 who is one of the great, great figures in American theatre, an extraordinary director, wonderful writer, professor at Columbia. I know many of you will read about him and have worked with the city company. We're very honoured here in London to be able to present much of the work of the past 20 years, which is a person of great generosity, staggering intelligence, and I'm happy that she ran to think the world of her name will go. The title of my keynote is What's the story, the role of storytelling in the 21st century and beyond? Well, I just told the story, right? Thank you. They teach you stories. In other words, I learned something and I tell them the story of how I learned it rather than saying, you should know this. And somehow the stories carry the meaning with emotion because without emotion you learn nothing. So with emotion, and that's certainly important in the theatre, emotion carries me. You can learn the role of, oh no, some packed audiences role in the story. You're creating a bridge, you're creating an empathic bridge. You need to be talking about stories and yes, I did just write a book, which you can get on Amazon, I'm sure. A Child of Postmodernism. What does that mean? It means that I grew up taking things apart. I am the biggest deconstructor. Postmodernism is about actually knocking down pre-classical all up and looking at them separately. But what happened is, and suddenly we came to the end of deconstruction, where we deconstructed so much that nothing means anything anymore. And faced with that, you have to ask, what comes after postmodernism? And the clues I had has something to do with stories. It has something to do with asking the question, who's stories? Who are they for? How do we tell them? And that's a big mess to figure out. I think there are pioneers in the world who are telling stories in a new way. Certainly Chuck Mead is telling a story in a new way. In other words, who's stories and how do we tell them? The civilians. I think there are ways of telling stories. But going back to the issue of storytelling as a heroic act, it's hard to tell a story as well. It takes a certain organization of spirit. And you all are studying playtime. You're the person in the audience. I'm going to tell a little bit of the story of Playtime's Cave. Because, you know, the story of Playtime's Cave, everybody in the audience, facing the back of the cave, in front of them is a wall and a fire behind that wall, and so deep where that's behind them. Anyway, how does the work lighting designers that are playing up against the wall, and that's like, what, looking at the internet? That's, uh... So they're all the same, and the story is there's one player who somehow, I can't remember how, gets one chain. So she's sitting there with these people who are looking at their own collections. He turns around and walks out of the cave into the sunlight. The first time, nobody's seen the sunlight. Nobody's seen mountains. Nobody's seen... It's just a story. Nobody's seen the sky. And he sees... She sees the sky. Change your habit. She sees trees. My God, trees and sky. And it's extraordinary. And what this person does, and it's what makes this person a hero, is she turns away from the trees and the sky and walks back down into the dark. Goes to the front of the people who are chained, looking at their own shadows, and starts going, Guys, you don't understand! And the people who are chained go, You're crazy. You're making strange articulations. Now, in Plato's story, what makes that person a hero is the fact that she turned and walked back into the cave and tried to describe in front of the disbelieving what this other experience was. That is our job. Our job is to look like mad people, gesticulating in front of the... What's the word? Unbelievable. Disbelief? Disbelief. Why tell stories that something is to make bridges? Two, in empathy, Tasmanian, keep moving from falling off the edge of the world. The image is powerful. They are at the edge of the world. They're way the hell down there. That notion of stories making them visible. I'm thinking of makes visible, the invisible creates identity and memory. I think Susan Laurie's part slaves play called Mother Come Talk to the War you're enjoying very well the other night. And it's also for me co-for the theater. Last night, I gave me hope for the theater and I saw the other night in Octurune and makes slavery visible. It's a difficult subject. It's always been forgotten for reasons that are... I won't go into. I can't even talk about it. It's so funny because I thought between an Octurune and then the glory of the world, I thought, American theater is a great thing. And we as theater people, our job is to create memories or proteins in the audience's brain. It's not just a protein, but it's accessed through synaptical activity of that protein. And so our job is really specific. It's to create literal change in the brain of the audience. And that brain is very connected to the body because of the dead rights. You're all studying that, right? This is the visual image of dead rights. How do we create proteins of memory that create visibility? And I would say, again, the answer is through emotion. Through the emotion of storytelling that we actually created memory. So we're talking about stories. Why tell stories? Are you clear on that? Oh, there's one other reason to tell stories. To get unstuck. Never been stuck? No. To relate to this, do you tell stories that you made up or do your parents made up? That is a young person. I was telling the story that my parents wanted to tell about me. That is to actually tell your own story. Because the story that you tell creates your future. It's creepy scary. Because the words you use to describe your future describe your future. So you know those terrible you pay like thousands of dollars a week and you learn how to say, mind dimensions and control or silver mind control, they were big in the 70s. And they say your brain is a computer. So if somebody says, how are you, you ever say better and better? Because if you say, and they thought in those days you had to say it twice, because in those days you never cried in your future. When I said what's next, life ends with you really feel bad about