Manifesto of Retta • Scott Knier

Explore two snippets of the great Manifesto of Retta

Front cover of the *Retta Manifesto* © Scott Knier 2019

Part 1: The Retta

1 We intend on making a theatre of passion
2 passionate enough to bring ruin to the sets of realism with the rompus uproar of our swaggered walk
3 heavy enough to flatten the most flocculent of cushions that our observers will burrow into,
4 our theatre will be fiery
5 fiery enough to burn the brazen wax monuments we once used as light to a puddle of pragmatic glue, binding the abstraction of Music and Movement with the constructs of speech and spectacle
6 fiery enough to set the stage ablaze in a fury of impulse and dream,
7 our theatre will make the sturdiest of altars shake wobble and throb with fear and delight within its newly divine calling.
8 A theatre of beauty– so energetic, so repugnantly irresistible that men and women alike will denounce dogmas, epochs, and any apathy towards the theatre–
9 our newly original theatre, our freshly pressed american crown, so majestically common,
10 but still only worn and embraced by the hallowed few,
11 so shiny and dazzling
12 so blindingly delightful
13. that vision itself will have but new meaning
14. that sight itself will have but new feeling
15. that understanding of the abstract world beneath the surface of reality we intend to represent:
16. the world of beauty
17. of spontaneity
18. of impulse and dream, will be known to all as something independent from the mundanity and mediocrity that dictates our own world.
19. A beautiful palace of wills
20. A kingdom that takes manifest within the thoughts and actions of the mundane and mediocre world in which our theatre has been sired from.

Part V: On Spectacle

179 The spectacle must come from within the mind’s eye
180 a small membrane
181 a place of untapped energy eager and waiting break free from the chains of the world of mediocre and the world of the mundane
182 it must be unleashed
183 unhinged, unapologetically allowed to blossom and bloom in through multiple mediums
184 multiple, new emerging medias
185 medias known and to be known
186 numerous forms of brilliance that kernel up within the mind, only to pop, only to reach the stage
187 and dazzle with extreme force
188 It must stray from descriptive or representative specters of the real world. 189 Our spectacle must take on an innately divine
190 inherently grandiose feel– whether in the smallest of theatres with the most meager of budgets, or in a theatre of dandy sized proportions.
191 Our spectacle must be constant–
192 constant as the seafoam upon the shore–
193 it must increase with intensity and impulse with each shower of bewilderment
194 each forceful punch of sight
195 each dazzling blow must face the audience head on in order to allow for the story to slide atop of our spectacle like wind upon the back of a maternal bird–
196 like the sound of it’s majestic, stern, motherly wings flapping amidst an empty, hollowed out canyon.
197 We demand in our spectacles an arousal of the senses– 198 of intrigue of thought and of feeling
199 we wish to enter into the universe of the sublime
200 a presentation of the fruits of supreme authenticity
201 like the hallowed few that trod on
202 weather battered, black and blue bruises bubbling upon the face
203 the ones with war torn hearts
204 with crying, feeble eyes
205 tear ridden uproars
206 a stupendous triumph of the few– the hallowed ones who stand between our world of representation and the next–
207 eyes painted forward looking to the above and beyond
208 no not for some hauntingly drooping sign of pseudo-spectacular imagery
209 but for the people who stand above our beautiful canyon of naturalism,
210 the ones who hear the sound of wings flapping
211 the sight of the bird tapping-through the air. 212 We look to him her and them and we realize the sight they see past the ever enticing rainbow of
213 reality and into our world we forage aloud within Retta:
214 let us not represented the rock of the canyon within our spectacle–
215 so precisely carved by the elements
216 crafted by some great power above with wit and will–
217 nor the verdant valley of green and pastures of plenty humming with life and naturalistic beauty,
218 let us present what these solemn and daring few see within their minds eye!
219 the vision of child like abstraction!
220 let it plunge through the happenstantial manifestations of the beautiful caverness of our dutiful canyon
221 only to lead us to the truth! 222 the generousness of humanity
223 the triumph of mankind’s youthful spirit and vigor!
224 Imagination! Spectacle!
225 Presented with such intensity and impulse that would demand great sacrifice and conviction to any of those who dare look away.
226 Let this new line of art be presented without want
227 without need
228 desire
229 thought or memory!
230 Let it stand up for love, life, the love of life, and a life of love.