This power point was prepared for the IFTR 2016 at Stockholm last 13-17 June 2016 but was not used. There is an increasing interest, in the form, function, and potential of personal narratives by artists. My life in Art, by Stanislavski, Diaries and Writings by Bertold Brecht, Threads of Time by Peter Brook, On Directing and Dramaturgy: Burning the house by Eugenio Barba, The Theatre of Death by Tadeusz Kantor, to mention just some the most relevant in the field of personal narratives or accounts of life and work by theatre directors. These texts perform similar tasks in society, such as identifying what a theatre director is, how do directors cope with their biographies or how they build working communities, or learn to act in a unwelcoming context, develop their interests and build their working environments or devise and carry out their projects. This paper will examine these writings as texts which organize systems of activities, activities and people, as a hybrid genre between theoretical discourse and accounts of personal experiences, a genre which has become a powerful cultural tool in the theatre and pedagogy of today; writing being that most lucid mode of thinking and disseminating thoughts. An indispensable form of conversation with the masters of the past and masters not present. The analytical method used is based on a series of concepts and tools from Genre Theory and Pragmatics. My goal is to 1) articulate a preliminary framework for the analysis of personal narratives as a way of producing knowledge in the discipline of Theatre Studies 2) examine the utility of these kind of memories o accounts as the basis of passing a director’s knowledge on to others in a structured way, when the artist is not present so that pedagogy, research and artistic practice can make progress 3) encourage theatre directors to write personal accounts of their lives and work so that others can benefit from their experiences.

1. The artist is not
present: conceptualizing
autobiography (the case of
Stanislavski, Brook and Barba).
Inma Garín
Universitat de València
IFTR-FIRT 2016

3. Objectives
• Articulate a framework for analysis
• Examine the usefulness of autobiographies
• Encourage practitioners to use writing

4. Towards a definition
of the genre
• Personal narratives by theatre directors can be defined as texts written in
prose by its authors with a view to shape their lives, create identity
effects and project their personalities (Lejeune, 1975).
• Their intentions are to spread their ideas and views and lead by
example.
• They are powerful tools to produce knowledge in the field of Theatre
Studies.

5. Thematic content
(1)
• Who are they?
• How did they manage to become theatre directors?
• How did they build their working communities and
environments?
• What were their interests?
• How did they carry out their projects?

6. Thematic content (2)
• Where do I come from and what made me what I am?
• How did I start my company? What people influenced me
the most?
• What is good acting?
• What is directing?
• Why does travelling or exchanging with members of other
cultures mean for a director?
• What is my quest?

7. • Projects, ideas and personal values based on
experience and concepts.
• Plays they have produced or that have
impressed them, rehearsal methods and
strategies or techniques to approach work.
• People who influence them.
Thematic content (3)

8. Compositional structure
• A Journey.
• A theoretical and the personal account.
• Knowledge and experience.
• Interactive.

9. Style
• Use of metaphors. and images.
• Stating one’s intention or motivation, fears,
doubts.
• Styles: narrative, poetic, dialogue, letters, diary,
essay, (Inclusion of other voices) etc.

10. STANISLAVSKI’s
autobiography
BROOKs
autobiography
BARBAs
autobiography
published in 1920s 1998 2010
style: Realism style: Modern Postmodern era
Descriptive
Interpretative,
building a spiritual
mask
Fragmentary, Collage,
theoretical issues no
attempt to unity or
coherence
Professional
standpoint,
confessional,
chronological,
descriptive
Professional,
reconceptualizes
experience and reflects
on it, not always
chronological, detail ,
adventure
Professional, poetic,
introspection, mix of
genres, counter
cultural, pupulated
by others
Grid.Comparingsyles

