Enforced entertainment

I warn in advance that this blog might degenerate into the scholarly in places because of the possible need for me to justify opinions I have on a subject that has cropped up this week – that is, devising. Feel free, therefore, at any point to cut to next week if you feel it coming on. If I may remind you, I am currently on a mission to determine what is meant by ‘cutting edge’ theatre and ‘breaking barriers’ – and indeed whether we can ever hope to attain this ‘ethereal state’.

  

I therefore caught up last week with what I understand is the epitome of cutting edge theatre, Forced Entertainment. The artistic director Tom Etchells once said, “We sometimes go to the edge, a really interesting place to be.” Well, there y’go, it must be cutting edge – and they are one of the Arts Council’s portfolio companies, that is, the Arts Council give them a great deal of money every year to do what they do and guarantee it for several years in advance, or to quote from the Arts Council website: “Since forming the company in 1984, Forced Entertainment have sustained a unique artistic partnership for quarter of a century, confirming their position as trailblazers in contemporary theatre.”

So last week I saw ‘Tomorrow’s Parties’ at the Battersea Arts Centre. The set was a pallet on which the two actors, one man and one woman, stood for the duration of the play (about an hour and a quarter) framed overhead by a festoon of coloured lights (which I understand from the website represents ‘a makeshift fairground’, although there was no reference to fairgrounds in the play itself. The entire thing is a sequence of fairly brief conjectures about the future, ‘utopian and dystopian visions, science fiction scenarios, political nightmares and absurd fantasies’, to quote again from their website, spoken in turn by the actors with each conjecture separated from the next by the word ‘or’. There are no variations from this at all.

So, and I have to confess I can’t remember one single conjecture exactly so I am making these up, but they are not untypical: In the future ‘there will be no men at all, but the world will be run by a tribe of Amazonians’, and then the other one says, ‘Or...there will only be five people left in the world, one on each continent, and they will all be vegetarians and will contribute to the final stages of global warming by farting simultaneously on Sundays’. And the other one then says, ‘Or....’, and suggests something else, and so on – the same pattern ensues for the entire play.

There were no named characters as such – unless the actors on the stage were just themselves, or maybe not, but taking on a persona. I don’t know them personally so I can't say. There was no story as such either, although as the lights began to dim towards the end and side-lit shadowy profiles began to loom, you felt at least that we were moving into a darker state, a dystopian endgame. So there was a beginning (fairly light hearted), a middle (a bit more argumentative and contentious) and an end (dystopian). The script I understand was devised, that is the actors and director talked about the agreed theme (‘guilt and innocence’ apparently), made suggestions, played games, thought of scenarios, and so on, and then what they came up with was written down and became the script. I think that’s how it happened.

So, no characters, no story, no author and no movement around the stage. So was it theatre at all? Let’s use FE’s cutting-edge-ometer again. (For those of you who have just turned up late, see my last blog.) Did it excite? As much as watching the skin form on a rice pudding. Did it frustrate? It certainly did that. After thirty minutes or so I did just begin to start hoping for fewer or’s and more and’s, or however’s or therefore’s. Did it challenge and question? It certainly did that, too.

The main issue was: Is it theatre at all? Well, yes it was in my opinion. Here’s my definition. Theatre is art and art is about intention. If a drunk drops a bottle in the street, it’s litter. If he manages to balance it on its thin end and mutters, ‘Look at that!’ it’s art – because he is manipulating our perception of it. He is getting us to see the bottle in a different way. That is art. It may be bad art, but it is art. Ditto with theatre. The intention comes first and then the aesthetic. Forced Entertainment didn’t accidentally turn up. It wasn’t a dinner party where a couple of people were chatting about what the world would be like. They wanted me to hear and watch and be moved, ‘moved’ in the sense of shift my position on something. And they did do that.

So the aesthetic. How well did they do it? Well not having characters and a story does kind of take away a lot of the fun: Seeing how the victims and the heroes and the villains get on, who they were and what they have become, whether or not they get their just desserts, having the feeling of the denouement  when all the strands are brought together and sorted out, all that was missing. 

And the language was devised, damn it! I have yet to see a play in which the script has been devised, and I know I might offend some people in this, which has any richness or depth in the language. It may be witty (and this was, very funny in fact at times); it may accurately reflect the rhythms and textures of everyday language and therefore feel ‘real’, and people like ‘real’. But compare it with Shakespeare or Dylan Thomas. Is it rich, is it like a garden, or even like Kate Tempest’s urban flowers? I have never known it in a devised script and it wasn’t the case in this either. The great commedia dell’arte actor Isabella Andreini could, it is said, improvise perfect verse. Who can do that today? Maybe the urban rappers begin to – and there’s another tick in Kate Tempest’s quality box. I once looked at a paragraph of my own in ‘The Fairy Queen’ and thought, ‘Hey! That’s as good as Shakespeare!’ And then you look at a play like ‘Twelfth Night’ and you see that he did it for page after page after page.

