Willem Dafoe Shines His Spotlight on Theater’s Avant-Garde Past
The Hollywood actor looks back on the experimental performances that shaped him at the Venice Theater Biennale.What happens when an avant-garde becomes history? The question came to mind during the opening weekend of the Venice Theater Biennale, newly under the direction of Willem Dafoe.As a co-founder in 1980 of the New York City-based Wooster Group, Dafoe had a front-row view of the experimental theater of his time. In Venice, he is turning the spotlight back onto it — at the risk of the event turning nostalgic.This year’s edition is a 50th anniversary celebration for an important edition of the Theater Biennale, an annual event put together by the same organization as the (much bigger) Art Biennale. In 1975, the Italian director Luca Ronconi convened a long list of revolutionary American and European ensembles for the theater event, including La MaMa, Odin Teatret, the Living Theater and the Théâtre du Soleil.Only one of them, Odin Teatret, is actually back this year, but others are being honored through talks and exhibitions. And the Wooster Group, which has its roots in that era, opened the festival on Saturday. The next morning, that company’s longtime director, Elizabeth LeCompte, received the event’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement award.While the Biennale’s lineup also includes younger stars and emerging artists, this year’s historical dive is unusual. Theater festivals tend to be singularly focused on the present, always looking for new and emerging voices. Yet there is value in revisiting the work of artists who had a significant impact on 20th-century stages.Ari Fliakos, left, plays a fictional U.S. president who is losing his mind in “Symphony of Rats.”Andrea AvezzùWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More