my experience

What has really stuck with me in Fletcher's Performance Theory class is the concept of phenomenology...and how all the topics we studied help to create that phenomenological experience.  What, I think, the term means to me is creating a certain kind of experience we want to leave with the audience.  And how we need to balance that objective by remembering to look through a "binocular" where we see the semiotics, or the signs and symbols that inform, as well as what we sensitively take in from the experience. 

I've thought about this term throughout the semester--especially since I am tasked to create a solo performance thesis.  Not only do I explore what my character experiences moment by moment, but I've thought about what the audience would feel as well.  And I've set the goal for myself to create an experience for the audience that parallels my character's truthful experience on stage.  But I've also come to realize that there needs to be a balance between the two.  For example, the isolation and violence I want the audience to experience complements Saeed's experience in his solitary confinement cell.  I've discovered that some of the pauses, moments of isolation, that I thought would create tension and uncertainty, really just sucks the life out of the rhythm and overall experience of the piece.  Discovering the balance between the two is difficult, and reinforces the importance of the director. 

Phenomenology is something I never considered, or even heard about, as a director.  Yes, directors want to create an atmosphere.  But phenomenology seems to mean much more than that to me...Foucault's ideas about space, the work of the environmental theatre articles we read, the fascinating idea of dark matter in a play, the hyper real quality of verbatim/documentary theatre, and even some of the moment work the MFA ensemble did with Leigh Fondakowski all seem to influence this concept of creating an experience, rather than just a story.  I want to create experiences, not just stories.

A Tour with Madame Tussaud

So, Dr. Fletcher wanted the undergrads (or interested MFAs) to think of an uncanny experience created purposely for performance.  But since creepy, horror flicks are out of the question--darn!--I suddenly remembered my time, when I lived in NYC, at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. My friend flew up to the City to visit me for a few days, and I promised her I would take her to all the sight-seeing attractions.  We visited the Olive Garden, where I worked in Times Square, to have a nice lunch (with too much Bianca Princiapato wine I might add).  She begged me to take her inside the over-crowded museum, and even offered to pay for my ticket.  I was feeling pretty toasty after our lunch and was up for anything...so I followed her all around the showroom.   See the video below for a tour.  FYI, this is not my friend, but some random lady who posted her experience on YouTube.
She gives a lengthy tour of the attraction...don't feel like you have to watch the whole clip.  Notice which figures look more real than others.

NYC Time Square Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum

Supposedly Madame Tussaud began making death masks for the wealthy in her day, but she later decided to sculpt statues of wax for display.  You can find YouTube videos of artists sculpting famous figures with the exact technique that Madame used herself.  I watched the making of Lady Gaga and it was fascinating.  Every little detail is addressed from her "real skin tone" to her "iconic looks" to even her tattoos.  The hair is made with real hair and designed/created individually by strand.  You hear the artists talk about their work and reference the wax figure as "she" or "her style", etc. It is eerie how much these figures look like their real muses. 

But here is where the performance comes in.  The tour is set up like a social event "...where all the stars are here to mingle with us"(from the happy tour guide in the clip).   Music is cranked up, a concession area with drinks, snacks, and alcohol are available for a fortune, and the public is participating in a celebratory event.  I remember tourists all around me standing by the figures, taking pictures, talking to them, touching their hands, stroking their hair...I had a mixed experience.  Some wax figures looked more life-like than others as you will see from the video clip.  I remember walking with my friend and stopping by each wax statue, but there were times where I found myself spooked by all the uncanny replicas of past and present stars.  I guess I couldn't stop thinking about the campy House of Wax horror flick.  Might one of these figures start talking to me?  Will one of them actually be an employee of the museum who suddenly scares the CRAP out of me?  I was fascinated by the realistic, aliveness of the sculptures.  The attraction was made to enjoy and celebrate the accomplishments and lives of influential people.  Artist people made copies of famous people to mingle with tourist people...weird.  I wasn't drawn in as much as I expected, but somehow oddly distanced from the whole experience.  Perhaps the uncanny creates an alienation...or perhaps it allows a constant tug and pull during a performance.  It captures our attention yet allows us to remain objective.

  

All you need is LOVE...

