Some Thoughts: Girl X and Count Me In (Traverse)

I

Two moments which are more potent as metaphors than as the relatively simple events they were:

At one point in “Count Me In“, the performer forgot his lines. This could happen to anyone at any time. He dealt with it smoothly, amusingly and professionally, and once he’d been given a prompt, he said, “Oh yes, this is your bit! This is the bit where I ask and you need to say something. That’s why I forgot it.”

At the beginning of “Girl X“, the performer and his chorus introduced themselves to each other, and then the performer turned to the audience and said “What’s your name?” Of course, nobody spoke — but after the seconds of silence I was about to, until he joked “Fine! Don’t talk to me then.” There was no further solicitation throughout the entire show, until the final moments when the entire cast turned to face us directly: a physical, rather than verbal challenge.

II

“Count Me In“, written and performed by Gary McNair, is a short critique of the vagaries of the UK’s current system of democratic representation. It is humorously presented, informatively clear, and very direct. Throughout the piece the audience is given points at which their opinion is asked, or deliberately not asked: we are asked to vote by electronic device on various questions, we are asked to make decisions as small “constituencies” (including the very real decision of which charity a real £10 should go to, we are enlisted as confederates in a pre-written “debate” in which every opinion is read off a card, and towards the end it is suggested we stop voting and offer direct opinions.

There are many successes, although the show was in a fairly raw and scratchy state. The piece communicates its purpose very well, encouraging through humour a very casual and collaborative atmosphere in the room — it felt more like a presentation or school workshop than a theatre piece. I learned a few things, as I’m sure many did. Several monologues moved me, as a politically engaged person. The jokes were god.

In addition, to an extent the form successfully communicated the content. McNair didn’t just tell us or show us what the problems with our voting systems are: he had us enact the rituals of these systems ourselves. This process was often satirical, which was quite  an achievement. And the decision at the end to put down our voting devices and, as he put it, “talk about it”, was genuinely moving. Then moment had meaning: it wasn’t an exercise or a joke, but something which was actually happening.

But then, for me, the show failed. McNair said we would “talk about it”, but actually he showed us three fairly frivolous alternatives to our current voting systems, and asked us for sound-bite opinions on them. Then he asked if we had any other suggestions, and heard two. At no point was there cross-talk: he asked a question, and individuals responded to him, and not the group. This was not a discussion, but just a few token sound-bites. McNair concluded with a fairly bog standard inspirational monologue, saying that he didn’t have any answers yet, but that he had now resolved to commit more deeply to politics. The end.

To someone involved in radical politics, what should have happened at this stage is obvious, and the alternative to voting is obvious. McNair should have relinquished control of the space, and begun to facilitate a genuine, collaborative, free-flowing discussion with the audience about alternatives to voting, and should have helped us decide to achieve them together, preferably through a consensus process. And this, of course, would have enacted one of the very alternatives that could be suggested, just as we had enacted (not acted, but enacted) the problems themselves.

This didn’t happen because the show remained trapped in the paradigm of hierarchical politics, and of hierarchical theatre: it saw politics as people giving opinions and decisions being made by some majority, rather than as the process of groups of people working together to reach collaborative decisions; it saw theatre as one group of people (the artists) communicating their ideas to another group of people (the audience). While the audience was asked to contribute to this piece, they were given no real agency within it. There were interactions, but no deep interactivity. For me, the show built to this point that was full of potential, and then squandered it. McNair forgot his lines at the point when he had to ask the audience a question.

III

Gary if you’re reading this, I have a question: Have you ever been to a consensus decision-making meeting at an activist event? My guess, from your show, is that you haven’t. And my hunch is that if you went to one it would give you huge and important things to think about with your piece. It is a genuinely different way of doing politics. And I’d really like to see what you’d do with that, because, well, you are very good.

IV

An exercise on the difference between theatre and ritual:

1. Find a friend, and exchange objects with them. You can give them anything, and it’s OK, you’ll be giving them back in a moment. Go on, exchange something. Done that? OK, stage one complete. You can give each other your things back now.

2. Now actually give something to each other. A gift. You won’t be getting this back. Give them something you want them to have, and which you don’t mind giving away. Do it now. Done.

The first stage is theatre, and the second is ritual.

V

Andy Field, in conversation, last week: “Yeah, I guess theatre isn’t always the most interesting or worthwhile thing for a group of people to do in any given space.”

VI

“Girl X”, from the National Theatre of Scotland, was directed by Pol Heyvaert, and instigated, performed with chorus by, and written in collaboration by Robert Softley (bit of a mouthful describing in a sentence what was clearly an intensely collaborative process nonetheless led by a couple of individuals). It is a staging of debates about a disability rights case: a girl with extremely severe and paralysing cerebral palsy, whose parents wish to give her a hysterectomy and hormone treatment in order to keep her permanently childlike and thus improve her quality of life. (It’s much more complicated than that, as we are shown. Go and see.)

