"if you think childlike, you'll stay young. If you keep your energy going, and do everything with a little flair, you're gunna stay young. But most people do things without energy, and they atrophy their mind as well as their body. you have to think young, you have to laugh a lot, and you have to have good feelings for everyone in the world, because if you don't, it's going to come inside, your own poison, and it's over" Jerry Lewis "I don’t believe in the irreversibility of situations" Deleuze
IV. Le théâtre et ses gestes
The Theater and Its Gestures
Bene disrupts the motion of the characters’ bodies, but never does that cause them to interfere with each other. Often Richard slips. But this is merely a continuous variation of his body, and not a conflict with the things around him. So his continual removing and wearing his cloak is a “variation of clothing” (111b-112a/214b.c), and the flowers vary as well. But their variations never interfere with each other’s liberty to vary, so they do not create oppositional power relations [for video of these examples, see the Richard entries.]
Likewise in S.A.D.E., the sadistic master tries to force the naked girl to metamorphose through a series of use-objectifications. But she escapes his control by expressing her gestures through an independent series of modifications. [This example left a potent impression on Deleuze. He writes, “Hommage à l’actrice qui joua à
the relations of force and opposition belong to that which is shown only for the purpose of being subtracted, cut away, neutralized.
(215a)
les rapports de force et d’opposition font partie de ce qui n’est montré que pour être soustrait, retranché, neutralisé.
(113ab)
Any conflicts Bene does employ are merely media for variations that eliminate “masters.” (113b/215a)
[The following paragraph in Deleuze’s text runs from the middle of page 113 to the beginning of 115 in the French, and it is the complete paragraph on page 215 in the English translation. This is one of the most critical parts in all of Deleuze's writing, so we will proceed with patient care.]
In variation, what count are relations of speed or slowness, the modifications of these relations insofar as they involve gestures and statements, following variable coefficients along a line of transformation.
(215a)
Dans la variation, ce qui compte, ce sont les rapports de vitesse ou de lenteur, les modifications de ces rapports, en tant qu’ils entraînent les gestes et les énoncés, suivant des coefficients variables, le long d’une ligne de transformation.
(113bc)
[Differential coefficients are derivatives, here in the context of physics. For an explanation of instantaneous velocity and derivation, see this entry that carefully follows a profoundly illuminating explanation by MIT’s David Jerison.
So here we must recall Deleuze’s concept of Spinoza’s “instantaneous affections” and the way they relate to Bergson’s duration. In Cours Vincennes
So first we imagine a series of instantaneous changes with no temporal extension between them. But each is different from the others in the series. The differences between them cannot be extensive, although they do still have magnitudes. One is this much more-or-less than the others. These magnitudes are matters of degree. They are intensities.
So in Manifesto Deleuze has us apply this to communication. We must think of gestures and statements as continuums of differentials. If we were to vary them consistently, there would not be intensity, because the differences between differences would not be significant. So we must change the rates of change. We must continually change the change. This is what creates intensity. This is stuttering.]
It is in this way that the writing and gestures of CB are musical: it is because every form is deformed by modifications of speed, with the result that one does not use the same gesture or the same word twice without obtaining different temporal characteristics. This is the musical formula of continuity, or of transformable form.
(215b)
C’est par là que l’écriture et les gestes de CB sont musicaux : c’est parce que toute forme y est déformée par des modifications de vitesse, qui font qu’on ne repasse pas deux fois par le même geste ou le même mot sans obtenir des caractéristiques différentes de temps. C’est la formule musicale de la continuité, ou de la forme à transformation.
(113c.d)
[Just as musicians might modulate speeds or keys, Bene modulates the speed-changes of the speech and gestures.]
The physicists of the Middle Ages spoke of deformed movements and qualities according to the distribution of velocities among the different points of a moving body or the distribution of intensities among the different points of a subject. The subordination of form to speed, to variation in speed, the subordination of the subject to intensity or affect, to the intensive variation of affects: these are, it seems to us, two essential goals to achieve in the arts.
