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Romeo Castellucci
Romeo Castellucci
Romeo Castellucci
To cite this article: Timmy De Laet & Edith Cassiers (2015) The Regenerative Ruination of Romeo Castellucci, Performance
Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 20:3, 18-28
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The Regenerative Ruination of
Romeo Castellucci
TIMMY DE LAET & EDITH CASSIERS
Demolition, decay or debris are just a few of the traces of former vitality’ and quickly turn into
terms commonly used to describe the radical emblems of ‘collective nostalgia, melancholy
theatre of Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio (SRS). The romanticism, or the scars of past trauma’
aesthetic universe that the company and its (2013: 150). Anyone slightly familiar with
Downloaded by [Universiteit Antwerpen] at 14:04 23 June 2015
leading director Romeo Castellucci have been the theatre of Romeo Castellucci will avow
developing from the 1980s onwards is indeed that his work can be easily aligned with this
marked by an unrelenting attempt to shatter common understanding of ruins. Already the
the boundaries of theatrical representation, early pieces with which he and his company
inaugurating what can be considered a genuine started to tour Europe during the 1990s dazzled
theatre of ruins. Less noted, however, is that spectators with a
Castellucci exploits ruination not only as ruthlessly pulverized some of Western theatre’s
a gesture of destruction but also as an act grand narratives. Works such as Amleto (1992)
of creation. In this essay, we will uncover or Orestea (1995) presented visually puzzling
this often overlooked aspect in Castellucci’s sceneries that, enfolded in vibrant layers of
œuvre by demonstrating how his reliance on sound and fragmentary language, evoked
ruins as a structural element of creation goes elusive no man’s lands populated by straying
against the prevalent view on ruination as
the disintegrating loss of a material world. living animals. Parasitically drawing from the
Castellucci’s work – despite its radical negation canon of classical drama, Castellucci subjects
of traditional dramatic conventions – discloses these stories and their characters to a radical
a particularly constructive side to the idea of ruination that leaves hardly anything intact
ruination, which we will elucidate by focusing of their original forms. ‘It is when a house is
on the discourse that surrounds the theatre burning,’ he maintains, ‘that one can see its
of SRS as well as on the notebooks that chart structure, the reason for its standing’ (2007: 38).
Castellucci’s creation processes. The picture of In contemporary times, Castellucci seems to
suggest, theatre can only thrive on the ruins
is a profoundly ambiguous one, as it hovers of its history, not only in terms of storytelling
between the hostilities of destruction and the but also with regard to the parameters that
potentialities of resurrection. But it is precisely itself.
this complexity that may explain the powerful The latter aspect is arguably most palpable
appeal of Castellucci’s ruinous theatre to in Giulio Cesare, Castellucci’s (1997) version
contemporary audiences. of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,
which became instantly notorious for its
staging of overtly decaying bodies, or, more
UNSETTLING RUINS
properly in this context, the body in ruins.
Age, obesity, anorexia and illness ostensibly
writes, ‘as forms of destruction and the marked the performers of this decidedly
“unseeding” of life’ that incorporate ‘only the unconventional cast that Erika Fischer-Lichte
that reveals itself in a liberal sense of shock that unnoticed. Rather than merely wanting to
such bodies should be on display’ (2005: 140). burn the theatre and its traditions down to
Helena Grehan similarly regards Castellucci’s the ground in typically avant-garde fashion,
œuvre as ‘a journey into an unknown he seeks to exploit the fertile potentialities
landscape of harrowing and exquisite images,
of pain, trauma, silence and sonic ferocity’, a catastrophic wasteland. Even though, in the
which ‘makes the spectators vulnerable’ scholarly reception of Castellucci’s theatre, the
(2009: 37). And according to Bryoni Trezise, emphasis predominantly lies on the negative
the spectatorship involved here is most aptly renunciation of theatrical conventions, there
described as ‘a radical kind of sensationship’, one is a latent undercurrent that intimates how the
that painfully ‘hurts: morally, emotionally, and resulting ruinous aesthetics serve a larger and
physically’ (2012: 208, emphasis in original). less devastating purpose. These more nuanced
Perhaps one of the reasons for the unsettling views come to the fore most clearly in the
effects of Castellucci’s theatre stems from recognition of the ambivalent role that the idea
the fact that it exposes an ongoing process of of iconoclasm plays in Castellucci’s œuvre.
