Temporitms kā režijas instruments. Ieskats Latvijas režisoru praksē

Abstract

The object of the research is one of the basic concepts of theatre theory – the tempo-rhythm of the performance. The starting points are the explications of the director Oļģerts Kroders (1921–2012), which give instructions about the intended temporhythm of the production “The Tragic Story of Hamlet, the Danish Prince” (1972). The research also uses examples of the organization of temporhythm in other productions made by Kroders. The purpose of the research is to compare various workstyles to conclude how contemporary directors’ thoughts of temporality in the construction of a theatrical timespace differ from their predecessors’ ideas, whether they plan to change the pace of action, how the rhythm of performance is formed and whether they give importance to the rhythm and tempo of a spoken text. In the course of the research, contemporary directors of different generations were asked these questions. Examples of stage practice in the article are analyzed mainly from the point of view of theatrical semiotics, in which great importance is attached to the relations of time and space in the production and modulation of these relations by means of rhythm and tempo. Attention is also paid to the director’s work with the actor in the rehearsal process, striving to achieve a certain dynamics of the character’s external and internal action, which is consistent with the actor’s technique described in the director and theorist Konstantin Stanislavsky’s book “The Actor: Work on Oneself: The Creative Process of Embodiment”. It was concluded that the temporhythm is an essential professional tool of theatre directing in the organization of the production’s time-space, in revealing the culmination of the action to the viewer, in achieving the unity of form and content also in the 21st century. However, only a part of the directors purposefully works with the actor to bring the character’s internal temporhythm into line with the performance’s temporhythm.