Reflective Practitioner: Camden People’s Theatre Performance

Camden turned out to be a catalogue of disasters from start to finish! We had issues over the deposit for the car and for various reasons Nigel was not allowed to drive the hire car, so Nikki stepped up bless her but was very very nervous about driving in London. We got desperately lost and despite leaving an extra 3 hours travel time we were terribly late for our get in….not a good start. We then could not find anywhere to bloody park…there were no showers or changing facilities at the venue. We had a massive tech failure during the show and now as a result have very little in the way of video footage…we were not allowed to remove the seating afterall….16 members of the audience were over 20 mins late and as they made up the majority of the audience we had to start late and wait for them. The audience still had to cross the traditional divide and this caused untold difficulties. On the way home we could not find the M25 and ended up going a ridiculously long way home. It was a crazy, emotional and very stressful day all in all. It was very trying for all of us and I think that the malarkey pre-performance impacted upon the performers, so that they were all stressed out and exhausted before we even got started. (head in hands…and a big sigh)

The performance itself had highs and lows and did not come off as I had hoped which the seating arrangements contributed to enormously. However, despite those issues there were some really exciting moments that definitely moved towards achieving some of my research aims….and confirmed some of my expectations. I have taken a little time to reflect on the performance itself and wanted to share my thoughts.

The ‘She’ Texts
These were really well received and both female performers really opened them up and made them their own like they have never done before once faced with a live audience. They adlibbed and responded thoughtfully and witty ways to the audiences reception of the speeches…the way one would in a ‘real’ life social situation…such as wedding…party etc….I was really pleased with this. They both finally took up personal positions to the material that they were delivering as well, making choices about how they felt about the things that they were delivering…great! The speeches worked well as a device to introduce the key things that the performance wanted to explore and they seemed to relax the audience. Because they were delivered from cue cards and as if part of a ‘real’ life formal function, they hinted at the performers being present as hosts rather than as ‘actors’. This took away the professional divide that usually exists between performer and audience and was hopefully less intimidating thus encouraging the audience to have a go to. The speeches seemed to work also to contextualise the audience then as guest. The speeches presumed the audiences familiarity of ‘her’ and of the social connotations associated with the device of the ‘speech’ rather than monologue.

The Games
There was a great deal of reluctance to participate in the games to begin with, the performers had to work really hard to try and get the audience to enter into the space. Again, I think that the seating arrangements and the architecture of the space was very much working against us. The audience had to cross over into the performance space in order to participate, which required them to break convention and take a leap of faith. Once things got going the audience began to trust that contract a little more and relaxed into it when they realised that there were no ‘tricks’ and that they would not be humiliated in any way. Two of the games that were particularly successful were pass her parcel and she was a woman. There was an awesome moment when the audience overthrew the performers and refused to end the game until one lady had taken her turn….it was wonderful.

Scenes
None of the audience stopped any of the scenes, not did they ask for any changes. I think that this was because to participate in that way held a lot of risk because there was an element of professionalism or skill perceived to be required and no social or cultural context to govern that scenario….no precedent and so the brain struggles to understand through the process of schema. I think that the scenes may have actually served to alienate the audience and dissolve the radical potential of any previous liminality created by the games. As well as being offered the opportunity to stop or change the scenes the audience had the opportunity to tell us a story of their own instead-needless to say, no one took us up on the offer…which was a huge shame.

Developmental Thoughts
The games worked really well but if I do another round of experiments (which I now realise is looking like a necessity) I need to find a way of generating a liminal space that is sustained throughout the entire performance…the audience need to enter into the liminal space form the off. The need to step into the liminal and remain there, rather than having to keep stepping in and out of it; no barriers, I need to eliminate theatre architecture altogether.

I need to develop a structure that is entirely game, rule and task-based, which means entirely doing away with all of the scenes and elements that have a link (even in post) with drama. In order for the audience to invest there needs to only be socially and culturally recognisable practices…but re-functioned to create the possibility of liminoid acts. Liminal space + games, rules & tasks= liminoid acts. Liminoid acts are creatorly, communal performances.
I liked the stop-mask but need to develop something else to do this that is directly drawn from the every day and life praxis….a familiar cultural/social practice.

Right I am exhausted still today but will come to this at a later date…I need to do some probing about the possibility of a final round of experiments.