Director: Bill Walters
Institution: College of Fine Arts, University of New Mexico, USA
Venue: Experimental Theatre
Time: 13:30-14:30, May 22, 2014
Event: The 1st World Theatre Education Convention with 3rd Asian Theatre Schools Festival
Director’s Notes
3 2's; or AFAR was partly inspired by a conversation between two philosophers, one European and one Asian. As they discuss their mutual friend, Count Shuzo Kuki, student of Nishida Kitaro, and founder of a new Japanese aesthetics that bridged ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, much of the theme of their dialogue is about the attempt to communicate across cultures, and the difficulty inherent in the differences of language; the inability to express or to understand something which is essentially non-translatable and is thus always viewed at a distance, or from afar.
So too, Mac Wellman’s plays are constantly re-examining the usage of language. His characters speak in unexpected and sometimes seemingly indecipherable ways. Likewise, the many languages of the theatre are utilized and re-purposed, weaving puppetry, song, dance, slapstick humour, and a bit of romance together with serious speculation - all done in a distinctly American voice. Although they may not concretely convey their meaning, it is strongly sensed that it is nonetheless there, playfully oscillating between nearness and farness. Much like the clarity and understanding we seek in the world and in our lives.
Like many of his plays, AFAR is set in a theatre. It is a play aware of itself being a play, and yet not quitting the attempt to simply be a play, in this theatre, at this time.
Synopsis
Set in a haunted puppet theatre (which looks suspiciously like The Central Academy of Drama’s Experimental Theatre), 3 2’s; or AFAR is a meditation on philosopher Martin Heidegger’s “Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer”, the presence of certain suspicious and abandoned footwear, as well as an exploration of the Japanese notion of IKI (coquetry). From the critically acclaimed playwright and linguistic gymnast, Mac Wellman, comes a new play about what endangers, what is near, and what is nearer than that.
Running Time: 60 minutes