that. What would happen if you said life begins at the end of college? Suddenly you feel better, right? In the form of a story where you're headed, you'll be able to know where you're going. I have a friend, Barney knows this person very well, I'm not saying who it is. Whenever you ask her, how are you? She says, I'm poor. She's not poor. She works very hard, makes money, she's doing fine. All the time she feels poor all the time. Do you see where I'm going? Why tell stories to get out of the stock? If you're stuck in your own story, how do you get out of it? If we, as a theater community, are stuck in the old stories, how do we get out of it? We'll be kicked down the box and do the glory of the world. Since I was about 13 years old, every day it's really dumb. So when I was about 18, I had a friend called Lee. I don't know why we called him Lee. You should write three observations. So rather than saying today I went to the bank and then I went to a restaurant, I have to say I noticed today in front of the bank there's more homeless than there were last year. Do you understand? That extra heroic effort every day of actually not just reporting, but of actually developing the point of view. I realize and I teach this to directors that it's a director's job to actually develop a point of view. Actors put their heart out, they show you something, and then what's your job is to actually experience it and develop a point of view, which helps them go back in and try again. So in order to get on the step, I would question the words you use, the stories you tell, and can you do more than report? Can you actually do the extra effort to develop a point of view? So next in this little extra hat here of what's the story, is where the story is from. I'm saying no. The theater already isn't black page. The theater has traps and the theater has doors that go up and down. That is not a blank page. How do you start from what that is? That's what we're trying to do. So I would quote Jasper Johns, the American painter, who said wow, he painted, he said do something, no, he said take something, change it. Change it again. That was his technique. But there's something, if something exists take something, change it, change it again. Now what I'd like to propose to us as theater people is what is if it's not a blank page, what do we have? I would propose that we have a rumbling graveyard. This is going to sound important, so hang on. I feel that what our job is in the theater is to give voice to dead people. But there are people who didn't finish their sentences, didn't have a chance to finish. And you know, the no theater from Japan used to be in the old days. It was originally built over graveyards. It was stages that were built over graveyards. And the actors were stomped on the stage to raise the spirits of the dead to win the group. Again, this sounds very morbid, but in a sense we live in a culture that's always saying, be a star! You know, make a living, take your career. That's antithetical to what our job is to listen to what's coming out of our life. It's not like it's screeching voices that have things they didn't quite finish saying. And it's our job to fill up with them, to study them, and give them voice. And so our voices have to be good. Our physical life has to be clear in order to help them speak. It's a very different career than the solipsism of actually giving voices to dead people. The role of what came before. You know, take T.S. Eliot wrote an essay. It's probably the best essay on this subject, and somebody should translate it into English. And his basic thesis is that it's that we look at artists for what they create that's new. Until very recently, we looked to artists to see what they do with what they inherit. That was what was interesting. And I would propose that he takes my soul. What is our light page? There is a scene in the movie Apollo 13. You remember the scene where the capsule came out in trouble out of space. And there's some guys who go into a conference room. And there's a guy who comes into the bag of stuff, dumps it on the table. And it's the things that exist in the capsule out of space. It's like a graph tape, some socks, literally. Some plastic things, tubes. And he says with these things, we have to bring this capsule back to Earth. I find that a great metaphor or analogy for what we do is that with what we have we put them together in a way that will bring something new. So in the spirit of telling stories the question is not moving forward. Certainly we have to find new ways, as the artist I mentioned did, but actually the material that we're working from the tools, the shapes, the forms, the theater has an extraordinary history how to use those traps, those ropes, those things that come down, you know and bring something back to Earth in that way. And then lastly I'll say in this is I heard an interview with John Mellencamp on NPR with Kerry Grossen he said this amazing phrase and it's really scary. He said, I own everything I hear. Get the lawyers. It actually belongs to you. I'll leave you with that talk at the next point. Next. So we've gone through whitetail stories, where stories come from be cool, you know where they come from. And the next is how to tell stories effectively. And what I'm about to say actually pretty much everything I say is not original. So you need three things to tell a good story in the theater in particular. One, you need technique. Two, you need passion. And three you need to have something to say. And I think of it like a three-legged milk stool like if one of the legs is missing the whole thing falls down. So if you have something to say and you have passion, you have no technique it's not going to work. If you have technique and nothing to say you know where I'm going with this. So in order to tell stories effectively you need those three things. Secondly, and please forgive me because I've written about this a lot and I'm going to give you an example that I've written about once so I'm saying it for you again because you don't like reading. Is to be articulate in the face of uncertainty. This is a key. The reason we don't do things is because we think we don't know. I don't know enough to do anything. But how can you