ruination instead of merely displaying ruins
as such. This difference between ‘the ruin’ as
VO I D I N G T H E AT R E
a stable noun and ‘to ruin’ as an active verb is
also what underlies the distinction that Þóra To call Romeo Castellucci a modern iconoclast
Pétursdóttir and Bjørnar Olson draw between
ancient and modern ruins. Whereas the former himself characterizes his work. Describing his
category includes ruins such as those belonging overarching artistic project as a continuous
to classical antiquity that are preserved in ‘iconoclastic struggle’, Castellucci asserts that
a ‘clean, fossilized and terminated’ fashion in
order to become part of our cultural heritage, of tradition is the poietic (creative) foundation
the latter encompasses ‘ruins of the recent past’ of the armored genesis of theatre’ (2007: 37).
Already this statement is suggestive of the dual
state’, visualize ‘ruination itself, the active intentions behind his purported iconoclasm:
process of withering and decay’ (2014: 7). Quite established theatrical codes are patently
tellingly, the authors compare the dynamics of violated but only to arrive at the creation of
ruination with ‘the disintegration of the human what he calls ‘another parallel world, another
body’, noting that the discomfort generally language’ (2004: 25). In this manner, ‘the
reactive effect of iconoclasm … is taken away’,
rots’ is similar to the disturbing sight of and for this reason, it amounts to an ‘exact
D E L A E T & CA S S I E R S : T H E R E G E N E RAT I V E R U I N AT I O N O F RO M E O CA S T E L L U CC I 19
that she is physically paralysed but cognitively in Castellucci’s creative process – and thus to
conscious, symbolically exacerbates the understand his predilection for ruination – it
isolation to which Eurydice is condemned in the is useful to turn to Matthew Causey’s work.
mythological story. But even when Castellucci According to Causey, Castellucci’s ‘voiding’ of
does not put devastatingly ruined bodies on traditional theatre is not an entirely negative
stage, his characters are still often involved in operation. Rather, in his reading, the void is
a bitter struggle to survive the dire situation in characterized by an ambiguous, double-sided
which they seem to be trapped. For example, On follows:
the Concept of the Face of God (2010), a piece that The void is the nothing that is, that which remains
provoked great controversy due to Castellucci’s undecidable, indiscernible, untotalizable, and
allegedly blasphemous appropriation of the unnameable, but whose being makes a sacred
image of Jesus Christ, revolves around a father space for the thingness, materiality, and historicity
and a son whose bond is indissoluble but of the event. (Causey 2006: 191)
excruciatingly lethal.
Despite the seemingly fatalistic worldview the void by relying on the philosophy of Alain
1
Claudia Castellucci is the expressed by his work, Castellucci emphatically Badiou, who theorized it as an ontological
sibling of Romeo
Castellucci and generally
category, ‘the proper name of Being’ (2005: 52).2
regarded as the iconoclastic approach to theatre. According to According to Badiou, the void designates those
‘intellectual’ drive behind
Gabriella Calchi Novati, the intention here is to inconsistent and non-discursive layers of reality
the work of SRS. The essay
that Novati quotes from is exploit the creative potential of negation and that elude the structural grasp of language and
a text written by Claudia this is best captured in terms of a void. In this other systems of categorization. ‘The void, in
Castellucci in 1983,
enigmatically titled ‘OAO’. respect, Novati points to ‘the ironic nature of a situation, is the unpresentable of
SRS’s iconoclasm’, which is expressed in the presentation’, Badiou writes, and from this it
2
Next to Badiou, there are
of course several other ‘hyperbolic claims’ and ‘paradoxical metaphors’ follows that ‘it is neither local or global, but
philosophers who have that impregnate the discourse through which scattered all over, nowhere and everywhere’
dealt with the concept of
the void, ranging from the company articulates its poetics (2009: 58, (57, 55). Perhaps counter-intuitively, the void,
Aristotle to Spinoza, 55). Taking her cue from Claudia Castellucci’s in Badiou’s terms, is not an instance of pure
Leibniz, Althusser and
Derrida, among others. contention that ‘when we do not have any negativity; on the contrary, it embodies
The rich philosophical representation at all, it is then that we have real a multiplicity of forces that undergird the
discourse on the void
would therefore provide
representation’, Novati maintains that ‘it is potentiality of life and creativity.
an interesting lens to through the void and because of the void that Causey regards Castellucci’s work as
analyse the work of
Castellucci in a more
SRS is able to touch the “real”’ (54).1 At the a theatrical manifestation of Badiou’s
elaborate manner than we heart of the iconoclasm pursued by Romeo philosophical concept of the void, arguing
are able to offer here.
