermined by budget, availability, and intertwined personal histories and professional relationships, of two key research themes in our 2017 production of Prince Bettliegend. The first turned on the question of the protection of the young in the Terezín ghetto; the second, on the influence of the performance style of the Liberated Theatre of Prague, and in particular of the dada-esque Commedia dell’Arte physical comedy of Jan Werich and Jiří Voskovec.

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