from a state of not knowing which is basically all of us all the time we can never go. But how can you be articulate in that same time? So the example I'm going to give is a lot but it seems to be something that people like to hear so forgive me if you don't know it is that when I'm completely lost in rehearsal and I'm usually on a stool and when I get lost I sit I hope I don't sit in this room. What I'll do is I'm completely lost I'll say I know and I'll start walking towards the stage students in this room to change the words we use to describe what we do. Great. Boards. Theater Boards. She wrote a very incendiary article in American theater a hundred years ago where people got really upset about it. She said we use the wrong words to describe ourselves. For example, she's talking about theater. She said not for profit or non-profit. That's a terrible word. Hello, I'm non. And then she went on and there might be a few people in the room for whom you'll relate to it. She said the words unearned income. It's a terrible way. That is the most earned income you'll ever get without using the word want. I'm going to walk down stage now I want you to turn left I want you to think of Tika or an actor who says to the director is this what you want? What I want is a little perverse and has nothing to do with the play of who we are. So if we're always saying I want you to know maybe we're setting up a child-parent relationship in the missile room that doesn't interest me at all. Why should we have that repeat the kind of patriarchal, matriarchal code? I would also say the way we name our theater companies is an issue. I'm not saying today we made it wrong but there are a lot of companies that have names like the ones you can probably remember they're basically like saying I'm not important the National Theater of the United States of America is finishing the sentence and you'll find out how powerful it is to do so. That's all I'm going to say on that because you hear it all the time just listen to how people talk. There are reasons why we've been trying to do that. One day, to finish your sentence all day long something extraordinary will happen and you will find a place in the world that's quite different. Lastly, under this be articulate in the face of no, what am I talking about? Oh, how to tell stories effectively. Robert Rusty did this he founded Yale Rep he was the dean of the Yale School of Drama years ago in the famous years of Meryl Streep and all those people and while he was there he said well, you can't have a school of theater without having a theater so he founded Yale Rep and then he was invited because after 10 years you can only stay 10 years at Yale he was invited by Harvard to start a theater company there they gave him a building, a lobe much to the chagrin of the undergraduates who had been using it and they would come out anyway, he was given this building he brought his company of actors and started a season and not long after, this is a true story he went into the president of Harvard and he said the president we're very grateful to be here it's wonderful to have A.R.T the name of the theater, A.R.T. American Routestore Theater good name for theater theater but I'd like to start a school for training playwrights, directors and actors for advanced training and the president said no we don't do art schools here at Harvard so Bob, who's very stubborn came back two months later I don't know if it's two months but it's okay, this is the story right now we'll talk to him two months later and he meets with the president again we're very appreciative to be here A.R.T. is doing very well I'd like to start a conservatory for advanced training of actors, directors we do not do conservatories here at Harvard University Bob goes away he comes back again some time later and he says we're very appreciative to be here I'd like to start an institute the words are like keys you don't always have the right key for the right law to know that if you can find the right words to describe what you're doing the doors will open still, under how to tell stories this might be the most important aspect is the role of enthusiasm it's kind of funny but it's not well, I was a theater party once and I was introduced to a guy I thought he was introduced that he was an architect and I love architecture I'm sort of an architecture buff and I was sitting next to him and I turned to him and I said oh my god I'm so impressed you're an architect how wonderful the field is so exciting and I named all my favorite architects and he looked kind of embarrassed and he said I said oh I'm so sorry I thought we were an architect he said I was and he said enthusiasm and I thought about it and it's actually key if you look at the word enthusiasm it means etymologically it means to be filled with God and the veil that people who commission buildings are paid millions of dollars more for a building but they're not going to give that money to somebody who does not have a love of the art form who doesn't speak about it passionately or if you can't speak it's not always about speaking it's about as much as you can't say it point to it you can't point to it you can't sweat it you can't wait in a direction and say this is the way to go that without enthusiasm there's no there there as Richard Stein said open California and everyone of us in this room can relate to this fake enthusiasm how would that feel isn't that awful and you know it's fake you can't fake enthusiasm it has to be cultivated and developed in your in your in your relationship to the art form that you're working in and it's your job to cultivate that enthusiasm because without it there's no legs and feet finally I talked about this a little bit posture is like attitude that I said we have a bad posture when we come in when we walk in to ask for money it's like this how can we develop a better posture and for the actors in the room the secret to great acting is the relationship between feedback and feed-forward you know feed-forward is in cybernetics it's a state like if you're playing volleyball and the ball's coming at you and you go out to the ball and that's feed-forward and feedback is the sensation you receive from having gone out to the church and so