International Theatre Conference: Directing and Authorship in Western Drama

Panel Two
Friday, October 24th, 11-12:30pm

Dr. Annelis Kuhlmann, U of Aarhus, Denmark
The Mute Tradition--A Silent Heritage

The years between 1948 and 1974 left space to many of the future traditions of the contemporary theatre in Denmark. In 1948 the Union of Theatre Directors was founded, but it was not until 1974 that the formal education of theatre directors was institutionalized by the State School of Theatre in Copenhagen.

The 'autonomous' generation of theatre directors from this period has had a very notable impact on today's theatre directors and authorship. But the problem is that the professional dialogue between the director and the actors or the director's assistant only seldom is documented. Even rarer you find access to the director's dialogue with himself/herself. This dialogue is the theatre director's professional authorship, and it is often loaded with a similar kinf of irreversible presence as the theatre performance is. As a theatre historian I am in particular interested in the sources for a transformation of professional knowledge to new generations. How do we historically approach the tradition of the director's profession? Which were the 'secret devices' that the theatre directors articulated in the forming of a context of tradition at a specific time, while formal educational systems of theatre directors did not exist? How could we approach the professional heritage and get knowledge from our ancestors?

The directors I have chosen to mention at this conference got professional skills from masters (i.e. older Danish or foreign theatre directors). They either had an educational background as professional actors or they were students at the university. I shall in particular pay attention to two very different theatre directors in Denmark whose professional careers took remarkable shapes during the years 1948 to 1974, namely to the late Sam Besekow (1911-2001) and to Eugenio Barba (b. 1936). Their individual professional transformations of knowledge into heritage is seen as particular enunciations of the mythos and the ethos of a theatre director.