133 An Interview with Maguy Marin Interviewer: Thomas Cousineau [Maguy Marin began her training as a dancer at the Conservatory ofToulouse when she was eight years old. She later joined Maurice Bejart's Ballets du XXe Siecle, for which she both danced and choreographed. In 1979, she founded, in collaboration with Daniel Ambash, her own company, le Ballet Theatre de I'Arche, which became the Compagnie Maguy Marin in 1984. After an initial period of relying on temporary rehearsal spaces (including the Eglise de St. Roche between masses), the company has been located at the Maison des Arts de Creteil, in the Paris suburbs. In 1983 the Ministry of Culture awarded her the Grand Prix National de Choreographie. May B. is undoubtedly the most famous of her company's creations. It was first performed on November4, 1981 at the Theatre Municipal d'Angers and had its two-hundreth performance in May 1986 at the Piccolo T eatro de Milan. This interview took place in the Loge de Sarah Bernhardt of the Theatre de Ia Ville in Paris, where Maguy Marin was rehearsing her latest creation, Coppelia. Advertisements for this production prominently displayed Beckett's advice to her about May 8.: "Soyez irrespectueuse!"] Thomas Cousineau: Could you talk about how the idea of creating May B. first came to ｹｯｵｾ＠ Maguy Marin: It was in fact a long process, because I first encountered Beckett's work when I was eighteen years old and studying at Maurice Bejart's school in Brussels. It was at this time that I began reading his plays, beginning with Endgame and then moving on to Godot. I also staged one of his short plays as a student project. Iwas immediately impressed by Beckett's work, for reasons that I didn't entirely understand. It was as though he had planted a seed in me, which then hid itself somewhere. I left this seed to gestate over a period of several years until reaching a point where I began to reflect on it consciously. I had already choreographed several dance pieces and had arrived at a moment I wanted to bring to the stage something that spoke more deeply to me. It was then that this seed began really to grow and that I decided to create a performance that would express the impression that I had received from Beckett, an impression that went beyond the work itself and that had a deeply personal meaning for me. I was especially struck by the experience of waiting or expectation that one finds in Beckett as well as the extreme precision that he brings to his work. So I began working on him, by which I mean that I began studying him, since I didn't really know his work all that well. Along with reading his works, I also read about Beckett himself. The further my study progressed the more I felt this incredible richness. /34 Interview with Maguy Marin TC: At what point in the development of May B. did you discuss this project with Beckett? MM: I began by writing a synopsis, which I had already divided into three parts: a first that resembled a dance piece, a second that was more like a play, and a third that combined elements of both. I had recently seen a performance of Endgame at Le Theatre de I' Est Parisien, with Pierre Dux in the role of Hamm. I've forgotten the name of the actor who played Clov, but his performance was magnificent. The entire first part of May B. was inspired by Clov's physical gestures- his way of walking about in his slippers, climbing his little ladder, etc. I sent this synopsis to Jerome Lindon, asking that he forward it to Beckett. So, when I met Beckett, I had not yet begun rehearsing May B. I had it all written down and had chosen certain musical compositions, in particular Schubert's lied, Death and the Maiden, which I had already choreographed and which came to me again while I was working on Beckett. TC: You mentioned last year at the "Table Ronde" organized by Tom Bishop at the Centre Beaubourgthat Beckett strongly encouraged you in this undertaking. Could you talk a bit about the conversation that you had with him and, in particular, about the interpretive freedom that he allowed you. MM: Beckett was so important to me at the time, and I knew that he was very difficult in his dealings with people who wanted to stage his work. I remembered, for example, that he had forbidden a production of Godot performed by actresses instead of actors. I was so afraid that he would deny me permission. It wasn't only because I wanted to use certain details from his own work, but also because of the enormous respect that I felt for him. I wondered what his attitude would be. One of my reasons for sending him a synopsis was to avoid later difficulties. To my great surprise, he wrote to me almost immediately inviting me to meet with him. During our meeting I was very struck by the impression of someone who was intensely concentrated on what he said, who had studied my project and who did in fact find it interesting. It's not so much that he encouraged me to stage this production; rather, the fact that he was willing to spend an hour of his life meeting with me and discussing my project seemed, in itself, to constitute an encouragement. He also gave me some useful advice, which indicated how closely he had read my synopsis. For example, he told me that in the second part, where I had chosen several passages from his plays, which I had transcribed exactly and with the intention of finding gestural equivalents for them, he told me that it would be a