...
There is a whole geometry in CB’s theater, but a geometry in the manner of Nicolas Oresme, a geometry of speeds and intensities, of affects.
(215bc) (215c)
Les physiciens du Moyen Age parlaient de mouvements et de qualités difformes, suivant la distribution des vitesses entre les différents points d’un mobile, ou la distribution des intensités entre les différents points d’un sujet. La subordination de la forme à la vitesse, à la variation de vitesse, la subordination du sujet à l’intensité ou à l’affect, à la variation intensive des affects, c’est, nous semble-t-il, deux buts essentiels à obtenir dans les arts.
...
Il y a toute une géométrie à la manière de Nicolas Oresme, une géométrie des vitesses et des intensités, des affects.
(114a.c) (114-115)
[Here Deleuze refers to Oresme. We treat in detail his “latitude of forms” in this entry. Oresme lies at the very heart of Deleuze’s philosophy. Oresme invented the science of intensity, by creating a graphic way to depict it. What he illustrated was that there is a series of degrading forms of qualitative change. It is easiest to consider speed. When something maintains its speed, it moves from one place to another during a period of time. So its extensive properties change. But, the relationship between time and space do not change. This relationship is an intensity, a non-extensive dimension made by placing two extensive dimensions into a differential relation. A bird in flight has a quantity of speed, but speed does not extend in space, yet it is a tendency that is in extension; it is an intensity.
If the bird were to accelerate at a constant rate, then we have another dimension of change. The first dimension was change in extensive position. This second change is another differential relation: speed per time. This qualifies more as an intensity, because it is a difference of powers. For, speed is already distance over time. When you divide that again by time, you have distance over time squared, that is, distance divided by time to the second power. In a sense, we have deformed the motion, stretched it into another dimension.
But we may deform the motion even more. We may vary the acceleration of the bird. It can go faster at one point, abruptly slower at another. In other words, we can make its motion stutter. This is a far better example of intensity, because it is more of a difference of differences, that is, of pure difference in itself.]
Bene thereby creates affects without subjects and velocities without form. But what is important here in Bene’s technique is that it is not schizophrenic: there is a continuity to the change, a “grace in the movement of disgrace” (la grâce au mouvement de la disgrâce.)
He wishes only to subordinate the designated forms to the deformity of movement or of quality themselves.
(215c)
Il ne veut rien d’autre que subordonner les formes qualifiées à la difformité du mouvement ou de la qualité mêmes.
(114d)
In theatre, there is a music in aural speeds. In cinema there is a music to the visual speeds. Bene films his theatre, and intersects the two. They do not run parallel. They disrupt each other. Nonetheless, they do not interfere with each other’s freedom of variation. Rather, they form one and the same continuum. (115a-116a/215-216)
There are two lines of variation in Bene’s Richard III.
1) Richard’s gestures continually disrupt themselves, and
2) The Duchess’ voice never ceases fluctuating.
At the play’s start, these two lines of variation do not intersect, because Richard has not yet been constituted. (116b-117b/216b) Richard still needs to run through emotions and raise his war-machine.
He has not yet attained the disgrace of “his” grace, the deformity of his form.
(216bc)
Il n’a pas encore atteint la disgrâce de « sa » grâce, la difformité de sa forme.
(117a)
The constitution will begin with Richard’s “comprehension” scene with Lady Ann:
1) The actor playing Richard realizes his own idea. He goes through his drawers, passing through casts and prostheses, until finally achieving the “miracle” that cripples his good hand like his bad one. He thereby “wins his political choice” and “constitutes his deformities and his war-machine.” (117c/216c)
2) When Richard has his “form,” Lady Ann aggresses him. But when he deforms, she becomes distraught and consenting. She constitutes herself in contrapuntal variation to Richard’s. She then helps Richard find his prostheses.