Castellucci and his company, then, is the that ‘it is through the creation of a negative
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ruination. In his view, the material reality of has been completely, forgotten, erased …
the ‘ruinous and desiccated bodies’ publicly because it involves a theater connected to
exposed by Castellucci collides with the illusory matter and to that which matter generates’
mechanisms that traditionally adhere to (2000: 23). In his desire to restore this repressed
theatrical representation (8). This reveals what materiality, Castellucci ruins the theatre
he terms a ‘ruinous metaphysics’, a concept as we commonly know it, creating instead
what Ruth Holdsworth describes as a ‘carnal
and on the remains of the stage’ by acting theatre’, in which humans, objects, animals and
upon and with ‘the ruins of illusion’ (92–3). optical and acoustic technologies constitute
In other words, defying the conventional laws a world that calls for a heightened sensuous
and customs of the theatre, as Castellucci does, and sensible engagement, rather than for
prevents the body from being entirely absorbed discursive understanding alone (2007: 110). In
instead to a metaphysical model grounded in Boym’s claim that ‘the fascination for ruins is
corporeal materiality. not merely intellectual but also sensual’, since
The so-called ‘ruinous metaphysics’ that they give us ‘a shock of a vanishing materiality’,
Causey aligns with Castellucci’s theatre is best a shock that Castellucci seeks to induce by
understood as an alternative to both returning to the meaning of matter and the
a ‘transcendent’ and ‘critical’ metaphysics, as matter of meaning (2010: 58).
Critique of Pure Reason These considerations demonstrate that at
3
While transcendent metaphysics the heart of Castellucci’s allegedly iconoclastic 3
In Critique of Pure
Reason
is traditionally concerned with laying bare what approach to theatre stands an inherent duality this distinction most
lies beyond human experience, critical that hovers between a wilful act to destroy extensively in the second
division called
established modes of artistic representation
‘Transcendental Dialectic’
himself – rather aims to articulate those and a compensatory desire to create a theatrical
(unchanging) structures of thought that language that reconnects with the remnants of
determine our view on the world and our place a forgotten tradition. Recognizing this double
in it. Both categories, however, tend to
downplay the materiality of our being in the the iconoclasm of Castellucci and SRS as
world, which is exactly what Castellucci’s work,
in Causey’s reading, strives to revaluate. degeneration and regeneration of the image’
Moreover, drawing on the philosophies of (2014: 65, our translation). For van Baarle,
Foucault and Badiou, Causey argues that this this crystallizes in a peculiar iconography that
‘ruinous metaphysics’, instead of picturing both rejects and remodels the predicaments of
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4
The Tragedia Endogonidia various episodes of the Tragedia Endogonidia.4 among themselves’, while his task is only to
comprised eleven parts,
each created in a different
While the subsequent performances were ‘allow these things to emerge’ and to ‘identify
European city: C.#01, closely connected to the European cities in these structures’ (Castellucci 2014a: 22).
Cesena / A.#02, Avignon /
which they were created, each part of the cycle Everything else that does not impress itself on
B.#03, Berlin / BR.#04,
Brussels / BN.#05, Bergen / clearly built on the preceding productions, Castellucci’s perception as urgent or relevant
P.#06, Paris / R.#07, Rome / constituting a veritable ‘theatre of remnants’, as is radically ‘thrown out, back to the origin, into
S.#08, Strasbourg / L.#09,
London / M.#10, Marseille Max Lyandvert has described it (2005). the trash can’ (ibid.).
