There exists a Big History which drags us
along, submerging us, and in
which we often feel incapable of intervening. We can neither know nor understand in which direction it is moving, while it is moving, and us with it. Only when we observe it in retrospect, when time has passed, do its twists and turns appear clear to us. The Big History concedes us no freedom at all. It moves on inexorably and goes we know not where nor why. We often tell each other stories of Hope or Despair. All equally meaningless, even though they may at times kindle a feeble flame in the surrounding darkness.
Nevertheless in the Big History it is possible to outline small islands, tiny
gardens where our hand may make its mark and where we can live out our Small History. This Small History, intertwined with refusals and “superstitions”, is that of our life, our home, our family, of the misunderstandings, the encounters and the coincidences that have guided us towards the craft and the environment to which we have decided to belong.
Clearly the Big History and the Small History are not independent. But
the Small Histories are not merely portions of the Big one. Children who build a small dam on the margins of the current of a great river, who make a tiny pool in which to bathe and splash around, do not play in the rushing current, yet neither are they separated from the water flowing in the centre of
the river. They create, along its banks, small inlets and unexpected habitats, thus passing on to the future the marks of their difference.
Voltaire described all this in Candide. The illusion that the world in which we live is tolerable or that it is “the best of all possible worlds” crumbles under a deluge of irony and adventures. After lengthy participation in the mechanical game that is the struggle between pessimism and optimism, Voltaire’s protagonist arrives at the conclusion that we must work without thinking of the outcome of our work, just concentrating on “cultivating our own garden”. This attitude does not mean giving way, surrendering; it is not an appeal to selfishness or to a restricted and egocentric vision of life. It is the affirmation of the necessity to contradict the Big History with a Small History that can belong to us and make them dance together.
Theatre is an attempt to stand in the waters of the river without letting oneself be dragged away by the current.
This is the history of theatre: small gardens and tiny pools of water sheltered from the force of the current. Sometimes submerged by it.
which we often feel incapable of intervening. We can neither know nor understand in which direction it is moving, while it is moving, and us with it. Only when we observe it in retrospect, when time has passed, do its twists and turns appear clear to us. The Big History concedes us no freedom at all. It moves on inexorably and goes we know not where nor why. We often tell each other stories of Hope or Despair. All equally meaningless, even though they may at times kindle a feeble flame in the surrounding darkness.
Nevertheless in the Big History it is possible to outline small islands, tiny
gardens where our hand may make its mark and where we can live out our Small History. This Small History, intertwined with refusals and “superstitions”, is that of our life, our home, our family, of the misunderstandings, the encounters and the coincidences that have guided us towards the craft and the environment to which we have decided to belong.
Clearly the Big History and the Small History are not independent. But
the Small Histories are not merely portions of the Big one. Children who build a small dam on the margins of the current of a great river, who make a tiny pool in which to bathe and splash around, do not play in the rushing current, yet neither are they separated from the water flowing in the centre of
the river. They create, along its banks, small inlets and unexpected habitats, thus passing on to the future the marks of their difference.
Voltaire described all this in Candide. The illusion that the world in which we live is tolerable or that it is “the best of all possible worlds” crumbles under a deluge of irony and adventures. After lengthy participation in the mechanical game that is the struggle between pessimism and optimism, Voltaire’s protagonist arrives at the conclusion that we must work without thinking of the outcome of our work, just concentrating on “cultivating our own garden”. This attitude does not mean giving way, surrendering; it is not an appeal to selfishness or to a restricted and egocentric vision of life. It is the affirmation of the necessity to contradict the Big History with a Small History that can belong to us and make them dance together.
Theatre is an attempt to stand in the waters of the river without letting oneself be dragged away by the current.
This is the history of theatre: small gardens and tiny pools of water sheltered from the force of the current. Sometimes submerged by it.
