2024-09-16 11:03:52
The Man of Death
I have incredible fear of death. From childhood. I thought about death, night and day – okay, mostly at night, but also some evenings if the house was empty. I could be paralyzed just thinking about this very strange condition: first you live, then you die. crazy. Over the years I realized that: you can’t do much against your existential anxieties. It takes a little faith. A little less control. And this drive towards black must be a creative force, to fight it. You have to make your pain into a song, that’s what I came to.
Words usually do the trick. That’s why I struggle with the theater without words. I am fascinated by the ritual/movement/stillness. I learned to exist in the world through words – this is a sentence that states the obvious. I believe so only words can get to the bottom of things, speak the words to healand I am one of those, in difficult times, who will say a prayer without knowing where they are aiming the super weapon of this cosmic transcendence. However, I went and saw Mario Banucci’s Taverna Miresia, because I smelled death. And I felt great gratitude to those who did the work.
The banality of disaster
The drama began and I was at a loss for words. He had these silences that worry me. I wanted my harp. The line about. My comfort. I wanted someone to come out and speak, like priests in their worst moments, say something. I believe priests perform this role at funerals, memorial services and weddings. It is the role of the usher in the courtroom. The casual appearance of the nurse at the hospital reception. Look to a divorce lawyer for your divorce. Something like “I’m all visible and I’m looking at you indifferently”. Seeing yourself through the eyes of a doomsayer is sure to give you unrelenting comfort: the worst things will happen to you, there is nothing special about your horror. But no one was talking. And the mechanism of the panic attack was activated: claustrophobia and an irresistible desire to get up and leave, run into the streets, yes, why?
To Banousi
However, the images have imposed themselves on this nervous system which sometimes detects its sensitivity. Banousi Taverna Miresia’s performance begins with a purgative shower. The sad faces could be anyone, but it just so happens that these are the people we see. He has no words at all – except for some terrible laryngeals. It is a bittersweet song in which the creator tells us, with modesty and heartfelt emotion, that he wants someone to give him a hug to comfort him. He knows that this cannot be done and that the acceptance, if it comes, will be from a dark and thorny creature, crying, very sad (in the performance of Slán Lindida it is accepted by a mother-goddess figure). Falling into a puddle of mud and memories, he builds his silent masterpiece in a Balkan setting (see photos here) along with a group of talented women with beautiful normal bodies. I was looking at it and my heart was beating. It was as if someone had taken my fears and brought them up on stage to rub them in my face. Of course, the ritual had an effect on me. With every movement of the actors, my soul was cleansed. I got into the flow as you go into the flow of making a picture of the words, and stopped noticing the awkward silence. I lost myself somewhere at work, what is the goal always, to leave without you, light from the room, achieved.
To Chekhov
I found the words about the mourning I lost from the work of Mario Banussi in a short story by Anton Chekhov (Enemies, 1887, Short Stories and Novels, Alexandra Ioannidou, Psychogios publications). When Chekhov was about the age Banussi is now (one is 27, the other 26), he wrote a short story that begins with a moral dilemma. “On a dark September night in the doctor’s house” the only son, Andrei, six years old, dies. The doctor has no time to cry. A visitor breaks into his house and demands his services: if the doctor does not come immediately, a young girl, the visitor’s wife, will die.
The doctor is at a loss. He has just lost his son. The visitor is struck, he begs for warmth. Chekhov writes: “In the bedroom there was not that repulsive horror that they imagine when they talk about death. In the general paralysis, in the posture of the mother’s body, in the indifference of the doctor’s face, there was something attractive, something touching the heart, just a subtle beauty, barely perceptible human suffering. […] one of them felt a beauty in this weeping stillness. Kirillov and his wife were quiet, they did not cry, as if, in addition to the weight of the loss, they also understood the lyricism of their position.” The lyricism does not last long, because Chekhov is entertaining and extremely funny , so the fun begins.
Things that make me believe in humanity this week
This week I am inspired by the idea of how Epicurus had the solution. Fear of death, anxiety and panic. Epicurus was “on the side of simple pleasures: moderate consumption of food and drink, good friends, intelligent discussion of important and interesting subjects”. Simple things, tested over centuries. I have taken the phrase from the book Heaven and Hell by Bart D. Ehrman. Now I’m not saying I’m out of my existential troubles, but here are some words that make you walk down the street with your head held high. I look for these conversations about beautiful and important topics, but lately what I get is “my news” and “I hear what happened at work”.
And also: Sergio Pitol and the fact that some readers of the column not only know him and read him, but also know phrases from the original version. Here’s another from The Art of Escape: “In the end, only the spiritual life counts. Only the fruits of thought and the creation of art give true protection to man’s presence in the world.” One can live on words. It is food. But there are other things that justify our presence in the world in my opinion: the company of dogs, the invention of the toilet, for some children. But, Pitol is right about this: certain higher results are meant only for us, the Heavens of words open up for you after you have bitten the apple of knowledge several times, the ability to soothe pain is completely indefinable. Which is probably not often the case with other creatures, according to my dog.
#Words #tranquilizer #panic #attack #Banussis #performance #bit #Chekhov