The play is passionate and wide-ranging, covering acres of political ground, looking at the ways in which disability rights intersect with all the major political issues: the authority of state and family, the role of society, the morality of plastic surgery, economics, political correctness, feminism… I could spend a long time excitedly talking about how intellectually, politically and emotionally fascinating all this was, and attempting to negotiate some of the territory myself. But that’s not actually what most interested me.

(This is commentary, not a review, but the reviewer in me can’t help but take the opportunity to say that the set is weirdly huge and dominating, and totally unnecessary, contributing little to the piece, and it pains me to think of how much it cost.)

What most interested me was what was going on with the form. It is staged as an debate between Robert Softley and a chorus of citizens, sometimes in the language of interpersonal argument, and sometimes in the language of debates on internet forums. It’s thus a version of a very old form of Greek play, using just chorus and interlocutor, and examining ethical and political problems through personal experience. But the debates are, while driven by a strong narrative and emotional arc, roving and unresolved: no conclusion is ever really reached. So the play is not just about the subject of the debate, but about the idea of public debate itself. It doesn’t just depict a debate: it IS a debate, presented in such a way as to make its debate-ness all the more obvious. And when the debate using the language of written posts on internet forums, well, the disjoint between text and reality is nothing less than good old Verfremdungseffekt, pointing out again the debateness of what is going on. (Need I point out how commonly chorus and interlocutor appear in Brecht?) This is an exemplary piece of dialectical theatre.

But it is consciously not dialogical. The debate is being presented for the audience, and the audience does not get to take part, except mentally. Given that the play discusses the morality of public debate in itself, and that the denial of voices within public debate is pointed out, this shutting out of the audience, performed (consciously or not) by Softley as a joke at the beginning of the show, itself makes a point. At the climax of the show the whole cast faces us in challenge, their physicality: “Do you have an opinion? And can you speak it? Should you speak it? Really, should you?”

VII

Softley, if you don’t know, has cerebral palsy himself. One of the questions of the show is to what extent people without disabilities are really informed or otherwise empowered enough to offer such strong opinions on disability rights. Sometimes people just need to shut up and listen, and stop needing to perform their own consciousness and needs.

VIII

It’s partly funny and partly obvious how I get much more annoyed by shows that try to be interactive and don’t go the full hog than by shows which never pretend to be interactive in the first place, despite the fact that I truly and deeply believe that interactive theatre is the most important and politically essential form of contemporary theatre.

A Review of Israel/Palestine

by Taurie Kinoshita, Artistic Director, Cruel Theatre

Raging for decades, some would argue centuries, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a bitter battle that has seen unimaginable loss and destruction on both sides. What can we as individuals do to address this critical issue? What is an appropriate international response? What are the viewpoints of the Israelis and what are the viewpoints of the Palestinians? When facing a conflict mired in religious idealism with potentially massive political and economic implications, how and can we proceed to deal with this seemingly insurmountable problem? These are just a few of the questions explored in director Harry Giles’s ensemble-devised Israel/Palestine.

Using sections of text from Rachel Corrie, Caryl Churchill, Antonio Gramsci, Israel Horovitz, and Deb Margolin, as well as audience participation and improvisational theatre games, Israel/Palestine is a thought-provoking, entertaining and touching journey into the heart of the crisis. As the audience enters the actors seem to be warming up—though some were speaking to the audience out-of-character (very avant-garde and the only aspect of the performance I found inconsistent with the intelligence of the rest of the play.)

The actual performance begins with a section from Horowitz’ drama What Strong Fences Make. Itzhak Shiffman, played with a quiet intensity by Callum McGowan, approaches an armed soldier, Uri Ambramovich, played by Rosemary Sales with brilliant nuance. The scene progresses, Uri interrogates Itzhak, and the audience is mesmerized by the ensuing drama. Suddenly the palpable tension generated by the talented young duo is shattered with a hilarious meta-theatrical device: a third ensemble member, Kiirsi Viitma stops the scene yelling ‘Cut!’ The entire performance shares the frenetic and diametrically opposed styles of the opening sequence—alternating between serious and comic, texts and physical improvisation, realism and a meta-theatrical Brechtian self-awareness.

For me, this was the real genius of Israel/Palestine: the content and the goals of the performance matched the style in which it was performed. The audience is asked to think, is led without any trace of didactic aggression to question and explore, to try to understand the impact and meaning of the conflict. Both sides of the conflict are presented and the audience is never goaded or pressured to think in a specific way or do anything other than to simply reflect and truly consider the repercussions of this bloody war. To this end, the audience is warmly greeted by the director and asked to sit wherever they choose. The space is assembled—or rather dissembled—suggesting the chaos of war, the inherent imbalance of life in such a conflict: chairs are overturned, a smattering of random objects obstruct the room. The audience is informed that they may move whenever they want in order to gain a better—or different—view! At times, the single focus of a scene is split and multiplied so each actor performs for a different group of audience members, re-enforcing the idea that to even talk about the situation connotes a difference in perception. In addition to being directly addressed in small, almost private groups by different actors and being physically moved by actors, audience members are also drawn into the performance by two ‘talk sections.’ The first is a general discussion involving both actors and audience members. In the second section the audience members are asked to write something on a piece of paper—whatever they feel inspired to write. Audience written responses were then incorporated into a version of the improvisational game The Machine (a sound and movement piece).

