ABSTRACT
Barba first became involved with theatre in 1960. Over the 40 years that he has written, discussed and made theatre, and been involved with theatricality, his ideas have evolved and inevitably been changed and amended. Through the course of the book we have traced the ways in which his ideas and practices have developed, explored the common characteristics in his work and the ideas and questions he has been concerned with, from the very beginning through to the present. Key ideas and practices have been accumulated that will help you to develop your own theatre practice. The first key ideas encountered in Chapter 1 were the words ‘energy’ and ‘action’. These words have recurred throughout this book and in order to appreciate Barba’s work and approach to theatre there is a need to explore what the terms mean in practice. These two words will at various times be familiar, while at other times they can appear difficult to understand, even dull, but hopefully inspiring as well. Western theatre practice has, for a long time, been involved with ideas of progress, that is the need to constantly be changing and moving forwards. One of the implications resulting from our fascination with progress, and all things new, is that we are unused to remaining focused on one thing for very long. The long-term repetition of exercises and detailed precision of performance work can be especially challenging but it is central to Barba’s work. There will be
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the energy to repeat the exercises again; times when you realise that you actually have not connected with the work at all; and times when familiar exercises suddenly seem too difficult. However, there will be other times when you hit a moment of revelation through the exercises, times when you connect and learn something new about yourselves as performers and theatre-makers.