/ C.#11, Cesena. Recurring elements such as the staging of living What is interesting about these initial stages
animals (a chimpanzee in Rome, Italy, a goat in of creative activity is that, even on this
Bergen, Norway) or the cube as a scenographic primordial level, a process of ruination appears
setting indicate how the cycle in itself is to take place. Whereas the notes as such can
5
The analysis of Romeo
Castellucci’s notebooks a continually reproductive organism. already be regarded as small, fragmentary ruins
offered in the following The Tragedia Endogonidia that Castellucci assembles from everyday life,
section would not have
been possible without his dialectical dynamic between de- and the subsequent sifting and sorting of this
generous permission to regeneration not only characterizes the ruinous material is in itself a kind of ruination to which
consult and take
photographs of these aesthetics of Castellucci’s theatre, but also Castellucci subjects his own spontaneous
personal documents. We functions as a structural principle that jotting of possible ideas. As a sculptor who
expressly thank him and
Silvia Costa for granting
determines his artistic project in its entirety. To chisels statues out of stone, he works according
us access to these acquire a deeper understanding of how the ruin to a
invaluable resources.
functions in Castellucci’s aesthetics, it is scraps and fragments that eventually make up
6
The images of Romeo important to broaden our scope and consider the ruinous landscapes of his productions.
Castellucci’s notes
included here were
the artist’s own creative processes. To this end, Consequently, Castellucci’s notebooks visualize
digitized by Project ARCH: Castellucci’s notebooks contain invaluable what he calls the ‘via negativa’ of his creation
Archival Research and
information on the various stages during which process (Castellucci et al. 2007: 235). Adding
Cultural Heritage: The
Theatre Archive of Socìetas his works are conceived.5 structure and depth to his notes, Castellucci
Raffaello Sanzio, University uses punctuation, colours, symbols, lines and
of Athens – Aristeia II. The
ARCH research project has different kinds of typography that chart how he
F RO M S C RATC H, TO S C RA P S, TO
selects certain ideas while eliminating others
European Union SCRUTINY
(European Social Fund
6
This primarily negative way of working
– ESF) and Greek national Castellucci’s notebooks are a crucial instrument through the amalgam of inspirational material
funds through the
Operational Program for stimulating and structuring his creative
‘Education and Lifelong imagination. ‘On these pages,’ he says, ‘I jot of lists that articulate what he does not want. In
Learning’ of the National
Strategic Reference down all the sensations that the day brings’, his notebook for Inferno (2008), for instance, he
Framework (NSRF). gradually building ‘a collection of scraps’ that mentions the type of costumes he deems
22 P E R F O R M A N C E R E S E A R C H 20·3 : O N R U I N S A N D R U I N A T I O N
images or ideas that he initially experimented (‘gelatina rosa’) and of people being immersed (top) Figure 1. Castellucci’s
use of punctuation, colours,
with while preparing a particular production in this pink mucus (‘immersi nel muco rosa. symbols, lines, and so forth
eventually end up in another piece. For in the notes for Hey Girl!,
2006. Photo ARCH, courtesy of
example, the notebook for Purgatorio (2008) does not actually appear in Purgatorio but Romeo Castellucci and SRS.
– the second part of Castellucci’s adaptation rather resurfaces as the key opening scene (below) Figure 2. Notes for
Inferno, 2008, including a
of Dante’s La Divina Commedia – features of Hey Girl! list of costumes that
descriptions of an ‘iconography of the body of the notebooks for Hey Girl!, Castellucci Castellucci does not want
for this piece. Photo ARCH,
on a introduces the notion of a victim forgiving its courtesy of Romeo Castellucci
the image of a formless lump of pink gelatine torturer, which eventually became a central and SRS.
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Figure 3. Notes for theme in Purgatorio. Castellucci’s most recent of dramatic and canonical texts that generally
Purgatorio, 2008, featuring a
description of the opening production Go Down, Moses (2014) also recycled provide the titles for his theatre works, but
scene of Hey Girl!, 2006. that he never stages as full productions. The
Photo ARCH, courtesy of Romeo
Castellucci and SRS.
piece is the actualization of a note that was preparatory notes for La Divina Commedia
included in ‘Disjecta Membra: Entries from illustrate how Castellucci bends the original
a notebook of Romeo Castellucci’, published
in 2007 (Castellucci 2007 et al.: 261–9).
The performance neatly corresponds to the the wolf – the notebooks become increasingly
initial description of ‘a diorama faithfully populated by a range of mythological creatures
representing a primitive landscape’, in which
‘two “Neanderthals”, one male and one female stagings. Other notes testify to the manner in
which Castellucci re-interprets the locations
Once again, we see how Castellucci re-uses that structure Dante’s Divina Commedia. Next to
ideas that he previously relegated to the so- ‘INF’ (Castellucci’s abbreviation for ‘Inferno’),
called ‘trash can’. Indeed, in a talk following
one of the showings of Go Down, Moses, he or ‘Il Reale’ (the real), while the headings
7
The most famous text in explicitly asserted that one of the primary ‘PUR’ (‘Purgatorio’) and ‘PAR’ (‘Paradisio’)
which Diderot expresses
his appraisal of the ruin is
tenets of his poetics is that ‘the forms (ideas, respectively mention ‘Ospedale Tecnologia’
his ‘Salon of 1767’, in (‘Hospital Technology’) and ‘Coma’. Notes such
which he claims that ‘a
(Castellucci 2014b). as these unmistakably announce the manner
palace must be in ruins to
evoke any interest’ since If Castellucci’s creative method can be in which Castellucci re-interprets the Divina
only then it invites to described as a sustained working with and Commedia on stage.
‘contemplate the ravages
of time’ (Diderot cited in reworking of ruins that emanate from his On a broader level, Castellucci’s procedure
Brewer 2008: 186). personal imagination, the same procedure of recycling ruins epitomizes what he regards
Diderot’s interest in ruins
was prompted by the applies to the various other sources that feed as the task of the artist. Tellingly, in a 2002
paintings of Hubert his inspiration. This is evident in the deeply interview, he states:
Robert, who came to be
known as ‘Robert of intertextual nature of his notebooks. The The essential problem of the Creator, of artists,
Ruins’. fragmentary descriptions, selective lists and is their permanent confrontation with the void,
24 P E R F O R M A N C E R E S E A R C H 20·3 : O N R U I N S A N D R U I N A T I O N
R E D E M PT I V E R U I N AT I O N
D E L A E T & CA S S I E R S : T H E R E G E N E RAT I V E R U I N AT I O N O F RO M E O CA S T E L L U CC I 25
and merits of theatre as a medium. From allows for ruptures and discontinuities. ‘Allegory
views existence, as it does art’, he writes,
foremost a means to disrupt the representational ‘under the sign of fragmentation and ruins’
laws that govern the realm of theatre and to
start envisioning a theatrical practice that goes grants a constructive power to the destructive
beyond its conventional boundaries and that or ruinous play of allegory. For Benjamin,
opens up to new modes of artistic expression. as Naomi Stead explains, ‘the emancipatory
Destruction and reconstruction, degeneration potential of the ruin’ consists in the fact that
and regeneration, and decay and rebirth ‘it is through the suddenness and shock of
destruction that the subject emerges from
called ruination. In contrast to the dominant the “dream” of tradition’, in so far as ‘the
interpretations of Castellucci’s theatre that act of destruction places everything in new
tend to focus, too one-sidedly, on his radical juxtapositions’ (2003: 62).
Figure 5. A recent
actualization of earlier
notes in the Neanderthals
scene in Go Down, Moses,
2014. Photo Guido Mencari.
26 P E R F O R M A N C E R E S E A R C H 20·3 : O N R U I N S A N D R U I N A T I O N
a process of inevitable and degenerative decay. monstrous aesthetics that overthrows the
Furthermore, by deliberately applying ruination
to the medium of theatre, his work begs the apparent negation is not intended to plunge the
question as to what theatrical expression can theatre into a destructive state of pure chaos;
still convey – besides the initial sensation of rather his intention is to build a theatrical
shock – when its constitutive elements are language that, on the level of artistic expression,
rigorously ruined. allows for change and becoming. Not only
Doreothea Olkowski provides an interesting does Castellucci refuse to impose a clear-cut
line of approach for anticipating the direction meaning, so inviting individual spectators to
in which Castellucci’s creative ruination of way of thinking and feeling themselves
theatre may lead. In Gilles Deleuze and the through his work, but his own creative process,
Ruin of Representation (1999), she envisions as illustrated by his notebooks, invests in
an ‘ontology of creation and becoming’ that, a continuous and dynamic methodology. By
in order to become actualized, requires the doing so, he accumulates, revises, recycles and
ruination of ‘social and political representations revises the fragmentary ruins that inhabit his
– that is, conceptions of social and political artistic imagination. In the hands of Castellucci,
hierarchies’. According to Olkowski, following ruination becomes an act of constructive
Deleuze, this makes it possible ‘to conceive as destruction that ruins the tradition of theatre as
well as to create the monstrosity of singularity a means to re-invent it, differently.
and multiplicity that is change’ (1999: 120–1).
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Causey, Matthew (2006) Theatre and Performance in Digital Stead, Naomi (2003) ‘The value of ruins: Allegories of
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