REVOLUTIONARY
SUICIDE
AND THE
SHEDDING OF CULTURE
THE
MINDSET OF GEESE and a cultural allegory of a leftist mindset from
revolt to obliteration
The mindset of the Bali
bombers is more understandable when considered in light of the
radical mindset of an extreme revolutionary activist from any time
period. For a relatively politically passive society like Australia,
there has been (and probably still is) a surprising degree of radical
revolutionary passion and activism. The splintering of the Communist
Party and the strong influence of philosophers such as Herbert
Marcuse (visit the website) and Erich
Fromm on student activists produced an impassioned, if not
fragmented, leftist revolutionary movement in Australia. While often
at odds with the more traditional movement in the trade unions, its
focus was on issues of the Vietnam war, rising feminist
consciousness, the Chinese
Cultural Revolution with such off-shoots as the Danish published Little
Red School Book and incorporated wider cultural dimensions
influenced by writers such as Wilhelm
Reich.
In
short, there was a fusion:
"of Marxism and
Psychoanalysis to forge a revolutionary sexual radicalism which
argued that capitalism sexually repressed the masses in the interests
of its life negating and exploitative goals." (Susanne Martain: http://www.issi.aust.com/
accessed 3/4/2011)
The Shadow
House PITS new theatre production, GEESE,
explores the mindset of Simon Weigl (later Rodez) who spends his
adult lifetime expunging his cultural and family past in order to
transform himself into a new human being free of hereditary
religious, sexual and cultural attachments. This journey connects him
to people who, like the Bali bombers and today's Islamic terrorists,
have seen death as a kind of romantic offering for whatever the
idealistic cause. On another level, Weigl is the ultimate post modern
existentialist; always at war with the universe and always
unsatisfied with his current condition, his biology his own world view.
For Weigl, it all comes
back to biology, the cause of his misogyny. His efforts to overcome
his biological programing and cultural conditioning were all part of
his revolutionary action. Involvement with Maoist,
Workers
Self Management Groups and even more extreme political and
cultural movements in the early seventies later transformed into a
more personal revolution ultimately centred around his passion for a
totally dedicated revolutionary artist he only knew as Green. By
attempting to re-program their predispositions (ie. the way they
heard music, the language they used and the travel to unfamiliar
countries) and even their names (Simon Weigl became Simon Rodez after
the city where Antonin Artaud was incarcerated in an asylum), Rodez
and Green might have succeeded were it not for the Bali bombing in 2002..
The three key women in
his life were all concerned with forms of sacrifice: the mother as a
kind of suffering martyr for her Jewish faith; the radical girl, Eva,
sharing his journey from Maoist revolutionary and the extreme left to
the ultimate sacrifice of death; and Green who sought transformation
of self through art as a revolutionary act in the tradition of
Antonin Artaud. There is irony as his life is shattered through the
barbarism of another kind of idealism and belief as the Balinese
night club in Kuta was bombed.
The leftist mindset that
began with revolt in the sixties and ended with intellectual death at
the time of the Bali bombing is paralleled by the fragmentation of
idealism into suicide. This is explored through the meeting with a
young girl, Anais, with what is left of Simon Weigl at a railway
station in early 2003. She is more than a stranger; more than some
angel of death. The geese that lived around the station, the train
and the eerie connection with the last moments of the now aging Weigl
all merge into a screaming moment that will echo within the girl for
the next ten years.
The memory of an all but
forgotten Australian revolutionary character may well find a source
of expression though the chronicles of Anais as she re-assembles the
past in order to find a way of explaining; of picturing a complex
interweaving of lives.
Obliteration
and Reassembling; A
Fractal Ontology of Antonin Artaud
A central aspect of the
play GEESE is the notion that how Weigl / Rodez thinks and sees
himself is less significant than the way others receive him and carry
his thoughts. This is a deceptively simply proposition; except that
it embodies the key element of Antonin Artaud's thought: ie.
obliteration and reassembling and a Fractal
Ontology (check this excellent website).
Mao's constant
revolution as the highest form of human endeavour is possible only
within a mindset of constant shedding and constant moving within the
body politic. Such a notion is compatible with quantum
physics and the difficult artistic notions espoused by Antonin
Artaud. Mao wrote in his section on criticism
and self-criticism in The Little Red Book:
The proverb
"Running water is never stale and a door-hinge is never
worm-eaten" means that constant motion prevents the inroads of
germs and other organisms. To check up regularly on our work and in
the process develop a democratic style of work, to fear neither
criticism nor self-criticism, and to apply such good popular Chinese
maxims as "Say all you know and say it without reserve",
"Blame not the speaker but be warned by his words" and
"Correct mistakes if you have committed them and guard against
them if you have not" - this is the only effective way to
prevent all kinds of political dust and germs from contaminating the
minds of our comrades and the body of our Party."
While it can be argued
this thinking led to disastrous results (or the reverse depending on
one's standpoint) in China, the thinking is very different from
traditional Marxist resolving
of contradictions as a means for humanity's moving forward and
general progress. It suggests a constancy is required within the very
act of resolution and that such acts need constant criticism,
assessment and renewal. Leaving aside questions of practicality, the
emphasis is on a state of flux as the norm rather than the
achievement of a pre-determined status quo.
This is essentially what
Artaud sought in his theatre, art and life. Capitalism (like "liberalism"
in Mao's thinking) sought equilibrium with no values and peace at the
cost of ethical considerations. Artaud thus was different to Brecht,
less in ultimate potential forms of expression, but rather through
his demand for understanding of constancies in movement and the
subverting of whatever resolutions (even revolutionary resolutions)
were possible.
In a practical sense,
this can only become manifest through a "tendency" rather
than a dogma because it is impossible to achieve while providing a
means to social cohesiveness. It becomes an easy target for critics
and those arguing for greater cultural considerations; especially
more traditional cultural considerations. Ziauddin
Sardar, for instance, has tended to link communist and
capitalist thinking as one and the same (post modern) because of the
de-emphasis on cultural roots and traditional truths established over
long periods.
The production of GEESE
utilizes forms (ie. Butoh, music, poetic/metaphorical text, Balinese
dance) to illustrate the paradigm in thinking that was energized by
the radical cultural/political movements of the 1960s and early 1970s
in Australia. That such thought has all but disappeared and lost the
relevance it might have once had provides GEESE with a socio /
historical context which is a central role of artistic creation and
presentation within our society.
Especially as new waves
of radicals try to reshape and recreate themselves into the means for
a new revolution and a new human being shaped this time by the
interpreters of the mind of Allah!
snippets
from GEESE performed in 2011 at The Courtyard Studio, Canberra
Theatre Centre
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