Good theatre is powerful.  I'm not simply talking about an actor's performance, but a message that is communicated in a specific, provoking manner.  The direction of a piece that is clear and evokes the message in a visceral way.  The company involved with a work that is passionate about the cause.  Through our journey in Performance Theory class, that is a common theme among new movements and styles.  An artist or company was excited about a cause or message, and literally pushed the bounds and explored ways of performance to express those ideas. 

Maggie's personal story of the gang members storming the tour bus really made me stop and rethink some instances in my life where I could have spoken up or resisted a wrong.  What can be done in the face of genocide, terrorism, disaster, injustice? And is theatre the answer?  Yes and no. In the moment of such an experience we are shocked, terrified, justifying our "cop in the head", numb, or even insensitive to the circumstances and people around us.  But I would venture to share, from my Christian point of view, that love and respect for others overcomes that.  "Love is a strong as death," writes Saeed Abedini, American citizen imprisoned in Iran, in a letter to the Christian Church in 2012.  Or as I quoted Ray Comfort in my last blog post, "Maybe everyone is made of individuals..." He was referencing the tragedy of the Holocaust when a woman, he was interviewing, wondered where the world was and why everyone didn't unite sooner to save the victims. How can this be translated into theatre since everyone doesn't share my same worldview, you say?  The love of creating something powerful and new to cause the world to think not only about themselves, but the social and political landscape that envelops them--simple.

What is the next step?  Maybe we need some more Brecht.  Maybe we need to throw some guerilla-type invisible theater into the mix.  Maybe we need to do some more community-based work in schools and community centers.  Maybe we need to hold forums in the public square.  Or perhaps we need to do something shocking that grabs the attention of the world, like sit in an art museum and slap someone's face or be present with someone.  There isn't a definitive answer yet, and that is why all these forms and ideas emerged. Theater is subjective and affects its audience in different ways.  But we need to continue TO DO...to do work that means something to us as artists and to the community.

America's Holocaust

A topic that I feel strongly against is abortion.  I know this is a very sensitive subject that still pervades our political backdrop today.  I believe human life is a gift from God, and no one has the right to kill off babies in the womb--sorry, not even the mother.  I am aware that my conservative stance to abortion is not a popular view.  According to the ALL (American Life League) website, the total number of abortions in the United States alone from 1973-2011 is 54.5 million+ babies. ALL’s statistics break it down as:

234 abortions per 1,000 live births (according to the Centers for Disease Control)              
Abortions per year: 1.2 million
Abortions per day: 3,288
Abortions per hour: 137
9 abortions every 4 minutes
1 abortion every 26 seconds

These statistics include only surgical and medical abortions.

Ray Comfort, Evangelist and Director of Living Waters Ministry in California, produced an award-winning documentary, 180, in 2011.  Ray begins by asking random people on the street who Hitler was.  Amazingly, many young people had no idea who Hitler was or what the Holocaust entailed.  He continues with a series of “what would you do” scenarios that ultimately lead the interviewees to the question, “Do you value human life?” When they answer, “Yes, of course”, Ray counters with another question, “How do you feel about abortion?”  He shockingly compares the Jewish Holocaust to an American “Pro-choice” Holocaust.  He spins the reasoning of the interviewees by connecting their remarks to the Nazi agenda…which makes for a very powerful, thought-provoking experience.  A young woman who seemed moved by Ray's questions about the Holocaust remarked, “What can one person do…I mean everyone needed to rise up against him [Hitler]...”  Ray illustrates his stance by answering, “Maybe everyone is made up of individuals who would say I could never bury human beings alive…” Many of the participants of the film seem to have changed their views on abortion, or made a 180.  It was Ray Comfort's hope that the film would be viewed by millions online to change their view from “pro-choice” to “pro-life”.  Below is a clip from the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcPG4UAo0Ys

