The Actor's Journey: ‘Judith’ from Training to Performance

Abstract

New Theatre Quarterly has provided extensive coverage of the work of Odin Teatret, based since 1966 at Holstebro in Denmark, as also of the approach and ideas of its director, Eugenio Barba, who first wrote for us on ‘The Nature of Dramaturgy’ in NTQ1 (1985). Most recently, we documented Odin's twelfth production, Talabot, through David Shoemaker's analysis in NTQ24 (1990). Here, we offer an actor's experience of the creation of a one-person production – uniting personal circumstances, experiences in training, and exploratory research in the process which led towards the creation of Judith, based on the apocryphal story of the woman who seduced an enemy general in order to murder him. Its performer, Roberta Carreri, joined Odin Teatret in 1974, since when she has also performed in The Book of Dance (1974–80), Come! and the Day Will Be Ours (1976–80), Anabasis (1977–84), The Million (1978–84), Brecht's Ashes (1980–84), and The Gospel According to Oxyrhincus (1985–87). Her evocation here of the process which led to the creation of Judith is based on an interview with Exe Christoffersen, who also provides a detailed scenario of the production in performance. This feature forms part of Exe Christoffersen's Skuespillerens Vandring, published in Denmark by Klim in 1989. It has been excerpted and translated for NTQ by Gordi Roberts.