And, better and better, faster and faster, she starts to seek herself for the amorous deformation. She will wed a war-machine, instead of remaining in the dependency and power of a State apparatus.
(216-217)
Et, de mieux en mieux, de plus en plus vite, elle va chercher elle-même la déformation amoureuse. Elle va épouser une machine de guerre, au lieu de rester dans la dépendance et le pouvoir d’un appareil d’Etat.
(118a)
Her variation continues independently while wedding with Richard’s: they together create differences of differences. She never ceases undressing and redressing
to a rhythm of regression-progression that corresponds to the subtractions-constructions of Richard.
(217a)
sur un rythme de régression-progression qui répond aux soustractions-constructions de Richard.
(118bc)
3) Their visual variations in gesture and aural variations in vocal tonality themselves remain along their own lines of variation. But as well, they create another dimension of variation by increasingly coming to vary with each other. (118c.d/217a)
In this way, “the Idea becomes visible, sensible, politics become erotic.” At this point, the two continua of variation become one continuum varying to a higher power, and hence within a higher dimension. (118d/217a.b)
Deleuze, Gilles. “One Manifesto Less.” in The Deleuze Reader. Ed. Constantin V. Boundas. Transl. Alan Orenstein.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Un manifeste de moins.” in Superpositions.
The Theater and Its Language
Bene rejects such avant-guarde terminology as “theater within the theater” or “theater which denies theater” (103a/211-222) [Citations give French version first, then the English translation.]
It is a question of a more precise operation: you begin by subtracting, taking away everything that comprises an element of power, in language and in gestures, in representation and in the represented.
(211a)
Il s’agit d’une opération plus précise : vous commencez par soustraire, retrancher tout ce qui fait élément de pouvoir, dans la langue et dans les gestes, dans la représentation et dans le représenté.
(103)
Most importantly, this is not a negative process. For, it sets in motion positive processes, namely, virtualities that were not yet liberated. In a way, leaving those power representations was more negative, because it limited the developmental freedom of the text’s implicit potencies.
We noted before that Bene’s technique involves amputating elements of power representation in the play so to deform its coherence [see entries for previous two sections for more on Bene’s technique.] By means of this method, we remove certain relations among variables which provide temporal power markers, and thereby we amputate history itself. [Previously Deleuze described how Bene places power families in alternate social and historical contexts.] Along with removing the historical temporal markers that locate the play in some determinate historical era, we also remove the markers keeping consistent the temporality within the play itself. And in this way we remove its structure. We noted also that constancy is a tool of cultural power-majorities: by making a language rigid and stable, minor voices are suppressed. So when we subtract the symbolic constants from the script, we also subtract the stabilizing elements of the text’s major usage. In fact, text itself suppresses the developmental freedom of speech, so by amputating the script, we liberate speech from the dominant language’s homogeneity and invariance. And because we cut back on the dialogue, we strip the major voices of their ability to verbally code their power through coherent representations of their supremacy. So much is subtracted, but what remains?
Everything remains, but under a new light, with new sounds, new gestures.
(211b)
Il reste tout, mais sous une nouvelle lumière, avec de nouveaux sons, de nouveaux gestes.
(104a)
[This is Deleuze’s Spinozistic expressionism. Even when forces of variation are suppressed, they are still expressed, but only implicitly. Subtracting from power relations brings out tendencies already present in the language, what was intended in it: this is language’s intensity.]