I have recently started learning to play the piano. I’m loving it – and I reason that, according to the principle that to become brilliant at anything you need to put in 10,000 hours, if I play for three hours a day for the next ten years I could be as good as Keith Jarrett (my favourite jazz musician), or if I put in one and half hours a day I could be half as good as Keith Jarrett. Of course, this kind of misses the point that Keith Jarrett probably has a gene or a chemical in his brain somewhere which allows him to feel music in a way I never could in a million hours of practising – and so Shakespeare was the same with language. You can’t just do this stuff off the cuff! It takes time, practice and that special ‘other thing’. I’m not saying there is no place for devising. It’s good where the movement is more important than the words, and useful  if you don’t have a writer handy and you are desperate to make theatre.

So was 'Tomorrow's Parties' cutting edge or breaking barriers? Sorry. It was not, because using their own definition it did not 'entertain' enough. Maybe it was a useful kind of performance art, a sort of art of 'near theatre', helping (as they claim) to challenge us about what theatre is – and things don’t have to be brilliant all the time. They can sometimes just be good and still have value. In one respect ‘Tomorrow’s Parties’ was really good. They were excellent actors and by having to look at them in one spot all the time you see things microscopically. Look at people at a dinner party: They will poke their ear, scratch their nose, shift their weight, twist their neck to ease stiffness, and so on. It’s what people do – and these actors made a perfect study of it, so I could not take my eyes off them. Of course, because there was no story and they didn’t move around the stage, there was no development – and what was wonderful about Henry Goodman in ‘Arturo Ui’ was the development, the story of his movement as he moved from small time crook to arrogant dictator. That marks the difference between ok-to-good and brilliant theatre. 

The Tempest (not as we know it, Scottie)

In my last blog I expressed my gratitude to ‘Forced Entertainment’ – Is there something accidentally betrayed in the name? You will enjoy this cutting edge theatre, or else! – for the supply of helpful terminology. Theatre must ‘excite, frustrate’, still not sure about that one, ‘challenge, question, entertain’ and ‘confuse’. Errm. Yes. Not sure still about that either, except that there must be some degree of challenge or we leave our audiences just where they were before and, maybe, when they have finished their journey with us, we need to drop them off a little further on from their bus stop, just to give them a little bit of cultural exercise?

 

 Well, this week I saw a piece of theatre – theatre, yes, or rather ‘theatre but not as we know it, Scottie’ – that really did blow me away (Note my efforts at contemporary from the hip lingo). It was Kate Tempest’s ‘Brand New Ancients’ at The Royal Court. Let me apply the FE–ometer to begin with. (Forced Entertainment! Come on! Catch up!) Did it excite me? Good lord! Yes! Did it frustrate? Errr, no. Did it challenge? Absolutely. Like a sentry’s bayonet at my throat! Did it question? Ditto. Did it entertain? In cart loads. Did it confuse? (Pause, while he thinks.) Yes, at times it did - and in little ways, but not without a series of mini-epiphanies (which suggests FE might have a point).

 

For a bit of background to help things along, Kate Tempest is a young person. Not exactly a ‘youff’; she’s 24. Not a grisly like me, in other words. She left school early and spent some time homeless before making a few waves as a rap artist. Began writing plays (success in Edinburgh). Among them ‘Glass House’ for theatre for the homeless company, Cardboard Citizens, and ‘Wasted’ and ‘Hopelessly Devoted’ for Paines Plough. I’m not sure that’s the right order – and won the Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry. Sit up and listen! This is a serious artist.

 

The theatre experience? Well, the ‘set’ was just the band with a mic stand for Kate. She was the only ‘actor’. (More on that anon.) A very complicated drum kit with a lot of electronic things that were new to me. A tuba with an ENORMOUS mute the size of a dustbin! Literally! Something I would have given my right eye for when I was a teacher! A violinist and a cellist. There was a lighting scheme, not dissimilar but on a smaller scale to that at a rock concert. The music was ‘classical’ - without being Classical at all - fed through the electronic ‘things’. Stockhausen, but more friendly. Kate comes on and talks to us. She chats in her Sarf London accent. She wants us to relax. Hopes we don’t get ‘fucking bored’ (Her words not mine). It’s a 90% young person’s audience, by the way. Twenty and thirty somethings. I kept my head down. If this is theatre she’s broken several rules already. She helpfully tells us, however, that she hasn’t actually started yet. It’s not Brecht. Not alienation technique. She just hasn’t started.

