tHE
pHiLOSOPHER'S
sTONE
iNTRODUCTiON
Antonin
Artaud: "We do not mean to bore the audience to death with transcendental
cosmic preoccupations. Audiences are not interested in whether there are profound
clues to the show's thought and action, since in general this does not concern
them. But these must still be there and that concerns us."
My relationship with
'tHE pHILOSOPHER"S sTONE" is rife with strange connections to many other
arts and people I've known. I was first introduced to Antonin Artaud's "The
Philosopher's Stone" in 1987, shortly after I began working with my first
NYC theatre group Protean Forms Collective (PFC). This group, of whom I served
as music director, was very much influenced by Artaud and his writings on theatre
as were their forebears: Carlos Altomare's Alchemical Theatre and before that
the Living Theatre of Julian Beck and Judith Malina. Interestingly, PFC had members
who worked with and/or were taught by members of the Alchemical as they were by
the Living etc. so this could be said to represent a lineage of sorts, a tangent
being Malina's relationship with the late great American gamelan pioneer Lou Harrison
in the 1950s. I worked at C.F.Peters, Harrison's publisher, and when he would
call I'd often speak with him on the phone where he'd graciously answer my neophyte
questions regarding the gamelan and non-Western tunings. The works of Robert Wilson
owes a debt to Artaud and to the Living and his connection with the Indonesian
arts is evidenced by his yearly trips to the archipelago in search of inspiration.
I played with Gamelan Son of Lion, a new music gamelan based in NYC, that was
founded by Barbara Benary, Philip Corner, and Daniel Goode. Barbara was in Philip
Glass' original ensemble before he went off to create operas with Robert Wilson.
I have always regarded Barbara and Dan as mentors of mine in the NYC brand of
minimalism that was born in the SoHo lofts of the 60s and 70s and of world music
in general. I had the pleasure of creating a musical work last summer for Rober
Wilson's Watermill Center on Long Island, NY. The piece was a study in 5 tone
scales and influenced in part by the Bali banjar-style working conditions of the
Center.
These are just a small example of the coincidences that helped
shape this present work of mine. Perhaps the most interesting ones are the ones
that I have recently discovered in the creation of the piece and contained here
in these pages.
In the search for useable graphics for the piece a web site dedicated to the quest of authenticating a possible Picasso painting was found. The painting is known as the "The Black Picasso" or as "The Three Dancers" and dates from around 1934. It abounds with hidden symbolism: alchemy, mythology, imagery central to Wagner and Satie, a numerological key by Albrecht Dürer (whose birth date of May 21st I share), and multiple Harlequins, a character not only central to "The Philosopher's Stone" but also regarded by Picasso throughout his career as his alter ego.
Interestingly, the painting, when turned upside down, reveals an abstract yet unmistakable double portrait of the Frankenstein monster.
When I first visited Martin Hatch at Cornell to suggest "The Philosopher's Stone" as a possible project I was delighted to discover that it had so much affinity with the larger "Frankenstein in Ithaca Project". Artaud wrote "The Philosopher's Stone" in 1931, the same year that Universal Studios released their original version of "Frankenstein" with Boris Karloff. It was from all of this kind of serendipity that this piece has finally come into being and being performed at Cornell.
I
give my deepest thanks to Martin Hatch, Raharja, Ann Warde, David Borden (for
introducing me to Marty and for being yet another musical mentor), and to the
Cornell Gamelan Ensemble.
PG
Ithaca, NY
Spring 2003
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