What is DEVISED THEATRE?

An overview

Devising may be defined as the process of collaboratively creating a new work without a pre-existing script and often within it's framework the collaborators are also the performers.

In the standard theatre model, a single playwright creates the script and then a director casts actors and selects designers to interpret it, resulting in a theatre production. With devised theatre, however, collaborative artists begin without a script. A devised piece of theatre can may begin with any type of prompt: a painting, a song, a real-life event, a novel, etc.

There are many different techniques to devise. However, a standard processes often include five key stages: research, creation, development, rehearsal, and performance.

The process of devising has become increasingly popular over the last twenty years. Those who are interested in the freedom to make their own work and explore subjects without the time, content, and other possible restrictions that accompany other types of theatrical rehearsal processes gravitate towards this genre of theatre. Many educational and professional theatres use the techniques of devised theatre to address social issues, create moments of revisionist history, and adapting forms of literature. Devised Theatre has also become a helpful tool in cultivating conversations within an audience.

HOw was it used to DEvelop 33 Variations?

"I think that the reason why we’re in such a thrilling moment in American theatrical history is because we’re pushing the boundaries of how the work is made. And devised theatre really addresses that idea that there are many ways of creating plays."states Moisés Kauffman, co-founder of the Tectonic Theatre Project and writer of 33 Variations.(Brenner, 239)

Kauffman used a devising technique called "Moment Work" to create 33 Variations through the Tectonic Theatre Project. Moment Work is a way to keep finding ways in which the text carries part of the narrative, and the elements of the stage participate in constructing that narrative (Brenner 241). In an interview with the first assistant director and the script coordinator at Arena Stage they ask Moisés Kaufman about “moment work.” He shares that he encourages actors to see themselves as theatre makers and he uses “moment work” to encourage them to experiment and make moments about what they understand about their characters. The following is an excerpt from a feature article in American Theatre magazine describing “moment work” in the rehearsals of 33 Variations. The actors collaborated, discovered, revealed character and a theatrical style that eventually informed the theatricality of the show. “Grant James Varjas, the actor playing the biographer Schindler…set up his “moment work” scene with a bowl, several lamps, a projection of the cover of Beethoven’s…sketchbook, and a projection of a single page from the composer’s own sketchbook without any musical notes indicated…Then Varjas announced, ‘We begin…’ Beethoven, played by James Gale, worked silently with pen and paper, and Schindler peered over his book at the composer. Then Schindler stood and removed Beethoven’s working materials. He bound Beethoven’s strained eyes and brought him a bowl of soup. Schindler spoonfed Beethoven the soup as the composer faced blankly ahead. Suddenly, notes began to appear on the screen on the vacant bars of Beethoven’s Sketchbook. They materialized as ghostly figures, creeping note-by-note across the bars, passing soup stains on the manuscript. All the while pianist, Ning Yu, played the notes as we realized Beethoven was composing in his head before us.”

When Kauffman is working on a new "moment" it starts with "I begin with" and finishes with "I end with." I found this information particularly interesting as Katherine first line is very similar to this style of devising. All of the vingettes in the play are structurally sound as if they could almost stand alone.

"Let us begin with the primary cause of things" (Kauffman, 11)

"Working in Moments allows the artists to think about theatre from a structural perspective, to view and understand theatre as consisting of individual blocks that are constructed and put together" (Brown, ) This is crucial to 33 Variations which consists of 33 vignettes. Each vignette is named a different "theme". The emphasis on form and content continually fluctuates throughout the process of moment work and at times Kauffman would assigned a theme the night before to prepare for its creation the following day.

Could the moment building in Moment work could possibly be a "variation" of the "private moment" exercises created by Stanislavski and Uta Hagen? The purpose of their private moment and object exercises is to re-create in detail through your five senses (sight, taste, touch, smell, hearing) an activity which you ordinarily do alone and reflects “real life.” The challenge for the actor is focus, what Stanislavski calls the "circle of attention or concentration," in which an actor’s commitment to the task is complete and truthful, even though eventually the actor is being observed by an audience. Stanislavski explains this concept in his book, An Actor Prepares, and Uta Hagen in her book, Respect for Acting.