Rob Weinert-Kendt: How long have you lived in Rome?
Willem Dafoe: About 20 years ago, I met my wife (director and screenwriter Collagen), and I started spending time in Italy. I was New Yorkers for many years, then I was going and I went back and forth. I still keep a place in New York, but I find myself much more in Italy. It really depends on where I work.
Is this how this biennial concert came in your own way?
I don't know how it came to me, frankly. I worked in Italy as an actor, both with Italian and non -Italian directors. The president of the Biennale has just called me and said, “Would you be the artistic director?” ” I was very flattered and I thought it would also be a good opportunity to return to the theater. Not that I have been gone, so long, but lately, I have been very busy with the work of cinema. You know, I was very formed by the theater, and for many years, I worked daily at the Wooster group when I was not on a set. My identity is therefore always as a theater actor.
We told you about when you did it The life and death of Marina Abramovic In 2013. Was it your last time on stage?
No, since then, I have worked with this Italian director, Romeo Castellucci. He is not so well known in the United States, but I have followed his work for years, so I had the privilege of working with him.
He may not be widely known, but he is known to people who follow the theater. Indeed, it is one of the heavy international strikers that you program, notably Ostermeier and Rau. Another big name in the mix is your old troop, the Wooster group.
Yes, they come with one of their pieces, and Elizabeth Lecompte will receive The Golden Lion. I have a lot of respect for her. She has been doing an interesting job for 50 years, a job that has never ostened or became flat. Even if the company has changed over the years, it is a real business in what it works every day. And she is a woman who never lacked performance, even when we were on tour. We used to repeat before making a show. It is therefore tireless. She loves what she does, and it is one of those people who really give her life to what she does. I am always very moved and inspired by that.
It seems that it would not be a Willem Dafoe festival without the Wooster group there, right?
THANKS. I mean, it raises eyebrows, because Liz was my partner, and I have a son with her – if a complete disclosure. But I want the decision. It is really phenomenal.
It's like being a Beatle – you will always be a guy from the Wooster group.
Well, 27 years of work every day are really part of the family. I was the youngest when I started in the group, then I became the oldest apart from her, then I started making films and, for personal reasons, I moved to Italy. Everything has changed, but I have always followed their work.
I want to ask you more about the programming, but first, you mentioned a theme that I wanted to strike, given your long career. What happens when the young people, the arrivals, become the veterans, the former? How do you keep the work fresh?
I would say it's an individual thing, and you're lucky if you can do it. For me as an actor, these are always varieties and curiosity, and I had the chance to work with all kinds of people in all kinds of situations. I can say that, whether it is to program this biennial or make a play or work on a film, every time I start something, it's like the first time, in respect of the elements that go to your work.
You know, when people talk about action, when they talk about theater, there is always a tendency to put it in a small box. With the theater, what is wonderful is that it is a multidisciplinary thing. He uses all the arts. You really recognize that when you program something, because what is theater? All of a sudden, you can rely on a dance theater, and people are like “Whoa, it's dance!” Or you can rely on something that has no words, and they are like: “Does this theater?” Or you can rely on something that is very involved in music or architecture, and they said they were “whoa”. But the beauty of the theater is that it can manage all these arts. It is a total art. It is one of his pleasures.
You have a kind of manifesto for your programming that you have published, entitled, “The theater is the body – the body is poetry.” Part of your point is that the human body is only at the center of the theater. Could you talk more about it?
Of course. I am not talking about the body only in the sense of flexibility and the capacity to express things through the body, but also of the presence of someone in an audience. Apart from the performing arts, you don't have that kind of meaning. The most important thing is this feeling of presence. Most of the work I have done and that I am interested is not by a huge theater where people are small specifications; It's a little more, you are in a room with people who do things. And so, between the ritual and the movement and express it that does not necessarily fall into a form of careful game – it is the living theater for me.
