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Lee Breuer's Theatrical Technique: From The Animations to Gospel at Colonus
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Neely, Kent |
| Copyright Year | 1989 |
| Abstract | Lee Breuer has not been particularly well known during his thirty years of theatrical activity. Although he has directed at the American Repertory Theatre, the New York Shakespeare Festival, in European venues and has written novels, poetry and plays, it is the success of his recent work Gospel at Colonus which has brought him international attention. This gospel rendition of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus has played throughout the United States since receiving wide acclaim at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Next Wave Festival in 1983. On March 10,1988 Gospel at Colonus opened on Broadway. Gospel at Colonus blends Greek tragedy, gospel music, and a black pentecostal church service. The technique represents a culmination of Breuer's writing and directing since 1972: his continued fascination with spiritual issues, his interest in creating theatrical metaphors and his ability to mix popular and formal art freely. This paper will describe how the theatrical techniques demonstrated in Gospel at Colonus developed as a result of four distinct phases in Breuer's life. Born Asher Leopold Breuer in 1937 in Philadelphia, Lee Breuer's family moved repeatedly until finding a home in Venice, California when he was 14. Southern California would remain his principle home into his young adult years when he went to the University of California, Los Angeles. Breuer's first important developmental period began at UCLA when he took a class that introduced him to Beckett, Camus, Sartre, Artaud, Giraudoux, and Anouilh. A self proclaimed 50's "valley boy" who had pledged a fraternity and was majoring in prelaw, Breuer was taken with existentialism and the idea that the theatre could be more than a depiction of reality. Breuer's initiation into the theatre occurred about this time as a |
| Starting Page | 181 |
| Ending Page | 192 |
| Page Count | 12 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 3 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://journals.ku.edu/jdtc/article/download/1718/1682 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
