The SITI Company’s Radio Hour
SITI Company has long been known for the sculptural and slick visual landscapes of their many landmark stage collaborations-notably in their recent grand scale explorations of artists Robert Rauschenberg and Joseph Cornell. They are also clearly unafraid of taking on icons, whether Rauschenberg, Robert Wilson, or Virginia Woolf. In Radio Macbeth, SITI takes on the even larger icon of the ghosts of Macbeth productions past and present-ghosts that have spoken to Bogart since she was a child. Of her first experience seeing the infamous Scottish play, Bogart has said, “I didn’t understand the play, but I knew instantly that I would spend my life in pursuit of this remarkable universe.”
The universe of Macbeth is thick with atmosphere-of damp Scottish wool, of festering pots of witches’ brew, and of course, of blood. SITI challenges us to also open our ears to the lush world of the soundscape of Macbeth, and perhaps to find a new way into the story we know so well. In the world of SITI, the Scottish play is a 1940s radio drama in rehearsal. Co-directed by Bogart and SITI Sound Designer Darron L. West, the company tells the story of the play through the ebbs and flows of sound. As in the most masterful classic radio dramas, the focus on sound in lieu of sight creates a world in which chatter is heightened and screams are more devastating-a world where silence creeps and menaces. In this stylish take on Shakespeare’s tragedy, SITI gives us a full, albeit subdued, visual terrain as well. The resulting crash of sight, sound, and a classic, iconic text is pure SITI: grounded, full, stylish, smart, raw.
Like their other collaborations, Radio Macbeth emerged from the SITI’s trademark training and rehearsal process. At the core of the group’s philosophy is a unique and rigorous training method that combines two different, yet in the world of SITI, complementary systems: the Suzuki Method and the Viewpoints. The Suzuki Method involves an intense and strict series of physical movements, with a particular emphasis on the vigorous work of the lower body and feet. This method draws from ballet, Japanese theater, and martial arts, among other influences, and strives “to heighten the actor’s emotional and physical power and commitment to each moment on the stage.” As a companion and contrast, the Viewpoints is an improvisation technique which focuses on time and space, and the way in which the performers and ensemble encounter these issues. In the words of the company, “the Viewpoints allows a group of actors to function together spontaneously and intuitively and to generate bold, theatrical work quickly.” Together these two systems collide to form the core of SITI, of their collaborations and teaching, and of all of the unprecedented visual, physical worlds they have developed in their sixteen-year journey together, culminating (for now) in the lyrical and brooding Radio Macbeth.
–by Kate Bredeson, Court Theatre Dramaturg
