Not so much of an illusion

So I noticed this recently on the Guardian website:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/feb/10/painfully-good-theatre

If you haven’t yet, go and read the article and the comments below it, which make up a pretty interesting discussion on the nature of theatre and its relationship to the ‘real’. About a month too late for my dissertation but it’s great to see that people are talking about the mechanics and effects of this type of performance, especially since The Failure Project, now tentatively entering its second stage, is back on the scene and will be shown at the Space on March 14^th as part of a night of new ‘physical theatre’.

At the risk of repeating myself, I (unsurprisingly) agree completely with Lyn Garner’s views here – the whole reason I created The Failure Project was my own fascination with this particular element of physicality in performance – real bodies at work, with no pretence at perfection, no pretence that what they are doing on stage as part of a performance does not also have a real-time, real-life effect on their bodies, whether in a major or more subtle sense. I like theatre that knows it is theatre – not necessarily in an obvious, self-reflexive way but in also in a way that tacitly acknowledges that the performers are doing, and not just pretending to do.

This to me was always inextricably linked with the liveness of a performance and of the performer-spectator relationship; a performance that acknowledges and complicates the presence of a performer in this way also acknowledges and complicates the inherent liveness of the theatrical moment, which operates between two modes of time: that of the piece and of the context in which the performance is taking place. A performance that truly feels live is also one in which you can feel that the future is still uncertain, up for grabs, and not completely pre-determined, that introduces risk and the possibility of failure into the theatrical space and doesn’t just ignore it (I never liked the phrase “the show must go on” – it always seemed so stiff and uncompromising).

It also necessitates a complicity in the spectator that I find fascinating - when the boundary between real and staged becomes blurred, what happens then to the role of the person watching this? I wrote in my dissertation about Tim Etchell’s idea of the witness in the theatre – essentially a spectator to a real event, and therefore with an increased awareness of the implications of what they are watching and of their own position, watching it. From the audience feedback I received on The Failure Project it seemed that this transformation of the spectator’s role did occur to some extent in those present. They commented afterwards on their own feelings not only towards the performers and the tasks they were undergoing but also, significantly, towards themselves for watching it, and how the piece reflected on them as spectators.

I always find it curious when people say that nothing in the theatre is real, as one commenter does on the blog - are we supposed to think that the actors just switch off when they are on stage, as if in some out-of-body experience? That if a character on stage kisses another, they are not also doing this in real life? That if a dancer completes a dance routine, they are not left more out of breath at the end of it? The same commenter states that he/she wants “(the performers) to induce the emotion in me, not to watch them emoting whether for real or for fake”. This comment is particularly puzzling to me. Each to their own, of course, but what I want from any performance I watch is a sense of exchange between myself and the performer/s, not a sense that I am simply in the presence of a machine provided for my own emotional gratification, with nothing to add for myself to the situation except to passively except whatever emotion is being “induced” in me. Both these comments deny the very human nature of the theatrical experience, the fact that real human beings are present and (re)presenting in front of other human beings, despite the presence of an artificial narrative or fictional ‘world’. What is exciting about performances like those Lyn Garner talks about is that, to me, they explore the potential of this aspect of performance through the very structure and nature of the piece itself, and by doing so promote an active exchange between performer and spectator…and now I think I may be getting back to what I said a few days ago about connection.

Enough for now…time for bed.

Audience connection and the public/private

I am, at the moment, attempting to get some sort of piece (or idea of a piece) together to submit to the Accidental Festival, which is curated by BA students from the Central Speech of School and Drama. The theme for this year’s festival is ‘connection’, which obviously can be interpreted in many different ways but, after a conversation I had recently, has become prominent in my mind in a specific way.

I was having a very general discussion with someone about art when he told me about a friend of his, who had said that she didn’t like the theatre because she didn’t like encountering art in public (or something to that effect). I’ve never met this girl, which is a shame because as soon as I heard that I immediately wanted to pick her brains and ask her for more information (maybe a lucky escape for her) but the statement got me thinking about the unique relationship theatre has with its audience, and of how audiences experience different forms of art.