 

Then the lights dim and she starts. Inexplicably a deep resonant emotion wells up inside me and I begin to cry. Privately. I don’t want to appear a wimp. Besides, it might be just because I know she was homeless. Perhaps I’m just pleased for her because she’s ‘made it’. Maybe it’s because she’s young and the father in me is reaching out to her. Maybe, perhaps all of those things a bit. She raps. But the rhymes are tucked away. Subtle. If words were flowers hers were picked in the cracks between paving slabs. The unmown corners of suburban litter strewn recreation grounds. By the side of railway tracks. She is no Marvell or Donne. But the words breathe. They rustle and hiss – and underneath are the rhymes and rhythms (tucked away) conveying it orderly along.

 

It strikes me she’s a bit like a gospel preacher, especially when the words swell up and burst from her as they do from time to time (in alternate waves and troughs). Is she in fact an actor at all, or just some sort of pedant shouting at me to ‘get real’ about the pain of her life and that of her kindred? Pain certainly pervades at a subcutaneous level. If she isn’t an actor, then is it really theatre? Yet she isn’t preaching as such.

 

I’ll use Pete’s cutting-edge-ometer again to test it out. Is there a good story? There is a ‘Sarf London’ story of poverty. (Spoiler coming up.) He dies (in Thailand with his Thai bride smiling at him). Taken out of context it doesn’t seem much, but I really did want to know what was going to happen next – and the ending did hit me between the eyes. Why should I care that this down and out died in Thailand with his cute little sex slave? But I did. So that’s theatre at least. And did her voice tell me a story? It really did control me with its rhythm and cadences. And did her body tell a story? She was clearly not a trained actor. How do I know? Well, there is a paraphernalia of performance, a way of moving, certain give away devices (Actors have habits and short-cuts), a self-consciousness about performance, the sort of stuff that makes it difficult for a theatre director like me to take some acting seriously - because I can see through it. Yet she did take on a role. The word ‘possessed’ springs to mind. I am an atheist and absolute non-believer in the spirit realm by the way. Yet the words and characters did seem to ‘possess’ her. When she sat she rocked like a disturbed child. When she stood she swayed. Her arms moved and hands flicked as if she were poking at invisible objects. I have seen some of these movements among rappers before and from young black men. It is a highly expressive and almost involuntary movement of the streets. Part defensive, part chin up saying: This is what I am. So if she is not an actor, what is she? Maybe we need to distinguish between different kinds of acting. Acting by definition implies that someone has taken on a role – and she certainly did, and just as quickly snapped out of it when she was ready to.

 

This was indeed ‘theatre, not as we know it’ and that probably makes it the first example in my quest for ‘cutting edge’ – unless it is just a return to the beginning. The witch doctor. The adept of the tribe. The priest. Maybe it is all acting. According to Pete’s cutting-edge-ometer, she certainly controlled me like a priest and seduced me like a whore. Maybe ‘cutting edge’ is about going back to the beginning. Seeing again. Afresh. A kind of ‘possession’.  

 

I had intended to talk more about Henry Goodman this week in his wonderfully physical role as Arturo Ui, but I have been waylaid. Maybe that’s the point. ‘Cutting edge’ and ‘breaking barriers’ stops us in our tracks. It waylays us. I will go back to Henry Goodman next week. In the meantime I look forward to seeing Forced Entertainment’s ‘Tomorrow’s Parties’. We shall see. 

Pete's 'cutting-edge-ometer'

