Abstract:
In June 1995, Heiner Miiller’s last production premiered at the Berliner Ensemble – Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. Fifteen years later, it continues to be part of the repertoire, selling out each and every evening. Having been performed worldwide more than three hundred times, the production is still celebrated by audiences and critics alike wherever it is shown. What makes it so successful? And this not only in Berlin and Germany, but on all five continents? Although the Berliner Zeitung critic could not have foreseen such unprecedented success, he gave a plausible answer after perusing the fifty most important reviews published in the wake of the première: ‘When, the morning after, the critics wrote their reviews for Berlin and the world, his name blazed in fiery letters: Wuttke! Wuttke! Wuttke!’. And in fact, there was no critic who, full of admiration and amazement, did not speculate on the extraordinary PRESENCE displayed by actor Martin Wuttke, starring as Arturo Ui, which kept spectators spellbound throughout the performance.
Machine summary:
93-109 Appearing as Embodied Mind; Obtaining three definitions of the concept of presence: weak, strong, radical * Author: Erika Fischer-Lichte Translation: Niusha Sattari / PhD student in Theater, Faculty of Performing Arts and Music, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
As the sixth scene progressed, following the suggestions made by Brecht in the text for the actor, Ui/Wuttke arrived at a special vocabulary for the art of acting: while walking, he would first place his toes on the ground, throw his head back, and place both hands on his genitals; while standing, he would fold his arms; so that the backs of his hands were visible and appearance as an embodied mind; obtaining three definitions of the concept of presence: weak, strong, radical 95 his hands would rest on his arms; while sitting, he would place his hands on his thighs, parallel to his abdomen, with his elbows protruding from his body.
Johann Jakob Engler, philosopher and later director of the "Royal Theater" in Berlin, in his book Mimic ِ (1785-1786) criticized actors for drawing the audience's attention to their phenomenal bodies and distracting their senses from perceiving the signs that shape the dramatic character, because in a performance, spectators should only perceive and empathize with the presence of the dramatic character.
The concept of radical presence—since the 1960s, theater, performance, and performance art have been striving for new ways to express appearance as an embodied mind; to achieve three definitions of the concept of presence: weak, strong, radical 103 the phenomenological and semiotic body of the actor, dancer, and performer.
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