mistake to respect his texts because this would create a discord with the strongly deformed movements of the first part. I'm basically a Journal of Beckett Studies 135 choreographer, and in the first and third parts of May B. Iwanted to introduce movements that dearly deviate from the norm. I had a much more respectful attitude with regard to the second part, which is more theatrical. I didn't dare be as adventurous with the text as I had been with movement. It was Beckett who encouraged me to get over this hesitation by telling me that I should "be disrespectful" by creating the same deformation in the words as in the movements. He said that if the dancers moved like that then they could not speak normally. Their words had to be as handicapped as their movements. He also recommended some of the music for May B. I had already planned on using Death and the Maiden. He gave me the names of two additional lieder, from Swan Song and Winter's journey, with which he felt a dose affinity. He didn't tell me that I had to include these lieder; I decided to include them because I wanted to surround myself with Beckett's spirit. So there are three Schubert lieder in May B. TC: Could you explain the organizing principle that unites the three parts of May B.? They are very heterogeneous and yet one does feel intuitively that they are part of the same work. M M: First of all, there is the idea of people confined within an enclosed space from which there is no escape and who are forced to confront the problems of being together. Their inability to leave is essential. We see this especially in the last part, where they try to leave without being able to. Leaving requires more energy than they have. That's also a universal idea because the earth is like a room that we can't escape from. The only choice they have is to encounter each other. In May B. these encounters take place in relation to fundamental aspects of life: sexuality, jealousy, love, hunger- ail of our most basic needs. The first part of May B. explores these instinctive needs to eat, to survive, etc. The dancers are like a herd of bipeds who their instincts in an animalistic At one moment, fight over as though a kind territorial In the second we witness a process of humanization. Here, after fighting between themselves, they discover that each resembles the other. They touch each other's faces, exploring the fact that they are made from the same matter. As they become human, however, they divide into dans. Two tribes form, each with its own chief and with its own members pledged to be "against" -they don't know what they're against but they do know that they don't agree with the other tribe. They start fighting each other, which is especially ludicrous because there is nothing to fight about; it's as though fighting were an inherent part of the survival instinct. Certain characters from Beckett's plays-Ciov, for example-- enteratthis point. i don'tthink that Beckett's characters belong to Beckett Beckett found them in daily life. They move me in the sense that I can see them whenever I want. have to go to the theater to see The They're in the street; I 136 Interview with Maguy Marin relationship between Hamm and Clov, or between Lucky and Pozzo, is so pervasive in real life. It bothers me that so many people think that Beckett's work is extremely intellectual when in fact it's very close to real life. The relationships that he presents are not exceptional, but banal. He presented them in an exceptional way. This is something that I wanted to convey. This is why the characters from Beckett's plays are not on stage at the beginning of May B., but, rather, arrive later, as a kind of homage to Beckett, because he's the one who led me to think about these things. These characters are not essential to the work itself; rather, they served as a way of expressing my gratitude to Beckett. I wanted, at this point in the play, for his presence to be felt in a very precise way. If we didn't see Hamm in his chair, or Lucky with the rope around his neck, this would not have made an important difference. It was my way of saying that Beckett was there with me; I was not doing this all alone. TC: What is the role played of the birthday party in this second part of May B.? M M: It's as though the two tribes, after fighting each other, decide to organize a celebration, for which the birthday of the old man serves as a pretext. Many people who saw May B. thought that the old man was meant to be Beckett himself. For me, he's actually Mr. Rooney from All That Fall. The birthday cake is an element of the celebration, but it also becomes an object of greed. It's here that we see the distinction between the "haves" and the "have-nots." TC: You say somewhere that Beckett's work itself tends in the direction of choreography. Could you elaborate on this remark? I'm thinking in particular of the relationship between movement and immobility in Beckett's work and the effect that this had on your conception of May B. M M: It's something like the relationship between music and silence. If silence is the principal character in a work, then each sound that arises from this silence will be essential. The very difficulty of producing sounds from silence will give to these sounds a particular importance. Ithink that the same is true with regard to movement and immobility. If immobility is the principal character, then the gestures that arise