Recently in Board meetings... There was one last Monday night, my planned ‘blogging night’, which is why I didn’t blog. I mention it in case you thought I had fallen at the first hurdle! Anyway at Board meetings and in conversation with friends over coffee and gluten free brownies, I have become somewhat exorcised (What teenagers don’t do at the gym) by the concept of ‘cutting edge’ or ‘breaking barriers’. It’s a concept raised by an Arts Council visitor to our last play - that is, we weren’t doing it in her opinion, but then added, ‘Maybe it doesn’t matter because what they do they do well – and with charm’. Well, there! How nice. I have set myself the task, therefore, of seeing as much theatre as possible and hope to find a company that are ‘cutting edge’ and ‘breaking barriers’ (to see what it’s like, and learn from) – and have even dared to think that we might surprise our visitor friend and try and break a few barriers ourselves after all. It was incidentally convenient that the National Theatre have been celebrating on telly, so we got the chance to see again some proper ‘ack-tors’ – and surely they must be ‘cutting edge’, thrashing barriers left, right and centre like Lower Sixth prefects with short-trousered boys in caps (at least, if not now, then in their time)? Well, more on that, but for now I do confess to have had a sudden attack of imposter syndrome when Joan Plowright came on and did her St Joan.  So be it, but I notice that Sheffield based, though ‘world encompassing’, Forced Entertainment (who I understand are definitely 'cutting edge' and ‘breaking barriers’ and who I will be seeing next week) say on their website, 'The work we make is always a kind of conversation or negotiation. We’re interested in making performances that excite, frustrate, challenge, question and entertain. We’re interested in confusion as well as laughter.’ So there, to set the ball rolling, we have some very helpful words to describe ‘cutting edge’ - ‘excite’, ‘frustrate’ (interesting one), ‘challenge’, ‘question’ and ‘entertain’. Thank goodness for the last one. But also ‘confusion’? Wow! Breaking barriers therefore may require the boat to be pushed out from the safety of our comfortable little islands (to use the Melville metaphor from my last blog) sufficiently to confuse and even frustrate. In other words it isn’t enough just to entertain, or even make people laugh; theatre does need to be a little provocative as well. Not feeling solid ground under you, the rocking and the swaying, the possibility of a few cultural sharks (whether or not pickled in formaldehyde), or deadly avant garde, nouveau-jellyfish, cavorting a la mode under the boat to sharpen our wits - as long as it’s entertaining and makes us laugh, that’s what is needed. One word they don’t mention is ‘skill’, which was gob-smackingly present in Joan Plowright’s performance. To be fair to Forced Entertainment maybe they might argue we should ‘take that for granted’ given their accolades, or are too modest to mention it. I’ll make my mind up next week. I did think, however, that I would identify a few things that I like to see, my own ‘cutting-edge-ometers’, so to speak - and two shows I have seen recently gave me the opportunity to try them out. First of all I like skillful actors. This may seem obvious, but, for example, as opposed to ‘digital technology’, or a revolving cube onto each facet of which is projected photomontage of a real world scenario reflecting a relevant theme, such as macro-economics. I’m not quite sure what ‘macro-economics’ are, but they sound relevant. And fast dialogue shot from the hip. And even a shockingly good puppet horse. No, I prefer, secondly, a good story, which gets me curious immediately, with strong characters and twists and turns that surprise me and language that sounds like wind through dry leaves – and an ending that whacks me straight and unexpectedly right in the eye and lays me flat. And I’m not just talking about the ‘story’, or ‘tale’; I’m talking about as well how his body speaks, it’s development through twists and turns, the story it is telling, or how her voice teases, or sighs, how he controls me like a priest, how she seduces me like a whore. What the best actors have done for 10,000 years! That will do for the moment. I will reveal others of my own ‘cutting-edge-ometers’ another time.   So I went to ‘Chimerica’, of which Michael Billington said, ‘If there is a better play this year, I want to see it’, or something to that effect, and gave it five stars. This I must see. Well, there was indeed a revolving cube bringing mini-kitchen-sink sets (last seen occupying whole stages in the fifties, so nothing new there) brought in turn into view punctuated by projected photo-montage of the famous incident in Tiananmen Square when a young man with shopping bags stood in front of a tank, and aeroplanes, and strip joints, and other scenes, with people walking in and out just like they do on the street. And there were macro-economics by the fridge-load – and guns, and sex, and red light zones. Everything you need to tell you it’s the modern world. No need even to have to go to the trouble of imagining anything. And in amongst it all - if you looked hard enough - were…. actors! Acting just as they do on telly with stripped down and slick casualness and throwaway nonchalance. There was, however, a good story – and a very good script…. for a telly series. I came away feeling: Could this have been done any better? Yes it could – by pointing a camera out the window. The actors were fine. Good telly actors with familiar faces. Did they have the authenticity of 10,000 years? No they did not. Derek Jacobi rang me up one Sunday morning at home. His voice actually could be heard in my study! He really did! Honest! He wanted to give us £100 and how could he. Well that’s another story. But I mentioned to him the above phenomenon of actors not telling stories with their bodies and he said, ‘It’s because they do too much telly. They don’t have to think about their feet.’ There’s my man! The other play I saw was ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ at Chichester before going into the West End. An average to good interpretation of a decent play with a couple of naff moments and half a dozen very good performances, and….. one of the best individual performances I have ever seen in my life. No kidding. Nothing better perhaps since Ian Mckellen scraping his sword against the stage with sexual frustration as Edward II in a production by Prospect Theatre in the late ‘60’s. It was Henry Goodman as Arturo Ui. His body talking with the eloquence of Buster Keaton. His voice with the sonority of a jackdaw. Miss that if you dare. I believe it’s still at The Duchess. More on him next week.