As part of the International Student Drama Festival this week, I was invited to be part of a panel called Promising Performance. Frances Babbage hosted a really interesting discussion between the audience and Terry O'Connor (Forced Entertainment), Ben Eaton (Invisible Flock), Annie Lloyd (Compass Live Art) and myself.
We were given a particular brief:
Four panellists discuss where they see promise in performance-making today. What gives them hope? What conditions make it likely art will turn out well? And since to promise is also to declare commitment, the panellists will be challenged to consider what promises they themselves might make in terms of arts practice.
Terry, Ben and Annie all had some great thoughts, that I hope will be gathered together elsewhere - I'll update if so. And afterwards the audience engaged in a lovely, questioning discussion, which sadly had to be halted as we over-ran (but that's also a good sign, I guess).
Anyway, here's what I said (more or less):
I was of course tempted to write a list
of the many places I have seen promise in performance recently.
Moments, whole shows, images, ideas... But then I asked myself what it was in
these moments, these shows, that was so promising? Not so much what
do I look for, but what did I find, or what have I found recently?
Commitment.
Attempt.
Charisma.
Honesty.
Skill.
Audacity.
Care.
Doubt.
I thought I'd talk a little about these
last two, doubt and care.
I am wary of certainty. Certainty is
over-rated in my book. In a discussion between someone who is certain
and wrong, and someone who is uncertain and right, who is going to
get their way?
This is something I've been thinking
about quite a lot recently, and the more I think about it, the more I
think that it is the people who recognise that almost nothing is
certain, who are more likely to be right. I am aware that the
contradiction here is that I am suggesting that I am more likely to
be right about most things because I am personally certain of very
little. But we'll leave that for now.
So the work that I am drawn to – that
unsettles, disturbs, delights me, work that stays with me – is work
that doesn't tell me what it thinks, or what I should think about
what it is showing me. Rather, the work that I am drawn to is the
work that lets me see its thinking – either happening live in the
moment, or having happened in its process; work that reveals its
doubt and uncertainty, that offers tentative answers, sure, but that
invites me to wonder what my answers might be, that leaves me space
to bring my own experiences into my reading of the work. I'm not
necessarily talking about performance that invites me to interact
with it physically or conversationally (although I often like that),
I'm talking about mental and emotional space.
And uncertainty and doubt do not
preclude confidence or skill – I still want my attention held.
Yes, yes, this is all very well, but
what does it actually mean?
Can you give us an example?
Fair question. Let's come back to it.
I had a conversation on Twitter
recently with writer and blogger Honour Bayes. She was wondering out
loud about why she finds it harder in theatre than in any other art
form, to like a piece of work if she knows she doesn't like the
people who have made it. I recognised this feeling, and so we
wondered about it together; we didn't really come to any conclusion,
and I've carried on thinking about it since.
Recently, I've been thinking that it is
to do with care. In other art-forms (and I am making a big
generalisation here, I know), my relationship with the art work is
with an object, or artefact. It's unchangeable. It is much less
influenced by my knowledge of the people who created it. Frank Miller
might have revealed himself to be an objectionable idiot on
his blog, recently, but I still remember Ronin as one of the greatest graphic
novels ever created. (I am aware of course that this is an incredibly
niche example).
But when I enter a live performance
space, then I am putting myself into the care of the artists – the
performers, devisors, writers, directors, musicians – anyone
involved in the making of it. So my feelings about the work and the
people are that much more intertwined.
And all to often I don't feel cared
for, or even acknowledged. And worst of all, I sometimes feel
acknowledged and uncared for, through clumsiness or arrogance.
Ignoring or intimidating an audience is pretty easy, isn't it?
But I see promise when a performer
talks to me, to us, not The Audience with a capital A, but those of
us in the room right now. I see promise in eye contact. I see promise
when artists and performers are interested in challenging me, and
making me feel uncomfortable – not in my seat or with being in the
room with them, but unsettled in my world view or in my assumptions
and preconceptions.
Yes, yes, this is all very well, but
what does it actually mean?
Can you give us an example.
Fair question. Let's deal with it now.
There's a kind-of-monthly performance
night at the Crumblin' Cookie in Leicester called Performance in the Pub. It was set up by theatre maker Hannah Nicklin, who programmes
two pieces of contemporary performance each event – usually solo,
story telling performance, because the stage is quite small.
The event is marketed as “theatre for
people who don't do theatre”. On the website for the event, Hannah
explains to the potential audience a little about the sort of work
she's programming: “think of how bands put music together compared to how composers do – that's the difference between performance and theatre.” Tickets are donation based – artists are paid expenses,
and the audience are told how much the event costs, and therefore how
much a break-even donation is.
Last month I was lucky enough to
perform our show The Lad Lit Project at Performance in the Pub. Some
people in the audience were friends, some knew our work, and some
hadn't been to see theatre since they were in Year 6.
On before me was Jodean Sumner of Trace Theatre, with her piece It Starts Like This. A 25 minute solo
performance on its way to becoming a full length show. It feels to me
like genuinely experimental, process led work - a process that has
produced a piece probably (I'm guessing) quite different to Jodean's original
intention. She asked people – friends, colleagues, the internet - to
send her words that were significant to them, in the expectation,
perhaps, of getting some really interesting found text to construct a
show out of. But what the show actually deals with is Jodean's
difficulty in connecting with these significant words - maybe
because she doesn't share the the life experience of the people to
whom the words are significant.
And from there the show explores the
difficulty of communication within a shared language. Do you know
what I mean? she asks. You know what I mean.
It is brave work; it challenges the
audience, demands attention, and it rewards that attention. I enjoy
the promise of the way the piece asks questions of us, and the way
we communicate with each other, whilst also asking questions of
itself and the process that created it. And it is beautifully performed.
In both the piece and the event that
hosted it, and the venue that hosted the whole event, I could see
both uncertainty and care, contributing to one of my favourite-ever
nights of showing and seeing performance.
***
And what promises can I make about the
performances I will be part of making in the future? Not many.
I can't promise what they'll be about,
or that you'll find them interesting.
But I can promise that any work of mine
you come to see, I will find interesting, and I will at least be asking if it's about something that you
find interesting. I promise that I will have made it because it's
about something that intrigues, or bothers, or worries me. I promise
that I will have made it because I had to.