So the aim is to free language from confining power influences. We could take a phrase, Deleuze’s example is “I swear it.” This phrase has many virtualities and implicit meanings, depending on the given context’s power relations. So we know that if you subtract contextual power relations, you bring out the phrase’s potential for richer meaning, because it is less hindered to take on variations of meaning. The tactic could be inverted as well. Force can be added to the phrase to push it through greater variation. It would not break from the major language. Major and minor are uses of the same language. So when we apply force to the phrase, it has more power to break from the major language’s enforced consistencies. So Bene tries to push his characters through the quickest continual variation by running their speech through variations. The text is not the only important element. Even more important is the way the actor’s utter their dialogue. For example, they vary their pitch as they speak (as with Sprechgesang). We know first-hand how vocal tone plays a fundamental role in determining role in giving utterance’s meaning. The slightest variation in tone can reverse the logic of a statement; for, the slightest hint of a sarcastic tone inverts the utterance’s truth-value. Bene uses this property of speech in a radical way, because he does more than just have his actors recite Shakespeare’s lines sarcastically so to tacitly critique the play. He runs the language through so much tonal variation that its meaning is in rapid continual variation. (104a-105c/211b.d) In fact, Bene ‘weighs down’ his script with these tonal variations, as though it were subject to an independent music score. These cues are not stage directions. They are “operators” which perform operations on the text, by processing them through tonal variation. So it is necessary to critically modify both text and delivery. Hence Bene’s dissatisfaction with Brecht, who operates critically only on the written text.
Deleuze summarizes the critical operation, which consists in
1) deducting the stable elements,
2) putting everything in continuous variation, and hence
3) transposing everything into the minor by means of operators, whose role corresponds to the idea of the “minimal” interval (106-107/212b) [Perhaps this minimal intervals are intensive differences. See Deleuze’s white wall example in the Expressionism Chapter 12, Chapter 13, and Cours Vincennes: 10/03/1981 entries).
Deleuze offers different ways to express minorized variation:
1) bilingualism in one tongue
2) being a foreigner to one’s native language
3) stammering not the speech but stammering the language itself, that is, making the language stutter [Bégayer, mais en étant bègue du langage lui-même], or
4) Bene’s description, talking to oneself, but in one scene, and another, and so on. (106d/272bc)
One must impose a heterogeneity of variation within one’s own language so to “carve away the elements of power or of majority.” (107bc/212c) This is what Kafka, Beckett, Pasolini, Godard, Gherasim Luca do. Bob Wilson makes language whisper, that is, give it intensity without definite pitch.
Deleuze then offers a compelling example of making language stutter: Gherasim Luca’s “Passionnément.” Deleuze recommends we listen to this poem, and when you hear it, you will see why. Deleuze writes:
One has never achieved such an intensity in the language, such an intensive use of language.
(213ab)
On n’a jamais atteint à une telle intensité dans la langue, à un tel usage intensif du langage.
(108d)
The continuous variation affects as well such nonlinguistic theatrical components as actions, passions, gestures, attitudes, objects, and so on. This places the continuous variation of variables intrinsic to language into relation with continuously varying extrinsic variables. By doing so, Bene places language into a movement that escapes the power system that confines and organizes the language. Hence we see, for example, Richard never ceasing to lose his balance and slip from the dressers supporting him. [for video illustration of Bene slipping, see this entry and this one too.’]
Deleuze, Gilles. “One Manifesto Less.” in The Deleuze Reader. Ed. Constantin V. Boundas. Transl. Alan Orenstein.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Un manifeste de moins.” in Superpositions.
Carmelo Bene’s Romeo and Juliet critiques Shakespeare. Deleuze wonders what is theatre’s critical function, and how we are to understand the relation between the original play and its critical adaptation.
(87bc/201c) [Citations give French version first, then the English translation.]
Bene subtracts elements from Shakespeare’s plays. He “amputates” some critical element. He removes from Hamlet the title character, and thereby
the whole play, because it now lacks a part chosen nonarbitrarily, will perhaps tip over, turn around on itself, land on another side. If you amputate Romeo, you will witness an astonishing development, that of Mercutio, who was no more than a potentiality [virtualité] in Shakespeare’s play.
(204-205)
toute la pièce, parce qu’il y manque maintenant un morceau choisis non arbitrairement, va peut-être basculer, tourner sur soi, se poser sur un autre côte. Si vous amputez Roméo, vous allez assister à un étonnant développement, le développement de Mercuzio, qui n’était qu’une virtualité dans la pièce de Shakespeare.
