1st Episode: Fragments / Tableau 0.1/0.2
Related to the infinitive sequences from August 22 to 26, 2022
Compilation 0.1.1 / Compilation 0.1.2 / Compilation 0.1.3 / Compilation 0.1.4 /
Compilation 0.2.1 / Compilation 0.2.2 / Compilation 0.2.3 / Compilation 0.2.4 /
Tableau 0.1 / Compilation 0.1.1
Fragments I
”Perhaps I took too seriously Thomas Mann's quote that the fragment is the only valid form (as he puts it in Adrian Leverkühn's mouth); I was unable to stop the fragmentations that flooded me in the last decades and left me back in a state of utter confusion.
The attempt to find something like a common reference for all the fragmented elements finally led to a set of bodily movements, each set activated by a respective sequences of infinitives.
This sounds very abstract but in fact it says nothing but that the the cough coughs, the laugh laughs, the crying cries and so on and to let it come true bodies are needed.”
Fragments II
1st speaker: “The whole thing is still out of control. Yes, maybe the Yopo Beans are to blame. Or too much work, too little sleep. Who knows?
Because I couldn't take it anymore, I started psychotherapy. Three times a week I lay on Dr. Ugé's couch with my fingers crossed on my chest.
It is not true that all the figures are only in my head. They are in my head because they are outside. Although, or perhaps because, they act strangely most of the time on stage, the play of love they play in their peculiar way is very moving to me.”
2nd speaker: “I am Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans, speaking on behalf of Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, who painted me. For decades, I, Ingres, have been the stage designer of the Commedia dell'Arte, hidden behind the facade of the bourgeoisie. In our days, the Commedia is breaking through this facade violently. But they hailed me as a guardian of tradition. Because of the skin tones and the similarity of the portraits, all of which I executed with meticulous accuracy.
What they still do not see: It is my perception alone, on the basis of which I do not reproduce the truth, but create it. I do not show the figures as they appear to our eyes. I place them on the stage of events dominated by infinitives.
If you look closely, you will see all the necessary paradoxes, inaccuracies and anatomical distortions. They never understood the requirements of form and movement. They said, "He can't do it better!“ And made fun of me behind closed doors.”
Compilation 0.1.2
Sequence of Infinitives / August 22 and 23, 2022
figure 0.1.1
take / inclined / joke / pull / bending / have come
figure 0.1.2
acquired / fell / cut off / obstruct / screamed
The one figure who receives the proclamation – it seems to be Bisbigli – says to the proclaimer:
“Take whatever you have to say in your heart by yourself! Along the inclined position of my arm, you my slip to earth. No, no, I'm not joking! Just pull on my outstretched forefinger and you will see; the hours are transforming the space and at the end of the bending time you have come.”
The other figure, the herald, possibly an angel of the Lord, whose left hand is crippled, nothing dramatic, only the size has been left behind in the growth - that's why he wears a splint of shiny metal, from which his left hand protrudes mischievously - says:
“I have honestly acquired my position! Not someone who suddenly fell from heaven to hell, not someone who cut off his connection with God. Oh no, my disabilities do not obstruct my duties. The reason I screamed is because I lost my love!”
Compilation 0.1.3
Fragments III-a
“After the company's summer camp in a weird place near Lucca in Tuscany was no longer available and the whole thing had to be moved into the Academy's boiler room, the rehearsal space, which is identical to the stage, is now stuffed in nested containers in a basalt quarry near where I live.
The basalt quarry has spread out more and more, and at its easternmost point it borders the outskirts of the city.
I sometimes pass by there on my walks and look through the loophole-like windows.
That's where the figurations come from. I have tried to explain this to Dr. Ugé. Dr. Ugé never speaks in a way that allows me to know whether he believes me or not. So I assume that he is convinced that I am deceiving him in order not to have to go deeper into the psychoanalytic process.
At one point, in a kind of throat-clearing, foot-scraping, or clearly audible exhalation, he implied that I was only talking about the figures to avoid talking about myself.
All the acting on stage puzzles me a lot. It's hard, sometimes almost impossible, to put the scenes I observe through the loopholes into a meaningful order.
If I didn't follow the infinitives as I write them down day by day, everything would fall apart.”