My demonstration is a mixture of activist techniques to include some community-based reenactments, die-ins, and hauntings.  I would organize the demonstration in a crowded, public area, like university campuses or public parks and arenas, to get the most response. I would surround the sidewalks and pathways with children who haunt passing spectators as they walk past--perhaps holding signs like "I would have been such and such years old if I wasn't aborted" (depending on the child), or other sayings to that effect. I would have an actor dress up as a Nazi soldier and hold a fake gun.  Every four minutes, a line of nine people (including children and adults of the community) would line up and get “shot”, with a powerful sound effect, and fall to the ground.  Then I would have a bulldozer on standby roll in and dump confetti-like paper onto the victims, not all dead from the massacre.  I'm assuming I have any means at my disposal. Meanwhile, other participants of the demonstration would be interviewing the public, in the spirit of the film, with similar questions and objectives.  This demonstration would illustrate the scenario Ray Comfort asks his interviewees to consider. As the demonstration continues every four minutes, the public watches and talks with “pro-life” defenders.  Having this demonstration in a very public area would definitely stir a debate that might attract the media to participate in the event.  The effect of the media would actually multiply the message, and get the nation’s attention and thoughts towards the issue…hopefully changing the minds of many “pro-choice” voters to “pro-life” advocates.  There wouldn’t be any real violence, but just the strong imagery from the demonstration.  It is very important that the public and media see a peaceful, but concerned group of activists talking with the nearby  audience.   This demonstration would be considered successful if spectators changed their pro-choice beliefs.  However, this would probably have to been reenacted several times, quite quickly due to the many deaths every four minutes, over a long period of time to see an effect with voters and influence current policy.  Below is the link to the thirty minute documentary, 180, if you are interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y2KsU_dhwI

Post-Modern Cocktail

What really drew my attention this past week concerning the subject of time in the theatrical realm were the durationals mentioned in Kalb’s excerpt from Great Lengths.   In many instances, these were pieces of improvisational, game-like experiments, favored towards the “story of the process”, which played out for many hours.  They departed from the conventional dramatic structure (beginning, middle, and end) primarily concerned with plot and character, and delved into what Etchells described as “…fluid dramas of attempt and struggle” that “…abandoned the rhetorical power of the stage, refusing the shelter afforded by theatre, preferring simply to be there”(Kalb 130).  Durationals not only played with theatrical conventions of time and pace, but also with the space and audience relationship in the works themselves.  The simplistic, intimate ambiguous spaces somehow influenced the audience from merely being “spectators” into becoming “witnesses”, as Ashley mentioned in her prompt. Durationals become voyeuristic engagements that involved both the performer “pretending to be themselves” and the “witness”. These pieces were not originally intended to keep the attention of the audience during the whole process of the work, but surprisingly riveted the interest of Kalb and other spectators who were afraid to leave and not be able to return again.  It seems as though the durationals complemented a naturalistic “slice of life”, but in real time, to the idea of time and pace; life itself has its slow and rushed moments or its boring and dramatic events. Another day and another evening is experienced as the sun sets—whereby the natural light changes the atmosphere of the piece. Durationals illustrate the struggle of human connection and life’s redundancies.  They emphasize the reality effect since we are all “witnesses” to these aspects in everyday life. 

Real people in real time, really pretending. The pretence acknowledged at all points. Or the pretence flickering in and out of acknowledgement . . . Costumes. Props. Sets. Not because one “believes” in these things. But because their processes of transformation and pretence are what the culture is made of (130).

I’m not totally sure what the next step is concerning performance in the “right here, right now” of theatre.  I tend to think theatre will become a mixture of traditional and avante garde (more so than now), a sort of post-modern cocktail made to order depending on the “flavored” experience.  I seem to continually be drawn back to Hudes’ Water by the Spoonful (which we studied in Fletcher’s Play Analysis class). I wonder what would happen if we incorporated a mixture of durational, futuristic, and virtual “twitter” moments.  Hudes’ theatricality of the piece would be changed; playing with the form will, I’m sure, change the playwright’s concept by departing away from the “free jazz” musicality of the play.  But what would happen if, after we introduced all the characters in the play, we continue only with twitter plays during the support group scenes?  Would the audience effectively imagine what Hudes intended?  What if we began the process early on the performance day with separate, character durationals interspersed with Futuristic episodes of certain succinct moments in the script?  Would the story and relationships, Hudes so beautifully created, still be understood?  The story of the play may really become a completely different story of the new experience…or perhaps bring a new dimension to her work.  Either way, I’d be game to find out.  Below is an interesting trailer from a German production of Water by the Spoonful.  It reminded me of some of the durationals described in Kalb’s excerpt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCJq9xsMb2Y