from this immobility must of necessity be very important because it is through them that immobility becomes dethroned. You can really work with an extraordinary minimal ism because there is nothing. Perhaps something can eventually happen because there is nothing, but it is important that, at the beginning, there be nothing. Towards the end of his life Beckett went to Stuttgart to direct Quad, a play that doesn't contain a single word and which resembles contemporary avantgarde choreography. I believe that when I met him to discuss May B. he was Journal of Beckett Studies 13 7 in the midst of this project because he spoke to me about a play that he was directing in Germany in which he was trying to get rid of words. He wanted, by depriving this play of words, to arrive at the bare minimum. This quest for the minimum, for the immobility that precedes movement, is something that you feel strongly thoughout his theater and that also plays an important role in my own work. It serves as a kind of "compost" for me. TC: To return to a point that you made earlier, you mentioned that Beckett urged you to be disrespectful towards his words. At the same time, there is a certain "spirit" of Beckett's work with which you wanted to imbue May B. Could you elaborate on the nature of this spirit? MM: I think that, above all, an essential element, which we find perhaps more in his than in his is the musical of his work. The of times a word is in a text, no means Beckett's it transforms words into musical notes. direction of his plays reveals his intense concern for their rhythmical aspects: the way in which he calculated the relationships between theatrical elements -words, gestures, silence, noises and silence again - creates a strongly musical and visual experience. Gestures are so important for his theater, even if the characters themselves are immobile. In Happy Days, for example, even though Winnie is buried in the earth, her way of taking things from her bag becomes very important. Or in Footfalls, which I saw performed by Delphine Seyrig, the movements are so calculated as to become a form of choreography. For me, this was so musical and also so free because Beckett used, at one and the same time, all the elements of theater: voice, movement, sounds, silence, and immobility. I think that I was also strongly attracted to Beckett because, in the dance medium, I always suffered from this aestheticism of the dancer's body which requires that the dancer be young and beautiful - an ideal which leads most people to feel excluded because they're not young, or they're too fat, etc. This aestheticism removes dance from life and puts it into the theater. I've always been opposed to this because I think that dance belongs with life. TC: Did you have particular Beckett texts in mind as you were creating May B. or was the relationship between his work and yours more diffuse than that? M M: I wanted very much for the relationship to remain diffuse. I read everything, really immersing myself in the essence of Beckett, but without clinging to any one work in particular. Perhaps because it was one of my first encounters with his work, Endgame was especially present to me. Also, Come and Go, with its three characters, helped me, as did AI/ That Fall. TC: It's tempting to interpret the last part of May B. in relation to certain contemporary historical events, for example, the deportation of the Jews 138 Interview with Maguy Marin during World War II. How do you see the relationship between such historical events and the more specifically Beckettian inspiration of this work? M M: I believe that as I was working on May B. this idea that the dancers could, at a particular moment, be interpreted in relation to the deportation of the Jews was not something that I was conscious of. On the other hand, what I was aware of, and this is something that we find in Beckett also, is the experience of humiliation, of one man by another: the experience of servitude in which, again as in Beckett's work, the person who exploits is as dependent as the person who is exploited. I was guided by this notion of a horrible lack of balance in relationships: the idea that equality is never possible and that one partner must always be the master of the other. So, that the allusion to WWII that some people see in this part of ! B. to a central element of Beckett's work. TC: There is also, in this third part of May B., an overwhelming experience of tenderness. I'm thinking in particular of the moment when, in the midst of their common humiliation, the dancers help each other as they descend into the orchestral pit. Is that something that you were conscious of, or am I perhaps projecting extraneous thoughts onto your work? MM: No, that's something that I was entirely conscious of. I'm the daughter of Spanish immigrants who came to France during the Spanish Civil War. So, this image of deportees who are carrying their suitcases and who help each other in the midst of their trials is something that strongly marked me as a child. The motif of immigration, of destitute people helping each other, is also an important part of May B. Beckett comes into this also, because it concerns people who help each other and, yet, at the same time, despise their mutual dependency. This is a universal theme: it is not limited to the experience of immigration or deportation. This need that we have of each other, and the hatred