Wayne State University Wayne State University Dissertations 1-1-2018 The Artist As Tragic Hero: The rC eative Process Of Playwright, Director Michael Gurevitch Bilha Birman Rivlin Wayne State University, Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Birman Rivlin, Bilha, "The Artist As Tragic Hero: The rC eative Process Of Playwright, Director Michael Gurevitch" (2018). Wayne State University Dissertations. 2090. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/2090 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wayne State University Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. THE ARTIST AS TRAGIC HERO: THE CREATIVE PROCESS OF PLAYWRIGHT, DIRECTOR MICHAEL GUREVITCH by BILHA BIRMAN RIVLIN DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate School of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2018 MAJOR: THEATRE Approved by: ____________________________________ Advisor Date ____________________________________ Advisor Date ____________________________________ ____________________________________ © COPYRIGHT BY BILHA BIRMAN RIVLIN 2018 All Rights Reserved DEDICATION To My Mother and Father, Rachel and Yaakov To My Partner Yair and Our Kids, Yotam, Yali, and Naama With Love and Gratitude ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to extend a deep and heartfelt appreciation to the remarkable staff and faculty of Wayne State University’s Maggie Allesee Department of Theater and Dance. As a department, your open arms were warm and accepting, and there was never a question unanswered. For this I express much love and gratitude. That being said, my very own committee deserves the biggest ‘thank you’ of them all. Your ability to sift through my ideas and help me build a path with it. Without your support and understanding this dissertation would have never come to life. To Dr. Mary Anderson, the way you listen to my passions with patience, and work with me to uncover the very essence of my dissertation. To Dr. James Thomas, you deepened my work as a scholar, showing me broader perspectives on how to read and analyze script. You always backed and supported me, helping me to grow. To Dr. Blare Anderson, you always understood what I wanted to express. Your Aesthetics and Dramaturgy classes broadened my horizons in such a way that I will never forget. To my dear advisor Dr. David Magidson, whose profound understanding of theater and stage were a gift to my work and a gift to my life. Your unending patience made this long and arduous process into bitable pieces, allowing for all of this to come into reality. And last but most certainly not least, Dr. Phoebe Mainster. Thanks to your ceaseless support, your availability and your patience, I could move forward even at times I thought differently. Like a lighthouse you always knew how to guide me back to my creativity, without which this work would not have truly been mine. My dear PHD colleagues- Jennifer Goff, Julia Moriarty, and Kathy Skoretz, thank you for your bond, friendship and support. iii To the playwright and director Michael Gurevitch, to the actors from the Khan Theatre, and to my dear friends and former Gurevitch students Julia and Rani- I am forever grateful for your invaluable sharing, and for opening-up and allowing me to intimately look and study your creative process. And to my family. To my beloved friend and husband, my rock and my partner, Yair Rivlin. All the words in this dissertation cannot express my love and gratitude to you. And to our three children, Yotam, Yali, and Naama. For all the joy you bring into my life, this work is dedicated to you. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ...................................................................................... II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................... III CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 1 INTRODUCING MICHAEL GUREVITCH AND THE NATURE OF THIS PROJECT ............... 1 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ................................................................. 12 The Playwright and His Plays .......................................................... 12 Theories of Aesthetics ................................................................... 14 Looking through the prism of myth ................................................... 16 Orpheus ..................................................................................... 18 Dramatic and Theatrical Theory ...................................................... 20 Influential Directors ...................................................................... 23 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 28 PARTICIPANT OBSERVER ...................................................................... 28 INTERVIEWS .................................................................................... 31 PLAY ANALYSIS ................................................................................ 32 THE LANGUAGE OF MYTH .................................................................... 34 CHAPTER III: THE ART OF ACTORS AND ACTING .......................................... 37 PART I: ON GUREVITCH PHILOSOPHY OF ACTING AND ACTORS ..................................... 37 Being on stage versus being in mundane reality–-the arm wrestling ........... 38 On acting as a personal journey ....................................................... 39 On the “right” reason to become an actor .......................................... 40 v On creating long term relationships with the actors in the group .............. 41 PART II: PHYSICAL IMAGE – GUREVITCH METHOD FOR ACTORS TRAINING .......................... 42 On how physical Image was born for Gurevitch .................................... 44 Basic definitions of concepts that underscore the PI training method ......... 45 PART III: TWO YEARS OF TRAINING ............................................................... 46 THE FIRST YEAR........................................................................... 46 THE SECOND YEAR ........................................................................ 69 PART I: REFLECTING STAGE ...................................................................... 89 PART II: IMPROVISATION STAGE ................................................................ 102 CHAPTER V: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR THE REHEARSAL PROCESS CONTINIOUS--SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT ..................... 113 PART III: BEGINNING THE SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT ................................................ 113 SECTION I: The Presence of the Theatre is Being Explored .................... 113 SECTION II: Moving apart from the Symposium ................................... 127 SECTION III: Removing the Theatre Layer .......................................... 139 CHAPTER VI: PASSING SHADOW AND THE DRAGON BELOVED ......................... 163 PASSING SHADOW ........................................................................... 164 THE PLAY BEGINS ............................................................................... 167 THE DRAGON BELOVED ..................................................................... 174 EPILOGUE ...................................................................................... 185 APPENDIX ...................................................................................... 194 REFERENCES ................................................................................... 196 vi ABSTRACT ...................................................................................... 203 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT .......................................................... 205 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The Khan Theatre .................................................................... 29 Figure 2: Reading the Symposium ............................................................. 90 Figure 3: Reflecting on Eros in the circle .................................................. 100 Figure 4: Improvising on Creating an Ocean Wave ........................................ 105 Figure 5: Improvising on Drowning .......................................................... 106 Figure 6: Gurevitch improvises on the drowning father .................................. 108 Figure 7: Improvisation on the Children’s Room .......................................... 109 Figure 8: The Child with the Wet Hair ...................................................... 128 Figure 9: The Investigator Memory of his First Date with Tamara ...................... 158 Figure 10: Another Memory of the First Date .............................................. 159 Figure 11: Just Before Family Dinner ....................................................... 172 Figure 12: Father Delight with Mother Under the Table ................................. 172 Figure 13: Night in the Children’s Room ................................................... 172 Figure 14: A Passing Shadow ................................................................. 173 Figure 15: Mother Tries to Eat the Unbearable Sadness ................................. 173 Figure 16: Daughter Returns Home After Thirty Years ................................... 173 Figure 17: Looking Back .....................................................................