What is ART

I’ve always liked the play Art, by Yesmina Reza, and hope to someday be able to play Yvan, Marc, or Serge.  Maybe I like the play because it really explores the concept of “best friend” dynamics.  It is a play about friendship and questions how one behaves when someone close does something unexpected or immature to our specific values.  This dark comedy is centered on three best friends who debate whether an expensive painting is really a piece of art.  I’m not sure if this concept has been done before, but I would really love to play out this piece in the middle of an art gallery…perhaps at an opening event.  The whole space would be used as the “stage” for Marc, Yvan, and Serge to debate and fight about the white painting that is considered to be a true work of art.  Or perhaps they can use an obscure piece of art from an installation and have the audience question with them whether it is truly art or not. Usually, the play is set in the apartments of the three friends, but I would want to place the action in the art gallery.  Each character has asides to the audience in the play, and I would want these characters to grab the attention of specific spectators in the gallery and really talk to them—recruiting them, on their side if possible, as part of the debate.  I would want it to be a piece that’s duration is flexible with what actually happens in the gallery; there would be multi and local focus moments during the event.  Spectators would see characters interact in the scenes, but then separate into different areas of the galleries after a heated argument.  Spectators could choose who they want to follow and interact with them until another scene ensues when the characters run into each other again.   This could be the type of performance where a spectator needs to see the event three different times to follow the journey of each character throughout the evening.  Not only will it be a play about friendship dynamics and what art truly is, it will become a piece about what performance is considered.  Spectators will intermittently wonder whether this is a performance or a real event taking place in the art gallery.  There will be periods of intense action but also periods of stillness and reflection.  The script of the play will be used, but also whatever improvisation naturally happens with the spectators present. It will be a “night-filling” play!  Here's a scene from the play with women in the roles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c6Op9q7sas

This type of experience would force the spectator to side with a particular character; whereas a normal staging of the play allows the audience to understand each character’s point of view and eventually determine which point of view they identify with.  I think this approach will enhance the piece into a more visceral experience for the audience. It becomes a different experience than the already compelling experience a normal staging of the play produces.  The themes of the play are put into action with the spectators. They will find themselves agreeing or disagreeing, as well as reacting or not reacting to the performance.  How involved will the audience become?  How far will they allow the characters to interact the way that they do?  How will they interact with other spectators?  What points really unnerve them into action?  The experience turns a public, sacred space into more of a public, private space.   

I agree with Kantor’s thoughts, however, there is still merit to traditional theatrical productions.  In some aspects, found environmental spaces remind me somewhat of naturalistic elements.  As artists, we are expected to think outside of the box.  When a concept or production really pushes the boundaries, meanings, and concepts--and it works--it changes the experience of the audience as well as the performer.  We want to give a new experience and change the audience somehow in the arts.  We want to inspire but can only do so with inspiring work. There is nothing more exciting than experiencing something new or unexpected because it produces something new and unexpected in myself.  The theatre is a social medium that can affect us in such a meaningful way, both the performer and the audience.       

Our Cross to Bear

 

Why do people go to the theatre or attend performance art pieces?  There is something special-- something electrifying--in the air during a compelling theatrical performance.  This is because the audience and performers share the experience together.  Peggy Phelan writes in her article that    “…technologies can give us something that closely resembles the live event, but they remain something other than live performance…streaming video functions in the way a still photograph works: it conveys the work but it is not the live event itself”(575).  Cinema may move us but live performance, compelling works, literally change us because we experience it with the performers…there is a give and take during live performance.  During the run of our recent production of Frankenstein, a woman was moved in the audience when the creature accidently killed little William.  She shouted, “He’s only a child!”, and Brendan Averett told us back stage that it jarred him and affected his performance.  Another recent example was during rehearsal.  Nick Erickson was working with Tim and Brendan.  As Brendan “threw” Tim over the chaise lounge, many of the cast members grimaced and audibly reacted to Tim’s landing.  It sounded as if Tim hit his head on the chaise before he made contact with the ground.  Tim looked out into the house and wondered why we reacted in such a way.  He assured us he didn’t hurt himself.  Both performer and artist share what happens in the space.

