Ignorance is not Absence - Emma Dante’s "Bestie di Scena"

My issue with Emma Dante’s Bestie di Scena partially fell in the lack of intellectual vigour and dramaturgical depth, but was greatly enhanced by the description of her show in the Festival d’Avignon Program. It reads:

“With Bestie di scena, Emma Dante continues her quest for honesty. No text, no set, no costumes, no music. But actors. Actors left to their own devices, actors up to the challenge. From backstage, objects, clothes, words come flying at them in unexpected ways…” (“Bestie”).

Throughout the play and after, the class speculated whether these words were meant to be intentionally false and provocative, as the actors were absolutely not “left to their own devices” (“Bestie”). The performance was choreographed fully, with no surprises, and occasionally with only one or two actors reacting to that which was brought on stage, rather than a cacophony of varying human reactions. Imagery was incorporated of militaristic or enslaved marching, and firecrackers were thrown to evoke bombs –but perhaps Dante’s refusal to acknowledge the continual existence of a text, set, costume, and music, even when there is no playwright, set designer, costume designer, and sound designer, was ultimately detrimental to her show’s lack of clarity and juxtaposition with itself.

Dante listed herself as stage designer, despite her declaration that there was no set. She proposes, when asked about the stage, “a stripped-down version, to let the audience’s imagination take over” (“Bestie”). I rebut that on the basis that the audience’s imagination will always take over, whether or not it is guided by stage design. To leave the stage intentionally unmarked, yet have modern bright brooms hanging in a circle and a floor littered with peanuts, is a failure to acknowledge the potential for guided meaning in a the shape of a circle. Likewise, with “no music” (“Bestie”), there was music coming from a doll that affected only one performer. Perhaps more incorporation of music could have affected others differently, and provided a dynamic balance or a struggle.

Bestie was indeed actor focused, yet the actors had no free will – it was, to me, a performance about choreography and direction. I felt compelled to try to understand the symbols and argument enacted by the forces that manipulated the actors. With no clues because of the refusal to acknowledge set, music, text, and costumes, this imagery did not hold itself together, and created an incohesive show. This may have been Dante’s intention, but this mindset that one can have an absence of set can, and does, lead to shows that cannot contain themselves, their actors, or their themes.

Works Cited

“Bestie di Scena (English)”. Festival d’Avignon. www.festival-avignon.com/en/shows/2017/ bestie-di-scena. Accessed 16 July 2016.