Fragments III-b
“As inevitably in such cases the associations jumped around wildly…”
“Sometimes someone jumps over…”
“.... follows the kettledrums, I assume as my father did when he was a child.“
Compilation 0.1.4
Sequence of Infinitives / August 24, 2022
figure 0.1.3
says / thought / insert / played / torn open / spinnig / inclines to / writes
figure 0.1.4
appeared / avoid / wait / filling / been tired / taken / used
If, as in this case, the figures overlapped on the stage, it is because the director's voice says:
“We thought we should insert two figures in one, in the sense that one figure will have played the carnal proclamation of love, not that a body is actually torn open, more a kind of spinning into each other, or that one inclines to love by pointing to the soft spot below the kneecap, as Amos writes, the smallest among the prophets.”
The other character, a country bumpkin from the north who goes to see the Dottore to have his anthrax cured, appeared at the very moment when the proclamation became flesh:
“Oh, my God! I should avoid getting involved in this. I'll be quiet as a mouse and wait until the filling of the strange beans into the other body is over. I must have been tired and fell asleep. I dreamed that when the brass and kettledrums began, someone jumped to me over the bodies stretched out in the cold. Thank God I woke up just in time! Not much was missing and they would have taken me for one of the actors and used me as a guinea pig.”
Fragments IV
“As long as my father was alive…”
Tableau 0.2 / Compilation 0.2.1
Fragment V
“Use the here given score with forbearance and compassion. It is a notation about the strange habits people develop as soon as they enter into a relationship with each other.
It is a score based on event notations that I write every day. I'm the writer, the one who draws, the lover, the loser, the nobody, the multitude, the one who has won the nothingness and wants to share it with you, my love, so that it becomes the falling feather of the little robin now flying outside along my window.
Imagine this score as the score of a play on the stage, the comedy of love with all its longings, joys, hopes, hurts, fears and finally its incomparable liveliness.”
Fragment VI
“Hello, this is The Lovers Space, my name is Nicola and I am hosting this show directly from the back of the stage. The stage is where everything we talk about takes place.
The company playing on stage is called Compagnia dell‘Imbuto Confuso: the company of confused funnels.
I love being part of it!
My job at the back, or let's say at the frayed edges of the stage, is to describe what happens inside the play, in the folds of the characters and things. I try as best I can to unfold everything, to bring everything to the surface.
I am not sure that I am the best choice for this position. My education is weak. I have studied nothing of value, no art, no philosophy, no natural sciences. My time at school was marked by failure and humiliation. Everything I have learned I have taught myself, mostly through reading, writing and drawing.”
Compilation 0.2.2
Sequence of Infinitives / August 25, 2022
figure 0.2.1
bind / layered / broken up / erected /pallid / they said it
figure 0.2.2
stared at / branched / bitten / put on / flash / bent / decide / let rub / been
The voice of the director says:
“As soon as I bind them together, they flee from each other, flee even more from themselves, because they found themselves layered in the perception of the other, broken up, because all their thoughts and feelings are exposed in their erected state. Thus, directing the play becomes impossible!"
The first figure, sitting, looks a little annoyed:
“As if we were nothing but a pallid version of some stupid idea, to be colored as brilliantly as possible according to the director's ideal!
I and the multiplicity of me; they said it: let the pale being of our arbitrariness, indifference and nothingness become true by permeating it with the wispered words of love.”
Second figure:
“Oh yes! I really am fleeing! Not only that they stared at me for hours through the tiny pinholes in the sky, but their gaze branched out so that suddenly a sharp, biting dog jumped over, and not much was missing, and he had bitten me! Of course, if it were possible for me to put on the shiny metal splint of the heavenly messenger, protected by the flash of the bent, I would decide to take up the fight and the monster's bites would be nothing more than let rub myself with a rough towel. No, I have never been a hero!”
Compilation 0.2.3
Fragment VII
“It is not uncommon for me to have to go on stage, play a role and follow stage directions without knowing exactly how to act and what to say. The stage direction never speaks in a language that one normally understands.
I have to play different roles depending on who is available and who I have to stand in for, whether as myself, Nicola, or in the mask of Bisbigli, Mikha’el, Kerstyn and some other figures, sometimes as the stage direction itself. It's the same with my voice, I borrow it from different figures.”
Fragment VIII
“But to be honest, I don't really care if I understand it or not, if I make mistakes or not. Because I really love what I'm doing here, I don't worry about inadequacies, inconsistencies, small or big mistakes, misjudgments, or making a fool of myself. I would say that these are the conditions, or rather, when I think about it, the necessities of love - and that's what it's all about!”
Compilation 0.2.4
Sequence of Infinitives / August 26, 2022
figure 0.2.3
was / love / was / said / can / said / fear
figure 0.2.4
had / are / said / will / wanted / must / was / could