When I lived in New York City, I was lucky to come across some comp tickets to see a Wooster Group production, “House/Lights”.  I don’t pretend to understand what I saw, but I cannot forget the experience.  It was an eclectic production of voice overs, sound and special lighting effects, physical theatre, some intermittent text, moving set pieces, and probably more.  Without the performers, the piece would not have the same effect I don’t think.  The juxtaposition of the performers with the multi-media effects moved me.  I felt chilled, aroused, spooked, intrigued, and even guilty for seeing what was before me.  When used correctly, technology can be an invigorating element to theatre or performance art, but I don’t believe technology could ever replace live performance.  Even if it does, the lively spark we experience in the space, those moments from a live performance will be lost and never experienced…which would be very sad.  Phelan goes on to say:

The potential for the event to be transformed in unscripted ways by those participating (both the artists and the viewers) makes it more exciting to me…The possibility of mutual transformation of both the observer and the performer within the enactment of the live event is extraordinarily important, because this is the point where the aesthetic joins the ethical. The ethical is fundamentally related to live art because both are arenas for the unpredictable force of the social event.

Try to articulate your experience during this clip of the Wooster Group in performance.  Then imagine the event multiplied ten times (x10) since you are not experiencing it live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqd3kLN12oA

The tragic event of 9/11 comes to mind when thinking of a “media-built experience”.  At the time of the incident, I was still a sophomore in college.  All day, the news stations were playing the recorded footage of the planes flying into the World Trade Center.  One of our theatre professors rolled out a TV in the lobby for everyone to watch the footage throughout the day.  The image of the planes crashing and the towers collapsing are still burned in my head.  When I moved to New York four years later and visited the World Trade Center Memorial, I was moved by a single steel cross—attached to a cement block--that was left on site from the rubble.  I suddenly remembered all the news media clips and photographs from the event, the anniversary ceremonies, and coverage about 9/11 all at once. I’m not sure I would have had the same reaction without the prior exposure to the live footage. Technology can be very powerful.  I think it can have a dramatic effect in live performance and should be used smartly.  Otherwise, all that will be experienced is white noise…

Bugs and the Holocaust

One of the most terrifying and engaging experiences I ever had was seeing NYC’s Off Broadway production of Bug by Tracy Letts.  I don’t think I have seen a production or movie this terrifying, yet real, since.  This play later became a much different take on film, for me at least, starring Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon.  I believe the film brought a little too much reality, or filled in the gaps, whereas the play’s abstract moments left much open for the audience to imagine.  Bug is about a woman, Agnes, who meets an ex-soldier, Peter, in a motel room, but eventually gets swept up in his paranoia about the government conducting experiments on Gulf War soldiers by injecting bugs into their bodies.  Agnes hides out in a dive motel room from her abusive ex-husband who is supposed to be released from prison at any moment, as well as from the pain of her child being abducted several years earlier.  Her son is a very real presence for Agnes throughout the play since she believes he is still alive somewhere.  Letts includes “dark matter” moments throughout the play to add to the fear and confusion. 

The play begins with a series of prank phone calls that Agnes tries to ignore after blaming her abusive ex-husband as the culprit.  This outside fear of Jerry looms until he arrives at the motel unexpectedly later in the play.  Peter gets bitten by a bug and jumps out of bed, naked, the next morning trying to find where it came from.  In the film, you see Agnes and Peter eventually get bite marks all over their body…or maybe it’s the scab marks they scratch away thinking they are bug bites.  In the NYC production, the audience never sees the effect of the “bugs”; so the audience wonders whether it is truly the characters’ paranoia or an actual occurrence. Are there really bugs implanted in Peter that are infesting his body and spreading to Agnes? The characters feel them and see them since “…such invisible presences matter very much indeed, even if spectators, characters, and performers cannot put their hands on them” (Sofer 3).  With the movie, it forces you to assume something is happening.  Another character, Dr. Sweet, stops by the motel room looking for Peter.  His ambiguous involvement makes the audience question if he is there to help Peter’s PTSD, or if he’s an actual agent of the government coming to take their experiment away.  He eventually gets killed by Peter, who has a meltdown, and convinces Agnes that the doctor is not a real man, but a robot from the government.  Another “dark matter” moment is when the audience wonders whether or not the actual army is outside of the hotel room waiting to pounce on Peter when a helicopter is heard flying above the motel.  The world, outside of the motel room, is never seen since the characters barricade themselves in the room with fear and anxiety.  “It is dark matter that produces the difference between horror and terror…Horror is what we see; terror is what we know is there though it remains unseen”(Sofer 5).  Letts uses a fair amount of ambiguity in his play that intensify the presence of certain “dark matter” moments.  These moments are really effective in producing in the audience a similar experience to the characters involved.  Watch this clip from the movie where Peter believes he is bugged with an egg sack under his molar filling and violently pulls his tooth out in front of Agnes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgOGj14T0M4

