Theatre and Boxing focuses on a problem which is of paramount importance for any theatre practitioner and researcher: the actor’s believable body. This problem has been taken up by Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Artaud, Brecht, Decroux, Copeau, Grotowski, and many others. It is an essential hurdle for all who practice the theatrical craft or want to study it theoretically. This hurdle can be considered one of the foundations of theatre science and of the relationship between technique, politics and ethics.
This book tells the story of a revolution in the work of the actor in the early- and mid-20th century, a period in which the focus of theatrical interest shifted from the emotions to the body. The actor’s body became a tool for purveying a dynamic set of actions which often transformed the very actor himself. This new centrality of the body also drew attention to those places in which the body is central: the gym, the boxing ring and the circus with its trapezes and tightropes became, together with the stage, laboratories for the theatre. Thus, in addition to the reformers of the theatre the pages of this book are filled with boxers, acrobats, gymnasts and wrestlers, pursuers of an utopia: the "actor who flies".
"A must for anyone who really wants to understand the factors which influence change in theatre practice." - The Stage
Foreword
Boxing
Gymnasiums and bals musette
Boxers and acrobats
The actor who flies
Envoi
Under the editorial direction of Eugenio Barba, Frank Camilleri and Dariusz Kosinski, this co-publication project encompasses some of Europe's finest contemporary theatre research.
The series will continue to foreground questions and contradictions from a laboratory perspective, in both technical and theoretical spheres. Forthcoming publications include: