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The Regenerative Ruination of Romeo Cast
The Regenerative Ruination of Romeo Cast
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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, DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2015.1049033
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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
leading director Romeo Castellucci have been the theatre of Romeo Castellucci will avow
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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 defiant aesthetics that
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 figures, menacing machines and stuffed or even
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
the ruin that will emerge from these reflections 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 traditionally define the medium of theatre 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.
We usually think of ruins, Dariusz Gafijczuk 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
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, that reside in what, at first sight, seems to be
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 is, in the first instance, to confirm how he
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 ‘setting fire to the immense and vacuous archive
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).
that, due to their unfinished and ‘transient 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
engendered by ‘flesh [that] decomposes and reactive effect of iconoclasm … is taken away’,
rots’ is similar to the disturbing sight of and for this reason, it amounts to an ‘exact
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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
that is ‘projected on the flesh of the performer 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
in transcendental signification, pointing this manner, Castellucci’s work affirms Svetlana
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).
identified by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason These considerations demonstrate that at
(1998 [1781]).3 While transcendent metaphysics the heart of Castellucci’s allegedly iconoclastic 3
In Critique of Pure
Reason, Kant deals with
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
metaphysics – that Kant claimed to practice established modes of artistic representation
‘Transcendental Dialectic’
himself – rather aims to articulate those and a compensatory desire to create a theatrical (1998 [1781]: 384–623).
(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 movement, Kristof van Baarle characterizes
downplay the materiality of our being in the the iconoclasm of Castellucci and SRS as
world, which is exactly what Castellucci’s work, ‘consist[ing] of two processes, respectively the
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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R E D E M PT I V E R U I N AT I O N
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this perspective, ruination becomes first and 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 (2002: 330 [J56a,6]). Significantly, Benjamin
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
emerge here as the flip sides of the same coin 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.
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Furthermore, by deliberately applying ruination established codes of classical drama. Yet this
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 find a 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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