I couldn’t help but remember my experience of visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum when I traveled with my church group to Israel in 2011.  Our tour guide told the group that it is a requirement of the schools in Israel for students to visit the Holocaust Museum every year so the horror is never forgotten--never allowed to happen again in human history.  Most of the museum is underground and constructed as a huge prism.  Spectators walk through the concrete walls as if they are in hiding from the danger of the outside Nazi threat…or perhaps imprisoned in the gas chambers unable to get out.  Artifacts from victims are displayed on pedestals and hanging casings, videos of interviews from survivors, history of the time period, and artwork that carries a certain emotional weight are seen throughout the museum.  What was really compelling to me and my friends, was the simple yet touching Children’s Exhibit Memorial.  We walked into a pitch black, cavernous room outside of the museum (one of the last stops before leaving) where a single candle was lit that reflected off a thousand or so tiny mirrors.  The flame resembled to that of millions of stars throughout the room as names of children, and the camps from where they died, were read over the sound system.

The Museum also hosts readings of literature and small plays, at times, as exhibits. However, I did not witness such an event when I visited.  If the displays and exhibitions had such an impact on me, I can only guess that these other exhibits might create some of the same responses.  And the way that the different displays were arranged created a touching, yet emotional experience.  There were very realistic images and displays for the spectator, but also abstract artwork and moments interwoven throughout the museum. 

I don’t believe there is any redeeming factor concerning the Holocaust because the event looms in the background at all times.  What is moving, and at times inspirational, are the struggles, or stories, of the victims involved.  The artistic composition in the Museum didn’t create “…a power to elicit enjoyment” as Adorno writes in his article.  But it was an experience of respect and remembrance.  Visit the website to find out more! 

http://www.yadvashem.org/YV/en/museum/index.asp

A dose of adrenaline

Thanks Amanda for such a fun prompt!  I immediately thought of a YouTube clip that I watched a few months ago.  This clip, marketed as a prank in a coffee shop, came about to create a buzz for the Carrie remake that came out last year which starred Chloe Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore.  It is a very theatrical experience.  Actors were used, a NYC coffee shop got rigged to accommodate the special effects, and most importantly the public, or audience, was expected to be in the right spot at the right time. The action took place right inside the coffee shop during the normal hubbub of the day.  The conflict arises when an actor bumps into another actor and spills coffee.  After the outburst of the confrontation, all hell breaks loose.  The patrons in the coffee shop are reacting with shock, horror, panic, disbelief, fear, etc…as the cozy atmosphere gets pummeled with the chaos of flying furniture and effects. I am including two examples of this prank.  The other example was “Part Two” when pranked in a foreign country (Rome?).  I included this other clip since some of the effects are more exciting and chilling than the original NYC premiere. The door slams, trapping customers inside the coffee shop, as lights burst and more chaos ensues.  The reactions in the second clip are even better than the first!   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63gI9VyoaAU

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B6ZvsVjQ7Y&sns=em

 

I’m not sure if the people involved immediately wanted to go see the film, but the effect of the prank really caused a stir.  It is an experience that, I’m sure, they will always remember.  Perhaps these people will now identify with the horror in the film, piquing their interest to go see the movie?  Whether they laughed off the whole event afterwards or got pissed about being innocently involved, it changed them for the moment. And I think that’s what theatre should do.  People should leave the experience changed in some way.  Artaud writes in “No More Masterpieces” that the “…theatre is the only place in the world, the last general means we will possess of directly affecting the organism…”(5).  I don’t necessarily agree with all of his extreme theories; however, some of his ideas are worth pondering.

