Im Autistic

In this episode, one very tired theatrology student will try to explain how Craig's ideas about actors and theatre in general might have factored into the way theatre is used in pathologic, especially when it comes to minor changes made between patho classic and 2. We'll talk about puppets vs actors, the role of directors and how it all relates to death. Yay!

SPOILERS FOR BOTH GAMES AHEAD

THEATRE IN PATHOLOGIC

So, anyone who's seen Codex Entry's video essays might be aware that Pathologic very visibly uses and plays with various theatrical ideas and concepts, especially when it comes to XXth century avantgarde movements. So far, Ruby has discussed the influences of Artaud (my boi), Brecht and Beckett, but today we're going to take a little step back and focus on one thinker who might have just been on of the most important theatre theorists ever and whose ideas definitely influenced all those that came after him. We're talking about our favorite theatre malcontent- Edward Gordon Craig

Soo, Craig was a theatre theoretician, actor, director, and founder of the magazine "The mask" back in the 1910s. In it, Craig would talk about his thoughts on theatre, which were largely counter-cultural, at least in comparison to the standard established back in the mid XIXth century. His works are often cited as fundamental to the Great Reform movement, which included among others, Stanislavsky, Reinhardt, and Appia. Their works paved the way towards avant garde theatre and a completely new understanding to it.

Now, why is Craig so important? Basically, he complained a lot and had very cool, albeit sometimes impossible ideas which were later inspired other in creative ways. His main ideas were:

Theatre is not a synthesis of other arts but rather something autonomical, unlike SOME OTHER PEOPLE THOUGHT (im loking at you wagner)

The director>>>>>>>> some dumb smelly actors

The actor shall one day be replaced by the Uber marrionette (tm)

Today we'll focus on those last two, since they are interconnected and most relevant in Pathologic.

The second point is pretty self-explanatory. Craig proposed that the director and their vision is the most important part of any given theatre show. The director should have a holistic vision, knowledge about all the arts participating in theatre and abilities to make their ideas reality. Before that, directors were more like the caretakers of shows, while the main focus was on the star actors. And this way of thinking leads us directly toooo:

THE UBER MARRIONETTE

(project by Oscar Schlemmer)

So, what is the uber marrionette? Basically it's a slightly esoteric idea that somewhere between puppets and living actors exists a form which would be perfectly responsive to the director's artistic vision. Human actors were ego-driven, restricted by their bodies and minds which generally not malleable enough to be a good material, even going so far as to suggest that acting is not an artform at all, since it is driven by chance and not specific intentions.

In contrast to that, Craig explained the nature of puppets- perfectly controlled, humble, objects of worship. And also symbols of death. Which he thought of as perfection. So, in some way, a perfect actor is a ...dead actor. Or, not literally dead, but posseing the perfect stasis of death, one usually assosciated with inanimate objects.

OK, WTF?

As I mentioned those ideas are very cool theories but are rather hard to actualize in the real world, especially since Craig was sometimes vague about what he ACTUALLY wanted to see. He would complain about people misinterpreting his works and declaring that he wants to replace actors with literal machines, while also never specifying what he actually meant. So different artists tried to bring his ideas to life, mostly by "mechanising" living actors, or using some blend of life and artificiality. In practice it was mostly shit like putting actors in giant metal pots and making them communicate in mono syllables to restrict their natural expressions od self as much as possible

OK, BUT HOW DOES THAT RELATE TO PATHOLOGIC?

So my theory is, that by portraying the player character(s) as puppets in classic, and as actors and tying all of this to the idea of death, the makers of PAthologic are playing (pun intended) with the concept of the uber marionnette and maybe even proposing a solution to this impossible problem.

Let's start with classic, because it's pretty straight forward. The characters are dolls/puppets (I'll be using those words interchangibly because fundamentally they serve the same purpose). The theatre itself is specifically said to host puppet shows (which is in itself a nod to the long standing tradition of folk puppetry in Russia and other eastern european countries)

Which in hindsight, are a direct reference to the fact that the very story you are playing is nothing more than a game/puppet performance hosted by in-world The Powers That Be and at the very top by the makers of Pathologic. In that way it is a very straight forward (but ultimately incorrect) use of the uber marionette- the player character is a humble vessel through which an idea is manifested. It's a puppet made out of polygons and lines of code instead of wood or felt. Your role as a player in this performance is two fold- you are both the puppeteer (the one who moves the dolls) and the spectator (because you are being told the story, not the other way around). What you are not is the Director- that role, personified by Mark Immortel and later by the Executor and Tragedian is out of reach for you. So, as you can see it's definitely using puppets, but not necessarily uber marrionetes.

AND THEN WE HAVE PATHO 2

So, the theatre inspirations in Patho 2 are a lot less...subtle than in classic, one of them being literally namedropping my boi Artaud's concept of the Theatre of Cruelty.

But what I want to focus on in this case is the seeming dissapearence of the puppet metaphor from the first game. You are no longer compared to a puppeteer moving a vessel, but to an actor inhabiting a role. A role which is in a way highly restrictive, since there are only four endings, and only two choices that actually impact what happens in the end (what you do with the documents, and whether you take the fellow travellers deal or not) You are faced with the idea that you are replacable, so your personal ego is not valuable to the director in universe and the game creators out of the universe. And finally, to make it even more interesting, you are in-universe faces with the neverending cycle of life and death, through the system of deaths having consequences/being part of the game's continuous timeline instead of just out of universe reloading. I think you might already see where i am going with this.

I THINK THAT THOSE TRAITS MAKE ARTEMY'S PORTRAYAL SIMILAR TO THE CONCEPT OF THE UBER MARRIONETTE

Pathologic Fest Day 21: Blood against Blood