that accompanies it, can be explored in the context of a family, or of a city or of the planet itself. Beckett is very close to all this. That's why I find that reading him is such an enriching experience; he's so topical. TC: Why did you choose Gavin Bryars's composition, "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet," for this last part of May B.? Did you discuss this choice with Beckett? MM: No, I discovered Gavin Bryars after talking with Beckett. I found Bryar's composition appealing because it consists of a man, a homeless vagrant apparently, singing alone in the street. He's obviously poor, has had too much to drink, and just stands there in the street singing, "Jesus' blood never failed me yet." There is a strong element of nostalgia in what he sings. At the same time, in terms of its quality, his performance is entirely negligible: journal of Beckett Studies 139 he doesn't sing well, his voice is hoarse; it's a voice like anyone else's. I was also attracted by the fact that behind this utterly undistinguished voice we hear the strains of a symphony orchestra, particularly the string section: all these basses and violins that create a kind of royal accompaniment to the expression of his misery. I was very struck by this difference. On the one hand, we have the orchestral accompaniment, produced by musicians who had studied for fifteen years to master the violin, and all of the majesty that one associates with orchestras: the eminence of the conductor, the prestige of the concert halls in which they perform, etc. On the other, we have this man who is all alone in the street. This contrast touched me very deeply and influenced my choice much more than the actual words that the man is singing. These words do, however, add something in the sense that they convey the image of a destitute person who believes in something (whether it has any or not) and who is It's something that Godot is !ike the situation of Waiting for Godot in God. I don't think that Beckett himself spent much time thinking about this question, and neither do I. TC: You've said elsewhere that May B. is only a small reflection of the importance that Beckett has for you. You suggest that Beckett is, in some sense, always with you. Could you elaborate on this? M M: Every time that I start a new work I reread Beckett's own texts as well as things that have been written about him. I always find this to be extremely enriching. Often, there is no direct relationship with the dance piece that i am actually working on. It's more a question of the effect that this reading has on my own creativity. There are just a few writers who stimulate this energy in me. Sometimes I like to read Artaud. Sometimes, too, there is a way of thinking about things that reading Beckett provokes in me. Also, his way of writing his plays helps me at times to recapture a certain rhythmical construction. His influence is less evident in Coppelia, which I am currently working on, because in that work the music and the score were decided beforehand, so Beckett has nothing to do with it. On the contrary, in the last piece that I did, Waterzooi; where I started from square one, Beckett was very important, especially because of the musicality that one finds in his plays as well as his prose works. That's what I often start with. TC: Are there other playwrights or directors with whom you feel an affinity? M M: Yes, there are some that I think of as masters. I try to understand their way of working. It's not one particular theatrical style that interests me. For example, people talk about a resemblance between my theater and that of Tadeuz Kantor; this is sometimes true, sometimes not. I'm usually attracted to people who have an extremely personal style. This is the case of Kantor, 140 Interview with Maguy Marin whose work is very expressive of Poland and himself. Peter Brook is obviously a great source of excitement for people involved in theater. I like the director Jerome Deschamps because he deals with things that are happening to people living in France. I don't say this in any nationalistic way; I'm completely opposed to that. Rather, it's the fact that there is something very personal and original. He's always looking for new ways of doing things, of creating surprises; that's what I find so exciting in his work. You find this personal quality in certain forms of dancing, such as Oriental, African, and Brazilian. It has an authenticity that comes from not caring about how one looks to others. Brecht is someone who gradually, much later than Beckett, had an important influence on my work. First of ail, his engagement as an artist is something that I the role attributes to the his to appeal to its intelligence, and the relationship that he conceived between the actor and his role- all of these seem to me things that have become unavoidable to people who work in the theater, Just as one can't avoid the techniques of someone like Stanislavski. encounter with I think that there are Brechtian elements in my last work. him is fairly recent even though he is someone who has been with me over the years. Brecht's influence on me has been mostly cerebral, while with Beckett I feel something much more inexpressible. Translated by Thomas Cousineau journal of Beckett Studies 141 Photographs from May B., by the Compagnie Maguy Marin at the Theatre Municipal d'Angers, 4 November 1981 Photographs by Claude Bricage