the white room - conversations on theatre

(recorded on March 22, 2020)

WHICH TREATS OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF THE TWO HOSTS MARIJE THE TAP DANCER AND SIMON THE ACTOR
OF WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR HOSTS WHEN THEY LEFT THE STRAIGHT ARGUMENT FOR FOOLHARDY ASSOCIATIONS and
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE DROLL WAY IN WHICH THE TWO THOUGHT THEMSELVES PHILOSOPHERS and
OF THE GOOD FORTUNE WHICH THE VALIANT TAP DANCER HAD IN THE TERRIBLE AND UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE OF THE DESERT (containing nudity), WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY TO BE FITLY RECORDED and
OF THE PLEASANT DISCOURSE THAT PASSED BETWEEN THEM

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

What are we going to talk about? Why are we going to speak about what we’re going to speak about? Why are we making a podcast about theatre? Why even talk about theatre? Conversations on theatre? Or on performance? Or on practice?

We sit down together in the white room, trying to figure out what this is all about, evoking and struggling with the power of the words. In the effort to convey this to you and to ourselves, unreckoned help approaches through a famous quote by the famous Ludwig Wittgenstein. As the poet says: “… where the danger is, also grows the saving power.”

Marije quotes a passage from the book “The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness” by Rebecca Solnit.

“That thing we call place is the intersection of many changing forces passing through, whirling around, mixing, dissolving, and exploding in a fixed location. To write about a place is to acknowledge that phenomena often treated separatedly – ecology, democracy, culture, storytelling, urban design, individual life histories and collective endeavors – coexist. They coexist geographically, spatially, in place, and to understand a place is to engage with braided narratives and sui generis explorations. […]”

Following that we discover that we speak from a certain place and perspective, not abstractly.

Simon quotes a jazz standard by Duke Ellington:

“It don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that swing
Makes no difference if it’s sweet or hot
Give that rhythm everything you’ve got”

In the end we listen to a short clip of Eugenio Barba from Odin Teatret (DK) speaking about theatre in the current crisis.

NOTES: We are starting this project from scratch. There are still technical issues to be solved, which is noticeable in the sound. Learning by doing, we will try to improve with every episode. In this we rely heavily on the efforts made by great developers in the podcasting community (especially in Germany, hello Sendegate!), that brought us such fantastic tools as Podlove, Ultraschall and a lot of help and tutorials. Thanks to these efforts virtually everybody can make decent podcasts (#gopodcasting). Beyond the technical issues we have to note that we’re not native english nor radio speakers. Through habit we will hopefully get into the flow of speaking, but you will have to cope with some “eh”s and “mhm”s sometimes.

We are happy to receive any (constructive) feedback and criticism, corrections, comments, questions and notes: whiteroom (at) whiteroom-pod.com. We will try to reflect on this input in the podcast.

You can support the podcast by subscribing to it and by becoming a producer, if you like. A small contribution already makes a big difference.

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