Artaud comments, writing about Theatre of Cruelty, that the spectator is in the midst of the spectacle around him. We live in a very technological age, surrounded and distracted by nifty gadgets, inventions, conveniences, and mini events that hold our interest.  We wonder why audiences are fidgety or restless during our productions but seem right at home in the movie theaters. As artists, we need to somehow affect the audience whereby they leave changed.  Maybe by more spectacle, who knows.  But whether enthralled, horrified, or inspired, “…the theatre can reinstruct, because a gesture carries its energy with it, and there are still human beings in the theatre to manifest the force of the gesture made.”(4).

Theatre should also be accessible to everyone, in my opinion.  Artaud writes of the theatre being only for the “self-styled elite and not understood by the general public”.   He is talking about what kind of theatre that is being done.  Moreover, prices for theatre tickets are ridiculous and they keep on rising.  I know running a theatre is no cheap affair, and artists should be paid for their work.  But is theatre really meant to be a “once in a while” treat?  Shouldn’t it be a must? Football games are a must, movies are a must, going to restaurants and bars are a must…It’s very interesting to learn how theatre is viewed in other countries.  Sean Daniels, guest director of Dove, told the cast that theatre is such an important part in the lives of Estonians.  Even their theatre actors are paid a “normal” salary which is much different than in America where most actors can’t even make a living doing just theatre.

Whether we take the theatre to the streets, like Artaud suggests, or create imaginative, entertaining spectacles in the style of Brecht, I believe we must adapt the theatre to our quickly, ever-evolving age.  We must pump up the audience’s adrenaline somehow, and wow them into re-examing truths that are important to the human experience.  Whether theatre is realistically, stylistically, or technologically driven…audiences should leave the theatre with a sense of a “purification”, a change for the moment, to draw them back again for more. 

"I forgive you..."

As I toiled to think of a performative utterance or act, when intentionally performed really meant something else, I was reminded of an event in my life.  When I was a teenager, my father became furious one night because I arrived home late from a drama competition. Granted, the competition took place on a school night, and we (the cast) returned home very late due to the long awards ceremony and traveling from out of town. My father told me that he didn’t want me to participate in theatre anymore, and that I was to tell my teacher the next day that I was going to withdraw from the play and upcoming competitions.  This command from my father seemed ridiculous to me.  I was an all “A” student, was responsible and did my chores, was active in my church, obeyed my parents, etc…I felt like I was a good kid considering, and I finally found something that I loved to do!  After I told him that I wouldn’t do such a thing, in his anger he hit me in the face.  What meant to be a slap really was an accidental punch in the nose.  The next evening, my father came to me in tears (which I had never seen from him before), and asked me to forgive him.  He hugged my rigid, angered body as I regurgitated with a bitter subtext, “I forgive you.”  Though my father appeared relieved when I uttered those words, he had to have known somehow that I didn’t mean them...right?  Watch this funny clip where Shrek forgives Donkey…or does he?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzLEjzvygYE

In Dr. Fletcher’s discussion with the grad students last Wednesday, he talked about how performativity, thanks to Judith Butler, does not describe reality but affects it.  He summarized from Butler’s writing that “…so many acts are performances that create realities that create performances…Performance is how we learn the present.”  My act to not forgive my father really, in truth, hurt me.  For the next several years, that event from high school fueled my anger towards my parents…morphing into a hatred that eventually affected my health and relationship with my family.  I had engaged in a repeated performance over time that affected my reality.  Eventually I didn’t really have a relationship with my parents and didn’t want one.  I finally learned that forgiveness is a choice one must make, because it doesn’t happen over time or on its own.

When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he had to consciously leave behind his bitterness and anger or, he felt, he would still be in prison.  Watch this interesting clip about Nelson Mandela and the Science of Forgiveness.  The idea of “forgiveness” is usually thought to live in the spiritual or philosophical realm; however, there are new scientific studies being done to explore the effects of forgiveness, or lack thereof. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyC-Zma75Aw (Sorry about the long ad before the actual clip!)