11. four aspects of
their texts as
narratives of the
self
Stanislavski Brook Barba
Intercultural
experiences
which made
them
Japan
France
Italy
Germani
USA
Africa
Japan
India
Mexico
USA
Israel
India
Indonesia
Latinoamerica
Japan
Colaboration
Family members
Friends
Actors
Aritsts
Administration
Homogenous
group/ The
ensemble
Life bonds
Intimacy
scientists
companies
Work
process/apprenti
ceship
Research
Acting
MAT
Studio
Research
of other cultures
Inner world
The spiritual
ICTR
Energy
Dramaturgy
Disorder
Inner world
Montage
ISTA
Engage the
reader
Straight forward
chronological
narrative
vivid anecdotes,
lengthy
descriptions
Vivid anecdotes
recurrent events,
correspondences,
minute
descriptions,
travels, wisdom
Vivid anecdotes
Oblique ways,
quotations and
inclusion of other
voices, collage,
theory
Grid:comparingprocessesandstrategies

12. Summing up
• Resources (First person; vivid anecdotes, representative examples,
quotes from people they value, people who changed them, etc.).
• Areas of meaning or concerns (family, school, first theatre experience,
first jobs, apprenticeship, career, values, travels, decisions taken,
mistakes, acting, directing, techniques, marriage, etc.)
• Patterns (research, development, spiritual and professional growth ,
struggle to change things, and to conquer new ways of doing
things/training actors, developing the language of the theatre, etc. ).
• Segments of evaluative discourse about decisions taken and about
what is considered good acting/directing according to the
autobiographers’ experiences and on relation to shared believes.

13. Conclusion
• Systemic approach.
• Process of production.
• Omissions.

14. Difficulties of directors’
autobiographies
• Finding a way to reduce data to a manageable limited amount, a
dimension that can be comprehended by readers.
• Providing certain logic and order in the text (as mentioned
before),… (This is not the case on Barba or other postmodern
autobiographies).
• Establishing a standpoint to guide the selection is not easy (Cutting
irrlevant sections according to an ideal reader).
• Interpreting one’s life and cocealing parts of one’s life (intimate
issues) and experience for others is not easy either.
• Shaping everything in a coherent whole.

15. • In My Life in Art Stanislavski recalls his theatrical career,
from his early experiences in Rubinstein's Russian
Musical Society to his final triumphs with Chekhov at the
Moscow Art Theatre. His vivid account of his own most
famous productions is interspersed with his anecdotes of
the famous - of Kommisarjevksy, Tolstoy, Gorky, and of
the Moscow visit of Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig. -
• "The whole book is packed with entertainment,
alternating with shrewd observation and a wealth of
worldly wisdom...the most interesting and original work
on the theatre that has been published for years" - Daily
Telegraph -

16. • Threads of time by Brook “is certainly not wanting in reflections on
Brook's theatrical experiences, nor, if it comes to that, is it lacking in
self-revelation either” (NYT). The book recalls his spritual growth with
Gurdjieff and Jean Heap. Tells about his lack of apprenticeship
learning as he went along. And his mixed feelings about the theatre
as he wanted to direct films.the trap of yielding to the intellectual
excitement of 'having ideas.' He makes significant remarks such as:
“One word out of place in the director's explanations, and without
noticing it he can block or hamper the actor's own creative process.''it
is the learning process, which for Brook has never ended, that gives
the book unity. The list of people from whom he has learned about
theater is long and includes Brecht, Genet and Beckett.But then in
1970 his general restlessness of spirit prevailed again, and while still
much in demand in London he departed for Paris to found the
International Center of Theater Research, which devoted itself in its
first years to forms of improvisation by actors.
Threads of time

17. “However worthy the object and however interesting
on a certain level the results, this seemed to many to
be a desertion. But one of the most notable of the
center's later projects, a nine-hour stage adaptation
of the Indian epic ''The Mahabharata,'' provides the
book with some of its most compelling pages. This
production at last brought some of the strands
together, allowing the restless spirit, the brilliant
theatrical innovator and the religious seeker to work
in harmony for once. One could say, though, that
they have also collaborated happily on this rich and
absorbing book”. (Anthony Cronin. NYT)
Threads of time

