London Test # 2: Getting Technical

Two days before opening, theatremakers will take any feather or star falling their way from the sky as a good omen, serendipity, and/or consolation from the divine. Why consolation? Because any affirmation from the universe soothes the mind considering needed ticket sales, a planned transit strike during RETROSPECTIVE’s second week at Barons Court Theatre. What was today’s welcome encounter? An essay by aeon.co/users/felix-fli…ia theoretical physicist and senior lecturer in physics at Bristol University in the UK. He is the author of profilebooks.com/work/t… (2023).

What does physics have to do with our existential comedy? Or with theatre in general? Consider Dr. Flicker’s definition and explanation of EMERGENT:

"A phenomenon is emergent if it is built from parts but cannot be reduced to them without losing some key aspect of the description. One of the pioneers of quantum matter, Philip Anderson, conceived of the subject with an update to Aristotle’s adage: the whole is not only more than the sum of its parts – it can also be fundamentally different from it. Take ice, for example. Ice has emergent properties not present in any of its constituent water molecules. It is cold, say. Cold is not a property an individual molecule can possess. Ice is also rigid: push one edge of an ice cube and the other edge moves. This is neither a property of individual molecules nor of their sum, since those same molecules can also form liquid water, which does not possess such rigidity. Ice is purely emergent."

Theater is emergent and as slippery as ice. It is built from parts-- text, actors, director, lighting, sound, set, costumes, place -- but it cannot be reduced to them without losing some key aspect of the description. Today is tech for RETROSPECTIVE. Adding the elements of sound and light — going cue to cue — demonstrates that a play is a collection of parts that evoke a sum greater than those exquisite parts, a totality taking an audience somewhere significant. Ariadne Mnouchkine got at this emergence in the avowal that when she considers theatre she hates the word production “It’s a ceremony, a ritual… You should go out of the theatre stronger and more human than when you went in.” That’s the London test: make theatre live; make theatre emergent, a ceremony that will make the audience go out of the theatre stronger and yet also lighter for their laughter, renewed for their contemplation. Now if we could only get Felix Flicker to one of our performances starting May 14th. Tix at link in bio

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