Provoking Theater: Kama Ginkas Directs (Art of Theater Series.) - Softcover

Ginkas, Kama; Freedman, John

9781575253329: Provoking Theater: Kama Ginkas Directs (Art of Theater Series.)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1575253321 ISBN 13: 9781575253329

Publisher: Smith & Kraus Pub Inc, 2003

Provoking Theater: Kama Ginkas Directs explores the genius of Kama Ginkas, one of Russia's most acclaimed theater directors working today. Through co-authors John Freedman's format of "questions and monologues" Ginkas illuminates the dynamics of his creative process. He offers no simple formulas, yet his lively discussions reveal the secrets of a master creator. Theater professionals and students alike will gain invaluable insights as Ginkas explains how one must take risks and make demands in the theater. Steeped in the Stanislavsky system and inspired by the Russian avant-garde as developed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Ginkas has developed a unique vision. His productions at Moscow's New Generation Theater are a must-see for those seeking the best in cutting edge theater. His challenging productions of K.I. from "Crime" by Dostoevsky, performed at Bard College's Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, and The Lady with the Lapdog at the American Repertory Theater, were major theater events in the United States in 2003.

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From the Publisher:

Provoking Theater is an interview with Kama Ginkas, the acclaimed Russian Theater director. Through co-author John Freedman’s format of "questions and monologues," Ginkas offers no simple formulas for making theater. Yet, as we follow his lively leaps of fancy and winding digressions, we feel ourselves in the presence of a master creator; one who is able to penetrate into the murky secrets of the creative process. Ginkas’s monologues illuminate a range of topics of great interest to theater students and professionals. The centerpiece of Provoking Theater is a chapter entitled "The Pathology of the Actor." Here Ginkas expresses the excruciating complexity of his relationship to the "material" and how this relationship gives life to his theatrical imagination. His understanding of the nature of the actor, his insights into the ways one must work with these hypersensitive artists, whose sole instruments are their bodies and psyches, are astonishing in their profundity.

Provoking Theater is about a man whose passion is theater. It is about taking risks and making demands. It is abouthow people make theater and how one man made an artist of himself. It is also the story of a child who survived the Holocaust and whose life and art became inextricably intertwined.

Kama Ginkas describes himself as a Russian director fro Lithuania with a Jewish accent. Trained in the Russian school of psychological realism, steeped in the Stanislavsky systemand bearing the mark of the Russian avant-garde as it was developed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Ginks’s art is a blend of intercultural influences and his own iconoclastic vision. His Russian productions at Moscow’s New Generation Theater are magnets for directors, actors, and critics from many countries who are in search of the bes in cutting-edge theater. His challenging productions of K.I. from "Crime" and We Play "Crime" by Dostoevsky and The Lady with the Lapdog at the American Repertory Theater, were major theater events int the United States in 2003.

About the Author:

KAMA GINKAS is one of the most celebrated theater directors in Russia today. His Moscow productions of K.I. from "Crime," The Black Monk, The Lady with the Lapdog, The Happy Prince and many others have established a new aesthetic standard in his homeland and have toured the world to acclaim. The miraculous survivor of a Jewish Ghetto in Lithuania as a child during World War II, Ginkas nearly abandoned the theater in Leningrad in the 1970s--his challenging, independent style was such that he rarely could find work in the Soviet Union. But a move to Moscow in the 1980s, followed by perestroika and the changes it brought, signaled a drastic change in his fortunes and thrust him into the international spotlight. A professor of theater at the Moscow Art Theater School, he primarily works out of Moscow's Young Spectator, or New Generation, Theater (TYuZ). He made his American debut with multiple projects in 2003.

JOHN FREEDMAN has written or edited and translated nine books about Russian drama and theater, including Silence's Roar: The Life and Drama of Nikolai Erdman and Miscow Performances: The New Russian Theater 1991-1996. He has been the theater critic of The Moscow Times since 1992 and frequently contributes to the New York Times and other periodicals.

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