18. Part quest, part odyssey, part spiritual self-exploration, the book is always more than a record
of events. Fueled by an unflagging enthusiasm for new directorial challenges in theater, opera and film,
Brook delights in drawing out the deepest insights of actors, collaborators and colleagues.
Added to his own far-sighted perceptions of interpretive possibilities, these insights helped shape and
illuminate often pioneering and always memorable productions in all branches of
performance art. Much to the reader’s reward, Brook describes the genesis and achievement of productions ranging
from his Sentimental Journey (filmed in 1943 when he was 18) to his ambitious productions of the Sufi classic, The
Conference of the Birds, and the great Indian epic, The Mahabharata.
His memoir offers an unrivaled gallery of great actors, directors and designers with whom Brook often collaborated. Any
student of theater will learn much from Brook’s analyses of these collaborations; any student of life will learn just how
much cost, courage and commitment it takes to realize a vision. Exuberant and fast-moving, this memoir urges us all
to break out and reach out — and convincingly insists that intensity of shared purpose is the
strongest guarantor of real reward (Foreword reviews) (https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/threads-of-
time/)
Threads of time

19. • Barba’s Directing and Dramaturgy
• Among the artists who have made a mark on the history of theatre in the second
half of the twentieth century, Eugenio Barba is the only one who has worked in an
innovative way in all fields of theatre culture: the artistic creation; the theoretical
reflection; the transmission of the professional techniques and knowledge; the
work on historic memory; the scientific research; the use of theatre in a social
context, as a trans-cultural tool to activate relations between social and different
ethnic groups.http://www.odinteatret.dk
• The book captures Barba’s journey from Jerzy Grotowski’s urge to strip theatre of
its pretensions and leads us to the development of his own notions of how to bear
the soul of theatre.
• Structure of a symphony: five chapters to his divisions of dramaturgy, with
intermezzi between each. These are moments of personal reflections which
incorporate poems, excerpts of letters, and texts to illustrate how literally
everything inspired his work. Stanckiewitcz, T. Theatre Topics, 21, 2. (Sept 2011).

20. References
Barba, Eugenio (2010) On Directing and Dramaturgy, Burning the House, Routledge, New York.
Barba, Eugenio (2000) La tierra de cenizas y diamantes (La terra di cenere e diamantini), Octaedro.
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, University of Texas, Austin.
Bazerman, Charles (2013), A rhetoric of literate action. Volume 1, The WAC Clearinghouse. Fort Collins,
Colorado, Parlor Press. Anderson, South Carolina.
Brook, Peter (1998), Threads of Time, a memoir, Methuen Drama. United Kingdom.
Brook, Peter (1988), The Sgifting Point, Forty Years of Theatrical Exploration 1946-1987. Mehtuen. U.K.
Brown, G. and Levinson, S. (1987) Politeness, Some Universals in Language Usage, CUP.
Callow, Simon (2013) The Guardian.
Cronin, Anthony (1998), “Taking Direction”, NYT. https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/threads-of-time/.
Donoghue, Denis (1969) Emily Dickinson - American Writers 81: University of Minnesota Pamphlets on
American Writers No. 81.
Edgar, David (1998) “Showman v. Shaman”, London Review of Books, 12 November, pages 22-23.
Ekin (1989), in Philippe Lejeune on Autobiography (1994), ed J.P. Ekin, University of Minesota Press.
Ignatieva, M. (2008), Stanislavsky and Female Actors, University Press of America Inc.
Lejeune, Philippe (1975), Le pacte autobiographique, Editions du Seuil, Paris.
Stanislavski, Constantin (1924), My life in art, Routledge. New York and London.
Stanislavski, Constantin (1950), Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage, Faber and Faber, London.
Stanckiewitcz, T. (2011), Theatre Topics, 21, 2. (Sept 2011).

21. Thank you!
garin@uv.es
http://independent.academia.edu/inmagarin/Papers