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Remains of a Past Production: A Short Film, Theatre (1957)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 November 2020
Abstract
This paper discusses the use of a documentary film as source material for theatre history. The central case study analyses Theatre, directed by Jack Witikka in 1957. This film presents the making of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot at the Finnish National Theatre, which premiered on 5 October 1954. The paper follows the process of an event turning into an object, and at the same time I explore how the film preserves and traces material conditions of the theatre production: the physicality of the actors, their moving bodies, their position on the stage and the sound of their voices.
- Type
- Dossier–Theatrical Vestiges: Material Remains and Theatre Historiography
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- Copyright
- Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2020
References
NOTES
1 Jack Witikka was a Finnish director who directed film, theatre, opera and radio plays. Sol Worth stayed in Helsinki as visiting professor of documentary film and photography, funded by Fulbright in 1956–7.
2 Theatre was written, directed and edited by Jack Witikka and Sol Worth and produced by T. J. Särkkä. The Finnish version of the film can be seen at the digital archive of the Finnish Broadcasting Company, accessed 29 November 2019. The bilingual version is at the collections of the National Audiovisual Institute.
3 Dufrenne, Mikel, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973), p. 164Google Scholar.
4 Jack Witikka, Theatre, 11:07–23.
5 In 1954–7 the play was produced only once in Finland.
6 Jenkins, Keith, At the Limits of History (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 5Google Scholar.
7 After the premiere of the film on 13 May 1957, theatre critic Maija Savutie wrote an interesting review where she compared the theatre production and the film. Maija Savutie, ‘Teatterityöstä filmikuvin’, Kansan Uutiset, 15 May 1957, p. 7. According to her, the film was about the theatre production she had also reviewed.
8 Waiting for Godot production programme, Archive of the Finnish National Theatre.
9 The last (thirty-fifth) performance of the 1954 production of Waiting for Godot was performed on 15 February 1956. It is possible that the last performance was connected to the filming since the previous performance (the thirty-fourth) had taken place ten months earlier on 14 April 1955. Ulrika Maude mentions that the film was finished almost two and half years after the premiere. Maude, Ulrika, ‘Beckett's Nordic Reception’, in Nixon, Mark and Feldman, Matthew, eds., The International Reception of Samuel Beckett (London and Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009), pp. 234–250Google Scholar, here p. 236.
10 Cohn, Dorrit, The Distinction of Fiction (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), p. 116Google Scholar.
11 Bell, Desmond, ‘Documentary Film and the Poetics of History’, Journal of Media Practice, 12, 1 (2011), pp. 3–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 15.
12 Ibid., p. 10.
13 Nevala, Maria-Liisa, Jack Witikka Suomalaisen teatterin suurmies (Helsinki: Minerva, 2018), pp. 17–18Google Scholar.
14 Ibid., pp. 28, 50.
15 Mehto, Katri, ‘Ifigeneia ja Seitsemän veljestä maailmalla. Kansallisteatterin vuoden 1957 vierailut kansallista identiteettiä vahvistamassa’, in Koski, Pirkko, ed., Niin muuttuu mailma, Eskoni. Tulkintoja kansallisnäyttämöstä (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1999), pp. 230–252Google Scholar, here p. 231.
16 Urmakka [Urho Kittilä], ‘Pienoisnäyttämöä vihkimässä’, Pohjolan Sanomat, 7 September 1954, pp. 4–5; Mäenpää, Risto, ‘Kansallisteatterin Pienen näyttämön näyttämötekniset laitteet’, Arkkitehti, 6 (1955), pp. 29–30Google Scholar.