None of this is new – practitioners (and artists in other art forms) have always been concerned with the relationship their work has with the spectator, and I’ve be attempting to find ways to address the issue in every piece I’ve created in the last year. But I’d never considered it within the dichotomy of private vs. public and I wonder if it might be an interesting road to go down for my contribution to the festival. A similar discussion seems to have taken place between a few people on Chris Goode’s blog (an endless source of stimulation and inspiration): http://beescope.blogspot.com/2009/01/of-late.html - they talk about (if I’ve read it correctly) the possibility of creating a theatre space that can encourage the kind of quiet reflection and contemplation one usually finds in churches, and have a discussion over the nature of such an experience – whether it can be communal, an exchange between those present, as well as a solitary, introspective experience.

This is the kind of experience I hope for every time I go to the theatre, and would hope that it didn’t take a special kind of venue or theatre space to produce, but I do recognise that not enough performances facilitate such an experience, in which a spectator can feel like a vital part of the performance without having to take part in some tedious audience participation exercise (in which the spectator “matters”, as Chris Goode says), in which they are given the mental space to make their own reflections without feeling like they have detached themselves from the piece and the performers (i.e. my experience of watching Spectacular which I should maybe get out of my system at some point on the blog).

So…how to facilitate these connections between artist, work and spectator and space within the Roundhouse theatre? That is my next question. But coming back to the original concern: how can one make the experience of watching a performance in a traditional theatrical space feel private, even if the spectator is surrounded by many others and is inescapably in the presence of performers? Because this is also important: someone who craves a private spectatorship may view the liveness of theatre, in which each element present is existing and evolving live in front of the spectator’s own eyes, as an insurmountable barrier preventing them from really connecting (there’s that word again) with the piece and with the experience of being in an audience. I wonder if, in a situation in which the actual theatrical space cannot be manipulated, the answer lies in creating a performance that, through structure and style, mimics the response we want from an audience…

I recently went to see the Bobby Sands film Hunger – truly fantastic and if you haven’t seen it; check it out now. I won’t get bogged down in the politics of the film now as it’s not relevant here (and actually, I don’t think that it is a film that has a blatant political message, despite its subject matter). But what I found so compelling about the film was its use of long takes, most famously a 15-20 minute continuous sequence which contains most of the speech in the film, but also through a number of other notable scenes including one incredible one (my favourite scene) in which a prison officer cleans pools of urine from the prison corridor floor. The camera, motionless at the end of the corridor, displays the officer immersed in his task from beginning to end, without cutting away once. Now I love a long take, I mean, REALLY love a long take. It’s the musical equivalent of handclaps in songs – if it’s there, I automatically love the film/song a little more. And what I love about the use of the long take in Hunger is the demands it makes of the spectator. “Listen, watch, and pay attention” it seems to say, and I did, completely engrossed in the banal and fairly unpleasant task of the prison officer. Not only was I completely immersed in the actual action of the scene, in the character and what he was doing, but the simplicity and determined focus of the scene also gave me space to engage with the film as a whole, with the significance of what this man was doing and what my attitudes and thoughts were towards the entire film. What we need is the theatrical equivalent of the long take, something that compels the audience to engage, pay attention and reflect, to feel that connection to the piece: moments of respite from plot and spectacle, with give time to reflect and engage the brain yet still have something relevant to add to the drama and atmosphere of the piece. Moments that do not simply ask for reflection, but compel it by being reflective themselves.

Rant coming up...

So, I went to see Shun-Kin by Complicite last week at the Barbican, and it has thrown up all sorts of interesting questions in my head. Not so much from the piece itself (although I found it beautiful, despite the eye-ache of switching my gaze from the action on stage to the subtitle screens on either side – now I know why the cheap seats are in the front row) but the various reactions to it.