As I researched for my thesis performance this semester, I came across a letter from Iranian-American Pastor Saeed Abedini that really speaks to this issue.  Currently, he is imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith, accused of “undermining the authority of the Iranian government” with an eight year prison sentence in one of the worst prisons of the world.    In his letter to his wife in early 2013 he writes:

I have been stung so many times that I have become full of poison.  This is an Iranian saying…It means that we have been bitten by the snakes of this world so many times that, that all the poison has collected in us and that we are like the poisonous snake.  But if we sting anyone, we will die…When we don’t forgive, we drink the poison ourselves and then wait for the other person to die.  And we take the knife that has hurt us and we stab ourselves with it again!  But when we forgive, we pour out the poison of the enemy and the devil and we don’t let the poison stay in us and we don’t let the poison make us into poisonous snakes!  So that we don’t become like the person we despised and who persecuted and tortured us…When we forgive, we become free and we become messengers of peace and reconciliation and goodness.

 You can’t simply say “I forgive you” without making the choice to act upon it.  As Donkey puts it in Shrek, “When there’s a will, there’s a way.”

consciousness of doubleness

Even though Carlson doesn’t articulate an absolute, all-encompassing definition of “performance” in his Introduction, he explains a few concepts that try to define what performance is…literally reinforcing the notion that performance is an “essentially contested concept”.  I found myself understanding each argument that Carlson explains. But I also found myself playing the devil’s advocate…thinking of situations where it could be considered a performance to one and not the other.  I found myself wondering if this is the heart of the issue--of it being a contested concept.  Does performance depend on the actions of the performer or audience, or is there a balance between the two? Carlson explains Bauman’s “highly suggestive attempt” of “consciousness of doubleness” in which all performance constitutes a carrying out of an action—whether “placed with a mental comparison with a potential, and ideal, or a remembered original model of that action…” (Carlson 5).   However, Carlson points out that what is key to what Bauman refers to in this double consciousness is not the external observation from the audience, but implies the internal observation of the performer.  Does this mean that the performer is the only one that decides if he or she is performing? Is there a double consciousness in an audience or spectator as well? Carlson gives an example of the athlete, having a mental standard of his own performance, where it is then argued that all performance is a performance for someone—whether for an audience or the self.

The question of whether a performance depends on the performer or the audience reminded me about Peter Brook’s chapter of “The Deadly Theatre” (from his book The Empty Space).  He comments on different circumstances and participants in the theatre, such as the actor, director, playwright, critic, and even audience, which can transform the art form into a “deadly theatre” (bad theatre).  This may be stretching the argument, but Brook writes about the relationship struggle between the performers on the stage and the audience. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of King Lear affected the Europe audiences much differently than the American audiences.  Both audiences brought different attitudes and life experiences to the production.  Europe’s concentration and excitement affected the actors on stage whereby they were moved and inspired.  The audience in America had an opposite reaction whereby much of the actors’ new found discoveries were thrown away (24-25).  Moreover, Mr. Brook’s “experiment” at his lecture further illustrates this dynamic.  He asked for volunteers to read an excerpt from Peter Weiss’s play, The Investigation, and Shakespeare’s Henry V.  Both readings had a different effect on the audience and volunteer.  Mr. Brook then engaged the audience to individually fill in their impressions of Auschwitz with Agincourt as the reader read the Shakespeare excerpt again.  The audience’s concentration began to guide the volunteer, just like in the previous reading from The Investigation (26-28). Both parties in each case knew there was a performance taking place, but they didn’t necessarily realize how important the relationship between them affected the experience of it.  The definition of a “good” performance, to the actors and audience, required both to participate in the experience. 

Even though Carlson’s article deals with defining performance outside of the traditional theatre, I can’t help but assert that the audience is an integral member of defining the experience and definition of a performance.  If we are searching for a definition of performance as an art form, we must realize there wouldn’t be an art form without an audience…an audience of spectators or of self.  A recognition from both is required to make it a performance; a “consciousness of doubleness” is inherent with both sides.