“Duende”: A Case for Actual Theater in a Movie Town
How TV Sensibilities are Suffocating the L.A. Stage
By Molly McLean
Brazilian performance artist PRICE, with Marcel Alcalá, Cecile Believe and Sophia Cleary, in the Hollywood’s New Theatre (Photo courtesy of PRICE)
This article is part of the Stage Raw/Unusual Suspects Youth Journalism Fellowship
I realized once that many of my favorite writers wrote in Spanish or Italian. I thought about why and came to the conclusion they used verbs more decisively.
In English today, we use many phrasal verbs. We take two words to say something that, in these Latin languages, they say in one. “Rolling up” one’s sleeves is just: amarrangar. “Get lost” is: extraviar. In modern English, we say: get out, get by, get off, get through. Run out, run by, run off, run through. This often deadens and confuses the action the author wants to communicate. In English, in the past, we used to use stronger verbs more frequently and phrasal verbs less. For example, instead of “having fun,” 19th century people might have “diverted” themselves.
I believe that drama should capture the feeling of strong verbs. Big gestures, strong images, decisive words.
Federico García Lorca is one of my favorite playwrights because his work contains those aforementioned elements. Lorca spoke in lectures of the duende in art. Duende means “elf.” I like to think a better translation is “troll,” because its association in English is closer to the ground. Uglier. (Henrik Ibsen wrote: “There is troll in everything I write.”) People in Andalucía, Lorca says, would celebrate or denigrate a performance with the phrases “there was no duende,” or “she had a lot of duende.” This means there was a serious spirit present in the room of their performance. Duende mostly appears in live performances, like dance, music, and drama. Feeling the presence of duende is rare. To me, this means a figure, a feeling, outside of morality. Neither ugly nor beautiful. Androgynous. Gone in an instant. Something for which you create an altar. A grunting thing you can barely understand. Striking. Beyond knowledge. Inciting, inviting mischief.
The play I saw last year that most invited the spirit of the duende was at New Theater Hollywood. A REPRESSED REPERTOIRE (SEQUENCES) was directed and performed by the Brazilian performance artist PRICE. The piece also features Marcel Alcalá, Cecile Believe and Sophia Cleary.
Before the show began, there was a figure draped in a comically long white piece of fabric standing on the balcony. Another figure played slow guitar. (Sound production by Cecile Believe and viola performed by Renato Grieco.) There was one piercing spotlight throughout the show.
Occasionally, characters would puff scented talcum powder into the beam of light. (The poweder was created in collaboration with Julianne Lee and AirSolutions.)
When the show started, the actors seemed to inflate to twice their size. They moved slowly and paused often, filling the space with their towering presences. They wore silly costumes, like a suit-jacket for pants. Their wigs were brittle. They seldom spoke. The actors gestured with force. Their words were so few that each one gained importance. The characters were mean, self-serious, and dramatic. But their sincerity made us open our hearts to them. They wept at one another. They sang at one another. They glared at one another. Everything felt important, even when they recited cheesy rom-com dialogue.
In a particularly impactful moment, they sang “Kiss from a Rose,” and accompanied themselves. The song was so slow, the characters so sincere, it was as if hearing it for the first time. They had been so ironic before, the moments of sincerity hit harder. At one point, Sophia Cleary’s character walked over and threw folding chairs while all other characters were still for minutes on end. She humped her image in the mirror. My friend behind me was laughing so hard, Cleary began to break character, which made me laugh uncontrollably.
At show’s end, the audience applauded so hard the actors came back for a second curtain call. I was inspired and happy to see such a great thing taking effect upon us. After the show, I learned that the show was unscripted. They worked from beats they had rehearsed four days before the show. All of these lovely moments had been inspired by one another. They had been provoking one another, provoking the audience. I felt duende in the room.
“Pacific Overtures” at East West Players (2024). (Photo by Teolindo)
Another great performance I saw (in November) was Pacific Overtures at East West Players. Like in the original Broadway production, they used Kabuki conventions combined with elements of 20th century Anglo-American theater. They used theatrical elements like puppets, music, and dance. The actors moved and spoke with joy. The music filled the room with life. I felt happy to see this play, though I can’t say I felt duende as I had at SEQUENCES. I think that is because this piece has some fatal flaws. The scope of the plot is too large. It could focus on two characters but instead focuses on dozens over generations. The projections were redundant. Why do we need images of warships to accompany people singing about their mythic interpretation of cannons (“Four Black Dragons”)?
“I can usually tell when an actor is a screen actor. They are not present in the room.”
In my time in Los Angeles as a theater audience member, I have been disappointed by the lifelessness of many of the plays at the bigger playhouses. I can usually tell when an actor is a screen actor. They are not present in the room. It is impossible to have duende if you are not present with the audience. When the actors were not saying their lines, it was as if they were waiting to be told what to do by an assistant director on a set. They lost all specificity, became deflated. They did not know how to think of themselves in the third person, how to direct the audience’s attention. A stage actor must always be present, alert, alive, zinging with motion for the crowd to see.
Similarly, I can usually tell when the director has mostly only worked in film and TV. They neglect the transitions. They forget we are in the space all together. They think someone is going to edit the transitions for them. These directors also stage the actors as though they are on a film set. In my opinion, there is no “bad acting.” Every style of acting has its proper place. I wish more of these directors would recognize this and utilize more stylized ways of speaking and moving. When we dare to make big risks, we get big payoffs. We can experience the fickle duende.
I was happy to end my season writing for Stage Raw with something that excited and inspired me. I hope to see more works that have duende. Huge gestures. Spare language. Treating theater as a wonderful thing, not a neglected relative of film. The spirit of the duende can only happen when we are all in a room together. When its presence can sweep over us and allow us to rub powder and dirt from our palms. To smell the odor of one another. To roll our eyes. To bounce a feeling off of one another. Live performance must make it worthwhile for us to leave our homes, where there is television and film on demand. Theater must offer itself up as its own form: not better or worse than film, but something different altogether.
“Live performance must make it worthwhile for us to leave our homes, where there is television and film on demand. Theater must offer itself up as its own form: not better or worse than film, but something different altogether.”
SEQUENCES could never be a film. Why should it be? Film is sometimes profitable and so people think it is a more worthwhile pursuit. But let me save you the trouble: Art is rarely profitable. Let us create works of art that celebrate and innovate within the form. Making theater that feels like weak imitations of movies or TV does nothing but hurt the theater community. We must invite the duende in by making huge risks. Magnificent images. Blistering gestures. Mammoth pauses. Damning words. And then, the audience will see why theater is another great form. Not the ancestor of screens, but a different experience altogether, where we can inhabit and visit the supernatural as a group.
“The duende….Where is the duende? Through the empty archway a wind of the spirit enters, blowing insistently over the heads of the dead, in search of new landscapes and unknown accents: a wind with the odour of a child’s saliva, crushed grass, and medusa’s veil, announcing the endless baptism of freshly created things.”