(88b.c)
[In drama, forces push-and-pull the narrative development in many directions. Events could go one way, dramatic changes pull it another. A character expects one outcome, but fate deals the dramatic opposite. There is a complex play of forces waged between characters and gods. Like threads of a web, removing one part unravels the network of influence-relations, thereby producing a wholly different story. The forces pushing-and-pulling a character one way are virtualities, because she really is tending implicitly in some way or another. This is dramatic intensity: a quantity of force pulling the character or events in one direction. But then, other forces intervene. The gods spoil men’s devices. Intrigue fells swiftly whole royal families. But if we remove that force of fate or the character’s influence, what was previously an unactualized virtuality now becomes realize. That is to say, the character who was thwarted from tending one way will actually go that way when we remove the thwarting force. So in the first case, the virtually-real in-tending did not actualize, because forces pulled events another way. But when we remove those interfering forces, events will go that way. That prior implicit intensity will extend explicitly into the dramatic states of affairs.] So when we amputate Romeo, Mercutio’s fate changes dramatically.
Mercutio dies quickly in Shakespeare, but in CB he does not want to die, cannot die, does not succeed in dying, since he will constitute the new play.
(205a)
Mercutio meurt vite chez Shakespeare, mais, chez CB, il ne veut pas mourir, il ne peut pas mourir, n’arrive pas à mourir, puisqu’il va constituer la nouvelle pièce.
(88c)
Critical theatre must firstly constitute characters. Each character’s tendencies influence the destiny of all other things on stage –people and props alike.
This critical theater is a constituting theater, the critique is a constitution.
(205a)
Ce théâtre critique est un théâtre constituant, la Critique est une constitution.
(88d)
The theatrical creator is author, actor, and director. And although Bene performs these functions, they are not his critical functions. Bene critiques through surgically-precise excisions.
By operation, one must understand the activity of subtraction, of amputation, but already masked by another activity which gives birth to and multiplies the unexpected, as in a prosthesis: amputation of Romeo and immense development of Mercutio, the one within the other. This is a theater of surgical precision.
(205a.b)
Par opération, il faut entendre le mouvement de la soustraction, de l’amputation, mais déjà recouvert par l’autre mouvement, qui fait naître et proliférer quelque chose d’inattendu, comme dans une prothèse: amputation de Roméo et développement gigantesque de Mercuzio, l’un dans l’autre. C’est un théâtre d’une précision chirurgicale.
(89a.b)
[Mercutio plays a greater role when Romeo’s influence is removed. This greater role was already there in the original form, but just there intensively, as a virtuality. Bene does not give Mercutio something he lacked before. Rather, he changes the way Mercutio expresses his forces. When Romeo is removed, some of Mercutios forces are expressed more explicitly.]
So Bene’s critically modifies original texts neither to make parody nor to “add literature to literature.” He subtracts something explicit in the text to bring out something implicit. He raises the text to a higher dimension of expression.
This is a theater-experimentation that involves more love for Shakespeare than all the commentaries.
(205bc)
C’est un théâtre-expérimentation, qui comporte plus d’amour pour Shakespeare que tous les commentaires.
(89c)
For example, in S.A.D.E, the master is paralyzed, allowing the masochistic slave to seek and develop his identity. He thereby “constitutes himself on the stage according to the inadequacies and impotencies of the master.” (89d/205c)
The slave is not at all the reverse image of the master, nor his replica nor his contradictory identity: he constitutes himself piece by piece, morsel by morsel, through the neutralization of the master; he gains his autonomy through the master’s amputation.
(205c)
Le Serviteur n’est pas du tout l’image renversée du maître, ni sa réplique ou son identité contradictoire : il se constitue pièce, morceau par morceau, à partir de la neutralisation du maître; il acquiert son autonomie de l’amputation du maître.