I’m going to try and explain without sounding like I’ve prematurely aged into a cranky, elitist old coot, the sort you see on Grumpy Old Men/Woman who seem to have a permanent grudge against everything. BUT…as I was sitting in the audience I couldn’t help but sense a nagging feeling that I have absolutely nothing in common with most of my generation. The story centred on the intense and complex relationship between a violent, spoilt blind woman names Shun-kin and her servant/lover Sasuke, who she regularly abuses. The piece represents Shun-kin as a child through puppetry, and the moment when the puppet is exchanged for a living actress is so subtle and so delicately performed that you don’t realise it is happening until long after (indeed, I had an argument with my companion afterwards about when the actual exchange took place). It’s really something. The vocal talents of the woman who portrays Shun-kin as she ages are amazing. Some bits seemed superfluous; the scenes with the narrator and those with the writer sometimes seemed a bit underdeveloped. But the main story of Shun-kin and Sasuke was always engaging, even though I couldn’t relate to it or feel it’s relevance to my own experience in the same way that I did with A Disappearing Number…although who says that it should have to offer that? Lyn Gardner said she didn’t know what the piece was for…but does it have to be for anything? Does theatre need to have an easily defined social/philosophical/political/whatever purpose? Can’t it exist purely to tell a story, to open up a world previously inaccessible? To create or show something beautiful (or horrific)? Or to do a million other things? To just exist? I;m sure the piece has its own purpose…but does Lyn Gardner need to ‘get it’ for it to be a good piece? Again, I don’t know. I just always get the feeling that if an artist wants to send a really specific message to his/her audience, with no equivocation or chance of confusion, maybe a piece of art is not the best method in which to do it. Just write an essay instead. I don’t think art should preach – just present. Let the audience decide for themselves. That's not to say that I don't think a theatrical piece should have a political, social etc.etc. force behind it, driving it forward and towards a certain existence...in fact I think it would be impossible to create a piece that did not have these concerns lurking somewhere in the background. I just get wary when I hear creative-types egotistically talk about the message they're giving to the 'people'. I get the feeling I'm not explaining myself well.
And now let me contradict myself horribly. There were scenes in the piece depicting the sado-masochistic nature of Shun-kin and Sasuke’s relationship. Let me tell you what I learnt during one such scene:

Child + man + puppet + sex + violence = hilarity (apparently)

Yeah I didn’t think so too, but apparently some people (specifically the teenage school groups I heard giggling endlessly behind me) could only respond to a very difficult scene (child has sex for the first time with her servant, an older man, and beats him savagely throughout) represented with grace and elegance, with childish giggles. It made me very, very sad. They didn’t have to like it – I am firmly of the position that once an artist presents a piece to an audience they effectively give up any control they had over it – it is for the audience to dissect and interpret as they will. Death of the author and all that. But the way they acted was, in my opinion, was so profoundly disrespectful (and dare I say it, racist? Each time the Japanese-ness of the piece was emphasised through the speech of the characters the giggles seemed to come)…I’m at a loss for words. I read a review of the piece in the Telegraph that accused it of being Orientalist, of succumbing to racial stereotypes of the East (despite the fact that the story and essay that the piece were based on were both written by a Japanese man and are both explicitly concerned with the difficult relationship between East and West) but for me, the Orientalism lay in the giggles, and the ‘this comes from a geographical/social/cultural/psychological place I can’t comprehend, so I’ll cut myself off and laugh’ attitude that came through in each one. And now I really sound like an old git.

Let's try one more time, shall we?

It’s been so long now since the piece finished, it seems almost pointless to be writing in the blog now – yet here I am. Since the last time I wrote here, I wrote up my work on the piece in my final dissertation, realising some important elements of the piece in the process. I had always meant to discuss these new discoveries in the blog while I was writing the dissertation, but guess what? I didn’t. Which is evident here. I’ve never been able to keep a diary (and that’s what this is, isn’t it, and what most blogs are – public diaries). It seems too obvious to say that this blog is probably my biggest failure during this process.

But here I am, months later, trying to start it up again, now that I have loads of free time and am (drumroll, please) starting up the project again for a new cast, which I’m looking forward to and think could be quite an exciting undertaking. Now that I’ve finished the MA and have no academic deadlines to work towards, it would be so easy for me to get pessimistic and lazy with this, but I really want to do the whole thing properly, starting with this blog. So there.

Before I launch into phase two of the project, here is a website that floated around my head whilst working on the piece first time round…now off I go to read some infinitely better written blogs and try and get my act together.

A blog centred on failure that I didn’t come across until after the piece was over (typical):

http://failblog.org/

And from the blog, here is quite a fascinating instance of failure by the customer services department of an internet service provider: