VULGO has enjoyed a privileged glimpse into the development of “The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic” since Robert Wilson’s first Madrid rehearsals, thanks to top Irish performance artist Amanda Coogan’s insightful series of rehearsal postcards, which we published here, earlier in the year.

How exciting then to see Amanda (aka “Ireland” as she was referred to by her fellow performers), sharing the Lowry Stage with Marina Abramovic, Antony Hegarty, Willem Dafoe, and a host of stellar performers (Kyra O’Reilly, Ivan Civic, Andrew Gilchrist, the Svetlana Spajic Group, et al), at Manchester International Festival 2011 last Friday night.

I caught up with Amanda for a coffee and a chat about the journey of this watershed show just before she headed to make-up, for the final performance in its first run. Listen here on soundcloud:
Amanda Coogan chats about The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. Part One. by Deirdre Mulrooney

Amanda reflects on the experience so far with VULGO Magazine, touching on the process by which her own original performances “Yellow”, and “Medea” are ‘quoted’ by Robert Wilson; the effect of disguising her own well known facial features in extreme make-up ‘like calligraphy’; how her own trademark meticulously thought-through costumes got transformed into Wilson-land extravaganzas and ‘yellow’ turned ‘green’; and how it feels to eliminate all naturalistic movement – including sign-language.
Amanda Coogan chats about The Life & Death of Marina Abramovic. Part Two by Deirdre Mulrooney

We chew the fat on what this magnificent theatrical spectacle might mean for Performance Art, as a genre… that beautiful post-modern slipperiness between genres, and the thought that ‘the divide between theatre and performance art is a very seventies thing’…

Additionally, what is it like working with Willem Dafoe?  & what has Krapp’s Last Tape got to do with anything?

In the show itself, occasionally (but surprisingly not often), black and white clips of Abramovic’s own archive performance pieces – lying with a skeleton, scrubbing a skull, almost slicing her eyeball, float on the top left hand side of the stage.  There is a lot going on at any one time, so it is challenging for the viewer, and the listener, to take it all in. Even a video clip of Tito shaving is dropped into the highly eclectic mix at one point.  (Wilson doesn’t shy away from the murkier issues of Abramovic’s charged ‘former Yugoslavian’ background). What with electro-acoustic duo Mat Mos, the magnificent stage presence of Antony Hegarty, his haunting, otherworldly voice, and poignant self-penned lyrics, the Svetlana Spacic Group – a spine-tingling group of Balkan traditional singers (tying in with Abramovic’s Balkan background), the spectator is left in a delicious state of sensory overload, trying to figure this ‘play’ out.  And for once, it’s not actually a matter of life and death, as it often is in Performance Art.  Phew. It’s ‘just a dumb play’ – with lots of humour and gorgeous spectacle to puncture the intensity which goes with this territory.

Cartoonesque characters float through this brand new  Wilson-land, in their own performance worlds, as opposed to interacting with each other.  There is very little interaction, apart from the narrator supremo, Willem Dafoe’s talking to us, the audience, as a sort of dusty academic narrator/biographer, come Krapp of Krapp’s last Tape, come Joker, mediating between us and these outer reaches of Performance Art.  Asking, partly, ‘why do you hurt yourself?’ (Isn’t that the question on the tip of all of our tongues?)

The biographical narrative is strong, growing out of heartbreaking stories and hints of early childhood abuse by Marina’s own mother, and interwoven later with what turns out to be an unhappy personal life.  Oddly, in the vortex of this Wilson-ian sensory overload, I found myself thinking of ‘Hellinger technique’ – family systems psychotherapy, in which recalling a traumatic childhood memory and having everyone else in the workshop act out the roles, even though they have never met your family members has a healing effect. After all, according to Aristotle, the original function of theatre is ‘to heal the city’. I hope it could have that effect on Abramovic, who here, yet again, puts herself through a public ordeal of her own free will (but hm, is she actually doing that in place of the spectator?).  Of course that could be because my own uncle Brendan is a practitioner of this technique, and it is on my mind.  Thus, perhaps, Abramovic walks through selected, highly sculpted, traumatic incidents in her life story in an elegant, Morticia-like black evening gown, laying herself bare and vulnerable.  It’s sad to see her in a hospital bed holding what must be an effigy of her younger self while Dafoe’s Joker-like character cruelly recounts her story of familial abuse, and occasionally even sends her up. 

Poking fun at the intensity of Abramovic’s well-known personal/public actions like “The Lovers – The Great Wall Walk” when Abramovic and her former long-term partner, Uday famously each walked 2.000 kilometers along the Great Wall of China to meet in the middle, bid each other farewell, and officially end their relationship.  ‘Couldn’t you just have met in the park?’ snipes Dafoe’s spooky Joker-man, deflating her opus.  Marina sits there and takes it.  Dafoe is our representative and connector on stage – connecting with the outer-reaches of performance art which are perplexing and inaccessible for many.  Why do you hurt yourself ?, a song written by Antony Hegarty, and sung by Dafoe, sums it up.  It’s a beautiful, rich, and touching show, with a lot more emotion and warmth than I would usually associate with what I’ve seen so far by Robert Wilson.  He also showcases and highlights stars of the new generation of performance artists that Abramovic has influenced and in some cases nurtured (including our own Amanda Coogan).

Genius theatre director that he is, Wilson has assembled an ace team of dramaturgs, directors, musical producers (William Basinski), etc who assume responsibility for different aspects of the show. The sizeable and eclectic cast comprise a mixture of Robert Wilson performers, new generation performance artists, Balkan traditional singers, Antony Hegarty, Willem Dafoe, and of course the stunning stage presence of Marina Abramovic herself – who here also sings.  I, for one, was overwhelmed by this unimaginable congress of charisma and original genius.

Book a ticket for Madrid Teatro Reale in April 2012 if you can. Or Basel, or Amsterdam, or who knows where more dates will pop up… I’ve a feeling there will be many.

 
The Life and Death of Marina Abramović
9 – 16 July 2011 The Lowry, Manchester.
Manchester International Festival and Teatro Real Madrid present the world premiere of a startling new piece for the stage: The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, a biography of the godmother of performance art, re-imagined by visionary director Robert Wilson.
Robert Wilson Concept, Director, Designer
, Marina Abramović Co-creator
, Antony Composer and music curator, William Basinski Composer and music curator
, Jacques Reynaud Costume Designer, Ann-Christin Rommen Associate Director, Wolfgang Wiens Dramaturg
, AJ Weissbard Lighting Designer, Annick Lavallée-Benny Set Design Assistant, Julia von Leliwa Costume Design Assistant, Thomas Hescott Assistant Director
Performers: Marina Abramović,
Ivan Civic, 
Amanda Coogan,
Willem Dafoe,
Andrew Gilchrist,
Antony,
Elke Luyten,
Christopher Nell, 
Kira O’Reilly,
Antony Rizzi,
Carlos Soto,
Svetlana Spajic, 
Svetlana Spajic Group (Minja Nikolic, Zorana Bantic and Dragana Tomic)