(89-90)
Or consider Richard III where Bene subtracts the who royal system leaving just Richard (
But as a result that which existed only potentially [virtuellement] in the tragedy appears under a new light.
(205d)
Mais alors apparaît sous une nouvelle lumière ce qui n’existait que virtuellement dans la tragédie.
(91a)
Deleuze notes that Shakespeare’s Richard the Third is his only play where the women “do battle for themselves” (ont pour leur compte des rapports de guerre) (205d/90bc). And according to Shakespeare, the title character has a “secret goal” that has little to do with obtaining his own power. Deleuze writes that Richard wants to
reintroduce or reinvent a war-machine, even if it means destroying the apparent equilibrium or the peace of the State.
(205d)
réintroduire ou réinventer une machine de guerre, quitte à détruire l’équilibre apparent ou la paix de l’Etat.
(90c)
Bene subtracts the characters of State power. Richard now is free to constitute himself as the
man of war on the state, with his prostheses, his deformities, his outgrowths, his defects, his variations.
(205-206)
l’homme de guerre sur scène, avec ses prothèses, ses difformités, ses excroissances, ses malfaçons, ses variations.
(90d)
Richard must deform himself to amuse the children and attract the women’s attention. To do so, he uses as prostheses random props from dresser drawers.
He constitutes himself a little like Mr. Hyde – of colors, of sounds, of things. He forms himself, or rather deforms himself, following a line of continuous variation
(206a)
Il se constituera un peu comme Mr Hyde, avec des couleurs, des bruits, des choses. Il se formera, ou plutôt se déformera suivant une ligne de variation continue.
(91b)
Bene’s plays are brief: they end when the character constitutes.
It ends with birth, whereas customarily one ends with death.
(206b)
Elle s’arrête avec la naissance, alors que d’habitude on s’arrête à la mort.
(91d)
But the characters never obtain an “ego.” Rather, they
only come to life in a continuous series of metamorphoses and variations. The character is nothing more than the totality of the scenic assemblages, colors, lights, gestures, words.
(206c)
ne naissent que dans une série continue de métamorphoses et de variations. Le personnage ne fait qu’un avec l’ensemble de l’agencement scénique, couleurs, lumières, gestes, mots.
(92a)
And Bene himself plays these title characters, but his role is not merely acting. For, he is the controller, mechanic, or operator of the character’s constitution.
(206c)
Although Bene makes cultural commentary in his plays, they are not primarily critiques of societies. To uncover the real critique, we must determine Bene’s subtractions. In Romeo, S.A.D.E, and Richard, he subtracts the essential elements and symbols of power systems. (93b/206-207)
The theatre’s power is much like the State’s power: both are obtained by the coherence of representation. When theatre represents coherently, it attains power; it is a powerful play. So when the theatre represents the coherence of State power, it attains its own power no less. So even if Bene critically represents the coherence of State power, his play itself becomes more powerful.
But if Bene attains power by representing it critically, he has not attained the highest critique. So Bene instead amputates the play’s representative power. By removing the depicted State power’s representative coherence, his play itself loses power. But it also frees the actors, no longer bound by commitments to consistency. [Richard virtually did not want to kill off his competitors for the throne. His in-tending was to actualize his forces of self-creation, to be who he would be without their power systems’ coherence inhibiting his virtualities from actualizing.]
So when Bene depicts a play revolving largely around power relations, but subtracts essential elements of that representation, he also changes the form of theatre. He makes it unrepresentative. Other theatrical creators are doing so too, but Bene in his own unique way. By subtracting the stable components of power, he releases a nonrepresentational force set always in disequilibrium. (94c/207c)
Deleuze, Gilles. “One Manifesto Less.” in The Deleuze Reader. Ed. Constantin V. Boundas. Transl. Alan Orenstein.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Un manifeste de moins.” in Superpositions.
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