Rinde Eckert: The Idiot Variations (programme from the performance)
Eckert Learned Czech Because of His Audience (MF Dnes, 2. 9. 1995)

Poster of Performance
The other performances of Rinde Eckert in the Archa Theatre





Rinde Eckert: The Idiot Variations


June 20,1995
November 18 and 19, 1996
November 29 and 30, 1997

Script: Rinde Eckert
Director's collaboration: Robert Woodruff
Music consultation: Lee Townsend
Technical collaboration: Melissa Weaver
Translation to Czech language: Jana Svobodová

Performed by: Rinde Eckert
Voice: Jana Svobodová

A performance about various faces of foolishness and about the author. Rinde Eckert sings, talks and plays many musical instruments. He not only has a phenomenal voice, but even a phenomenal memory: he will play the performance in Czech.
          Rinde Eckert is a singer with a classical education. His technique consists of a wild gamut of modern styles and vocal effects. Eckert's vocal expression is in perfection harmony with his acting and movement. He often applies these qualities in performance of modern opera.
"Rinde Eckert is the most exciting performance artist since the early days of Laurie Anderson."
The New York Times


The performance premiered in January 1995 in Iowa and was created in collaboration with the Hancher Auditorium - The University of Iowa, P.S.122 - New York, On the Boards - Seattle, the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts - Los Angeles, the National Performance Network - Dance Theatre Workshop, New York. With special thanks to Ellen McLaughlin, the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and the Paul Dresher Ensemble.
          The Czech version was created in collaboration with Archa Theatre under support of Suitcase Fund, Dance Theatre Workshop, New York.

"Language is an integral part of the character and import of my work. I rely on the words to frame many of the ideas in the piece. It is for this reason I feel compelled to translate the work into whatever language is native to my audience. I then take pains to learn the translation and perform it. My desire is to make the character compelling and understandable, not perfect. My hope is that any vagaries in my pronunciation won't distract the audience from an appreciation of the flow of ideas. My Idiot is a man without a country who longs for a home he's long since forgotten. For American audiences, I perform this piece with a somewhat Irish accent. In Ireland, I would probably perform it with an American accent. In Prague? Well,...let's just say that I'm not worried about being mistaken for a native speaker.

Rinde Eckert





Eckert Learned Czech Because of His Audience

Specialization is not needed only in industry, but also in art; nevertheless the time of renaissance artists, who have managed to enforce in a greater sphere, does not belong to the past. We can find them even in America, where theatrical, dancer, poet and musician Rinde Eckert comes from and who was hosted at the end of this season on the stage of the Archa Theatre.

Here, he presented both the legendary performance Slow Fire, where he is accompanying by the Paul Dresher Ensemble, as well as the solo Idiot Variations. The audiences of this year's Tanec Praha dance festival could encounter his work, because he wrote the text of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company performance of The Gates with poet Michale Palmer. Each of these works provided an opportunity to recognize another side of Eckert's work. In The Gates he presented himself as a poet, in Slow Fire as a performer and in The Idiot Variations as an actor and musician. …
          … The most impressive performance of Eckert's was The Idiot Variations in which he applied his abilities as an actor, musician and literary figure, when he spoke Czech from the stage. No doubt, he did have wrong pronunciation, he made slips, but about this his desperate struggle to express himself as "God's little simpleton" was perceptible.
          "When I heard that I was going to play here, I decided to learn Czech. I have performed The Idiot Variations in French and Spanish. I have always preferred that my performance be translated because they are very much built on thoughts. I didn't want that this would be like any other American production, which makes an impression as just another curiosity, because its ideas aren't clear. It's better that I risk it and play in a foreign language so that the audience will get the complete work."
          Taht is the reason why Rinde Eckert decided to translate The Idiot Variations to Czech: "I didn't know beforehand if I could manage it. I started with the grammar to understand the construction of the language. After this, I learned the translated text, at which time I then started to translate it into Czech by myself..." Rinde Eckert did manage it. Everyone followed with tension, how he tried to express himself, and how he corrected himself, when he made a mistake.
          Such a difficult piece of work Rinde Eckert made for only one performance. Admittedly he would like to return, but even if not, he doesn't consider the time dedicated to The Idiot Variations to be lost. "I was curious whether or not I would be able to play in Czech and there wasn't any other way to know it. I am glad that I managed it, because during this I learnt a lot about my work. I even changed some thing in the original on the basis of the Czech performance.

Alex Švamberk, MF Dnes, 2. 9. 1995