great actor actually balances those two so you know like I'm trying to stop saying like I hate saying this on stage from an actor I hate saying this on stage right after so in terms of posture you have to set up the posture if your posture is wrong or your attitude is wrong you're actually in trouble you know I was watching that horrible James Lipton he does that how do you how do you live in that state some practical uses of storytelling do you think it's out of interest so I always accept and I went to this party and it was they're film producers they had produced the thin red line I did work with Terrence Maliff anyway imagine my thrill I was seated next to my hero a guy named François Gichard and I made my favorite film of the time it's called 32 short films about Brent Langfield this wonderful film and I was so happy to be sitting next to him and he was in New York he's from Quebec and he was in New York to try and raise money for his next film and at a certain moment during the dinner he turns to me and he said would you like to hear the story of my next film and I said yes and he said he was bereft and he was working on and he painted it with her blood and as he's telling me the story I noticed that he's looking at me seeing if I'm getting it or not and he starts to describe the journey of this and maybe some of you are getting which film this is through continents through centuries and I'm sitting there thinking I'm the luckiest person in the world this is an amazing story this is the film that later became a red mine you should see it what I realized later is that there's nothing special about me I thought it was really special I think he would have turned to whoever was sitting next to him and said behind the story of my next film he was working film got made because he turned to me not because I had any money to give him but because of that impulse was part of the ladder towards getting his project done that impulse it goes back to the heroism of storytelling that impulse to tell the story is what actually helps to fundraise and I'm a big believer in not letting always the administration do the fundraising for a theater company in other words it's the artist who turns with foundations with potential donors and you start to talk your project into assistance they become partners in a real way because they become involved you get that point? okay moving on well I'm going to shorten this one this is the politics of rehearsal we talked a little bit about the words you use it was a great example of the glory of the world last night to see is that the theater is always about one thing and it's what distinguishes it from any other art form the theater is always about social systems meaning how are we getting home how are the characters getting home no other art form uses that as their essential of material certainly not dance certainly not visual art but the theater is always asking this question so every play asks this question how are we getting along so Oedipus killed his father there's a problem and the rest of the play is to see that social system try to regain balance from a stated imbalance that's what happens in a play what I'm going to propose to you and hang on to your facts is that when an audience sees a play they actually are seeing two plays they're seeing the story of Oedipus leaving his fate also seeing the story of the actors on the stage and how they're getting home in the world last night how do you think those guys got along can you feel it you know you can't really hide bad rehearsal process so our job is to create a kind of rehearsal room in which a society that you can believe in can have it you following me so every time there's a event of theater there are a number of things going on there's two stories happening there's a story of the play there's the story that the audience is getting about the actors and those of that group that's not the thing in the prefrontal cortex that's happening in ancient parts of the brain so those two are happening there's also the question how are the actors getting along how is the audience getting along how are the actors and the audience getting along that's in the room that's the subject of the theater that's why it was so exciting last night just stuff was happening that's the stuff that we lose we were not in the theater that's the stuff that has to be celebrated that you create the world you want to live in in the rehearsal space it's a revolution in small rooms that make bigger rooms possible I don't think a chorus line would have happened if Joe Chacon in the open theater hadn't done these small pieces do you understand what I'm saying Michael Bennett saw those pieces it goes out into the world finally, the audience's role in telling the story as I mentioned before we don't remember facts you can't change anybody's political view by telling the facts you only change it through emotion I have a friend Barney is in my beautiful friend Henry Stramp one of the actors he was the major Barbara George Pinar Shaw yes at center stage in Baltimore a number of years ago he was playing Cousins and he told me that one Sunday afternoon matinee performance what we call the rinse heads no one cares he was supposed to say my mother is my father's deceased wife's sister and in this island I am consequently a family this is like afternoon Sunday he was supposed to say my mother is my father's deceased wife's sister and in this island I am consequently a family he made a mistake he flubbed and instead he said my father is my brother's deceased wife's sister and in this island I am consequently a family messed up the most amazing thing that happened when he messed up the entire audience this is how Alfred Grendel said he is very famous for playing Beethoven sonatas he said in an interview that when he is in concert and he gets to the end of the sonata and he gets to just before the final chord he lifts his hands and he asks the audience silently how long they will let him wait before he plays the last chord back to me is the heartbeat of the theater and the thing that as we move forward we need to explore because it's what makes it unique it certainly is what makes this weekend unique with you guys it's phenomenal thank you very much