PER BRASK
I love Ric's dream. I too wish we could create a "world" in which current boundaries between theatrical practice/training and research/theory would dissolve. Indeed, I believe that the disillusions that many who were drawn to the theatre for the best of reasons experience by the time they reach Ric's age are the product of working in an academy which insists on maintaining these boundaries. And I know very few of us in that age group who do not curse this fact. The problem as I see it, though, is more a problem for the academy than it is for the theatre. Greatly innovative and questioning theatre is doing well as Ric's own list shows. I'm sure this does not mean that people who have successfully melded practice and theory do not experience frustrations.
Here in Winnipeg we are benefitted by being home to Primus Theatre, a theatre group which defines itself as a laboratory and whose rehearsals are inconceivable without continuous theoretical questioning and exploration. Its frustrations are not, like ours, produced by conceptual boundaries in their work day, but rather by the boundaries built by a society where marketable product is valued and rewarded as the highest possible achievement. Primus's work requires extensive preparation and rehearsal time so it cannot produce more than one show a year. As its members tirelessly interrogate the relations between audience and performers some of their shows are produced for very small audiences (50-60 people) while others are produced as parades and are seen by thousands. However, there is no way to sell (more) tickets to some of these events and so also no way for funding bodies to get a "real" sense of the "value" of Primus's work. Hence the group produces in poverty. But it has, I believe, to a great extent, realized Ric's dream; the members do practice and they are an academy in the sense that they theorize and interrogate their practice within a larger context. (In fact, they also teach. Primus has so far held two short school sessions.) Perhaps, indeed, Primus provides a kind of model for how we might be able to fashion integrative pedagogical strategies in theatre and drama departments in the universities. One of the first steps would be to get rid of the notion of courses and start team-teaching groups of students gathered around specific tasks and issues with both artistic and theoretical implications. Ideally, such project groups would also include visiting artists. But where is the university which would let us do that? At least for the moment the best most of us can hope for is to break down the boundaries in our "private" research. But keep talking Ric!