DIOGENES, THE ARTIST (2020)
Created by Patrick Blenkarn
artist book, 41 pages.
The Collected Anecdotes and Sayings of Diogenes, the Artist recounts the life of the Greek-Canadian theatre director and actor, Diogenes. A translation/reterritorialization of Diogenes Laertius’ observations and anecdotes on the infamous Greek philosopher Diogenes the Cynic.
14. People called his theatre a theatre for dogs. So he started to perform his plays at dog parks. Then people said his performers were less interesting than the dogs at the parks, so he started to cast the dogs as well.
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30. He would wonder why the theatre of the 21st century should still find the quotes of Hamlet so enthralling, while remaining so frightened of asking if it itself should possibly ‘not be’. Or that actors should try to express such inner truths of characters, while leaving the dispositions of their own souls so clouded; or that the directors of his time should still stage Brecht and Boal, but rule their rehearsal halls like fascists and tyrants; or that all the country’s creatives should cry out against money and capitalism, while inordinately fond of it and hoping to win a cash prize, let alone receive their next government grant.
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36. While everyone was trying make their ancestry significant, Diogenes didn’t know why everyone wanted his work to be more Greek, especially when they all think of theatre as Greek in origin.
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40. When he’d given up grant writing, and started begging for money on the street to fund his productions, other artists would chastise him. He said, “If I get it now before they pay their taxes, maybe you won’t get as much.”