The ensemble demonstrates not only the history of the conflict but also the history of humanity with stylized and side-splitting ingenuity. All of the young performers displayed a virtuousity in handling the texts, movement sections and participatory elements. The piece ends with a moment of silence and the announcement that the director was taking donations for humanitarian organisations in the region; this is theatre at its best—revealing, investigative and communal.The choice of an international cast (actors from Poland, UK, Estonia, Italy and France) gave the performance additional weight–underscoring the universality of the conflict. Shifting modes of perceptions and opposing points of view, typified through the use of different styles of theatre stressed the ultimately humanitarian concerns of Israel/Palestine, an inspired and provocative and moving piece of theatre.

(view a profile of Taurie here)

Parting With Such Tweet Sorrow

In case you missed the fanfares, trumpets and bemused press, Such Tweet Sorrow was a “live” improvised of Romeo and Juliet. Via Twitter.

That’s the sort of thing that gets me very excited. I’m enthralled by any attempt to extend the boundaries of performance to the digital and informational — recognising that the internet is now a platform not only for information sharing and art distribution but also for performance itself. The dominant form of internet performance so far has been the commercial advertising use of alternate reality games, but there have been  projects like the famous lonelygirl15, and the rise of the artistic or plot-drive indie arg, specifically fuelled by the growth of online arg communities. I’m talking here specifically about online performances — artwork with a live or real-time component — rather than simply internet-based art, though that too also offers extraordinary potential. (For many years my favourite site on the internet has been Nobody Here; We Feel Fine crosses the boundary between found art and performance by an artificial intelligence.) So a well-funded, well-promoted experiment in performing Shakespeare online got me all excited.

Frustratingly, critical comment on the project — a genuine reflective appreciation of it — has been really limited. Googling for reviews, I can mainly only find the British press’s initial reaction to the project — a predictable mixture of redrafting the press releases, knee-jerk complaints from stuffy fuddy-duddies, and bright-eyed lauding from trendy new arts types. There have been a few insightful (and mainly critical) reviews from various arts sites and bloggers, but no widespread critical engagement. Which is a real shame, because as an early experiment in a new medium, there’s a great deal to learn from the project.

I followed it religiously, and loved every moment, while still thinking it could’ve been a helluva lot better. I loved the playful reinterpretations of key moments of the play — Romeo met Rosaline playing Call of Duty online; Juliet’s 16th birthday party had a Facebook event and a Spotify playlist; Mercutio met his end at a football riot. It was at its best when it spread its wings across the internet — when videos, photos, audioboos and blogs were combining to give a multi-perspectival picture of events — and at its most touching when events were obliquely inferred rather than turgidly typed (Mercutio’s death scene, alone in hospital, was exquisite).

Those reviews I linked to are a mixed bag of criticism (Hannah Nicklin’s to my mind is the most in depth and insightful) and divide mainly into two camps: those who think the medium doomed the project to failure, and those who longed for it to be better to really do the most the medium could offer. To my mind, those in the former camp were mostly cynical about the possibilities of the medium to start with, and not au fait enough with the grammar of its performance; the most irritating criticism was of a lack of verisimilitude — as if actors playing on a stage have anything but the most passing resemblance to reality! Those in the latter camp point out the project’s genuine flaws — the acting and writing veered all over the place in terms of quality; the production had a tendency to try and be cool in the way your brash uncle does, not quite getting it; the ARG elements were mostly a thin veneer rather than a deep world; the characters were kind of irritating — while recognising that this is an early experiment in a young medium, that it has made discoveries, that the next such project will be much better, and the next, and the next.

So my message to the creators: don’t be disheartened. I’m a little sad there hasn’t been a massive online celebration, an after-party to celebrate the close of the play, and I rather fear that maybe those involved think it’s failed because of the lack of critical applause. If it failed, it was a glorious failure! — and we can look at what did succeed. Hundreds of followers were engaged and enjoyed themselves, a medium was explored and brought to wider attention, there were some damn good jokes. So — where next? and what does this mean for groups like mine, looking to expand the digital to the stage and the stage to the digital, looking to genuinely bring audiences into performances? Can we expect more well-funded experiments from British institutions? Will we plunge on through sea of myopic naysayers? Or will experiments fizzle out, too worried to push things further on, to real success? We’l see.