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ting problems that require unique solutions. In Brecht’s Ashes we solved it by having Brecht himself speak German, while Mackie Messer (Mack the Knife) translated into the language of whatever country we happened to be playing in at the time. In Oxyrhincus Evangeliet we have found a different solution. For the dramatic structure of the play we chose the Mass. Actors interrupt the action, and ask the audience to turn to a certain page in the program ( eds. the program is in the language of the country where Oxyrhincus Evangeliet is being played), they read the page and the action is able to resume. This permits an understanding of certain essential parts of the text. It also serves to retain the play’s profile. As linguistic and tonal homogenity. And it avoids the involuntary cacophony of actors speaking heavily accented Italian, English or Danish, as well. NOG: The text the audience is asked to read at certain moments, seems to me to add more than it explains.

Eugenio Barba The text is not the answer to what the audience sees. It is not informative. Quite the contrary. It creates an entirely new dimension that is woven into the fabric of the production. If one assumes the play is a text - not a written text but a text in the sense of textile, somthing woven, comprised of various threads then this performance text is the result of the interweaving of innumerable threads: the meaning of the words that are spoken, the sounds of the words, the presence of the actors, their actions, their rhythm, and dynamics, the costumes, lighting, props, staging, the particular relation the actors create among themselves and with the audience, the use of both physical and mental space ... If one considers all these threads and their being interwoven together simultaneously to form what we call the performance text, one can then regard the excerpts which the audience reads as one of various threads woven into the theatrical experience. This thread does not try to explain the experience, is not meant to make rational what the audience is experiencing. In fact these texts have a strong paradoxical and poetic impact. NOG: Eugenio, can you clarify the narrative thread of the production for our readers? Eugenio Barba We've already told the story line in the program no-

:es you hold in your hand. It says, ind I can only repeat; \ pious Jewish tailor, in search of his anticipated Messiah, enters the capital of Armageddon where Cangaceiros, South American bandits, are trying to erect their own Empire of Belief. Zusha MaTak’s spiritual pilgrimage leads him deep into a world standing just before the threshold of the Last Judgement. The Grand Inquisitor, Ecce Homo, Joan of Arc, the False Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi and the scorned Antigone are the ones Zusha Ma’lak encounters in his wanderings, NOG: Yes, but... Eugenio Barba I could just as easily say I wanted to do a play that would bring together all the great rebels of history Buddha, Zarathustra, Antigone, the carpenter’s son, Joan of Arc. I once thought about such a meeting and its consequences. But it is one thing to have an emotional vision which inspires you, which almost intoxicates you and it is quite another thing to discover that as the work proceeds it takes on an autonomous life, like a new born child. One must accept that it becomes different from what one expected, and protect it. NOG: One could also imagine that it isthis Jewish tailor who sits down and begins to stitch ... events together. Perhaps he is sitting there and then begins to pattern stories, rather than participating in them. Eugenio Barba Yes. You might imagine that this very pious tailor is spinning a story, for example a vision of the struggle between Gog and Magog. I won’t deny it. It is one of the many lives of the production. NOG: The worse things get, the happier this jewish tailor seems to be. Eugenio Barba Maybe he doesn t really care what the Goyim around him are doing. Maybe the worse things get, the more he is vindicated in his belief in the existence of a Creator, the Father who can no longer tolerate his children’s behavior and so decides to punish them. But I don’t think so really. The Jewish tailor lives, as we all do, in his own world. He is surrounded by weapons--a veritable arsenal. Even so and this is his greatness he doesn’t forget Hope, and respects - in dance andin joy - the day peace: the Sabbath, NOG: What is this figure he makes out of paper and then shares the Sabbath meal with? A kind of mini-Golem?

Eugenio Barba: Yes, what is it . exactly? A mini-Golem? A paper : Rabbi? The last thing the Jewish : tailor says in the play is a question addressed to this paper figure: Rabbi what will we do when the Messiah comes? And what kind of answer can a Rabbi give who is no longer alive? What became of all those Rabbi Sages who guided their people throughout history? NOG: The interpretation of this scene is that we all create a nonexistent partner to share our meals with but who cannot give us answers? Eugenio Barba: Perhaps one can see it as a picture of the final days of a culture, the Jewish culture: the Diaspora, Hassidic piety, the great dancing, singing Rabbis who belong to the Hassidic tradition, Rabbis that no longer exist. One shouldn't make too many generalizations. You may know that we, in our production, try to stay away from representing things in such a way that one is able to say, Yes, this means that or that means this. There are images, pictures that have a strong emotional appeal for me. And they contain the seed of contradictory truths. Polarity, in which each of the poles are equally true. NOG: How did you get the idea to place this Jewish tailor in among a band of Cangaceiros, Brazilian bandits? Eugenio Barba- I’ve often experienced that what is called social order is something directed by gangsters. Some of them go around in uniforms, others are civilians with medals on their chests. So there are gangsters who are in control, and there are others who are looking for something else. And the searchers often come across the gangsters. That’s a common a event and not just a fantasy. NOG: Still, it’s a kind of real culture shock, an Hassidic Jew among Brazilian Cangaceiros. Eugenio Barba- I say Cangaceiros, South American bandits. But they could just as easily be something much closer to us. Right on our very own continent, you know. Don’t be fooled by the costumes. NOG: Now we’re getting down to it. You mean Mafiosi. Eugenio Barba Why Mafiosi? I ■ think it's even closer than that. : The Danish television news, • which begins at seven-thirty and winds up at eight. If you took all ; the news from the daily news : broadcast and mixed it up into a : performance, you would end up with'what you saw in Oxyrhincus

Evangeliet The production is a simultaneous panorama of all the news. I call the play Oxyrhincus Evangeliet. I could have also given it any number of names The Cape of Good Hope then it becomes closely identified with South Africa, or The Land Where the Cedars Grow, and so you think, Lebanon. It is enough just to direct the audience's thinking by giving a concrete name to the mental space which is created by the succession of the actor’s actions. And the audience would say, It's obvious, it's about such and such a situation. Such and such a country. I could have called the play Weep, My beloved Mesopotamia and everyone would know exactly what place I was talking about, exactly what Messiah, what human destinies between the Tigris and the Euphrates. I could have also called it Те Deum 1984. NOG: Let’s consider, for a moment, these Cangaceiros, even though you say they aren’t and maybe are, really Cangaceiros. Because Cangaceiros occupy a special place in the culturalrevolutionary landscape of modern Brazilian cinema. We find them represented simultaneously as criminals and as potential revolutionaries ... Eugenio Barba: This is an arbitrary romanticization. History demonstrates that they were, with few exceptions, murderous thieves, preying especially on defenceless victims. If you break a society’s laws you become a rebel. And so, someone who kills his mother or his lover or who steals from a blind man is a rebel or a revolutionary. But in Oxyrhincus Evangeliet Cangaceiros are not presented as rebels. In fact, just the opposite these are men who have found the solution to the question of how human relations should be governed. A solution everyone heartily accepts except Antigone. NOG: And the way all these people relate to one another is represented through an image: that of the family portrait, the frame of which is used to shelter weapons. Eugenio Barba: That s a childhood memory of mine. In church I heard that our God was the Lord of Hosts. It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized that it was an Angelic Host, the company of the angels, and not literally an army. If there’s something called divine justice it will be as inevitable as a . falling sword. And that’s what these Cangaceiros think the ones : that direct the social machine.