Dark Matter

I hesitate to use this example, but it is what most strongly came to mind. Mary Shelley as the narrator in the version of Frankenstein we started working on this fall is, I think, an incredibly interesting use of dark matter. Initially, her presence seems to negate the idea of dark matter, being that authors do not usually appear onstage to play a role in their own fictional tale, but in this case she not only appears, she is seemingly conjuring the story. So where is the dark matter in that? Any usual production of Frankenstein does not include Mary Shelley as a character. Why would it? She is not a character in the story itself; she is its creator. But that is what makes this interesting, because her being onstage perpetuates a whole new level in the cycle of Frankenstein being a story within a story within a story. As Victor creates his monster, Mary is creating them both. She is the creator of the creator. With that coming into play, the story is no longer simply about Victor’s struggle with his creation; it is simultaneously about Mary’s struggle with her creation. However, since her struggle is only portrayed through the narration of her characters’ struggles, her own life experiences that inspire and prompt her to write the story remain unspoken; they are not literally presented in the script, but they are intertwined in the story all the same. Which brings up an interesting point that Sofer makes, “what is invisible always holds what is visible in place (7).” Everything starts to have a duel meaning. Victor and the Creature’s journey present the more overt meaning, while Mary’s meaning is masked but acts as a fuel and driving force. Her presence compels us to ask what is motivating her to tell this story. For example, Victor’s mother, Caroline, dies in childbirth. She becomes dark matter as her death and subsequent absence seems to drive Victor to his obsession with controlling life and death. Mary’s presence onstage layers the dark matter surrounding Caroline, because her own mother died in childbirth. So, is she driven in a frenzy with Victor to find the solution to losing a loved one, to harness nature’s power in order to cheat mortality? What is her relationship to Victor? To the Creature? Do they mirror her relationships with her father and her husband? Which parts of these characters represent her? Her motives are dark matter, and she, in the context of creating the story, has the power of life and death over her characters. She is an omnipotent force for her characters; she knows their fate before they do. Like the smile of the Mona Lisa, she paints the basics for us, but the story sizzles invisibly with her own story that she is not telling. Even if the audience doesn’t know much about Mary Shelley’s life, it should be clear that something unseen and unspoken is haunting the stage with her as she visibly haunts her fictional story. “Such invisible presences matter very much indeed, even if spectators, characters, and performers cannot put their hands on them (3).”

            In regards to representing the Holocaust, I agree with Adorno’s statement: “the abundance of real suffering tolerates no forgetting”. This particular section of the article was the most interesting to me. It is an important thing to consider: when do we represent something so as not to forget, so as not to have the past repeated, and when does that which is being represented simply turn severe suffering into a form of entertainment? This is where abstraction can become the knight in shinning armor. Adorno talks about Beckett, and in our class discussion we talked a bit about Waiting for Godot (another great example of dark matter that Sofer mentions).  Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot, who never actually shows up. They don’t intellectualize the experience of waiting; they show rather than tell the relatable human experience of waiting, being stuck, feeling stagnant, hoping, holding on to the idea that something is coming that will change everything. There are numerous ways to look at Waiting for Godot, because it is abstract, because it is absurdist. It is not literal, it is not naturalistic, but it speaks to something we, as humans, can all understand. Perhaps this is the best way to justifiably represent the Holocaust without risking it becoming Hollywoodized, for lack of a better term. Take the horrific nature of the Holocaust and break it down to the skeleton of human experiences that it embodies and show those human experiences. Through abstraction, all those very real, intense human feelings and experiences can be presented and explored in a way that takes them out of the realm of the literal Holocaust while still paying homage to those that suffered without exploiting their suffering. This could be more powerful and impacting than a literal representation, because it says everything that should be said and remembered about the horrific event without commercializing the event itself.

YouTube

I think the sudden emergence and skyrocketing popularity of YouTube has greatly affected not only the theatre world, but also the film world to a certain degree. Not only does it allow people to “perform” anywhere, doing pretty much anything, and then, with very little difficulty, post the video themselves for anyone to see. It has become a huge perpetuator of the short attention span that audiences have now-a-days, thanks to the constantly changing and continually revamped technological world we live in. American life has become centered on instant gratification and a quick fix to all problems. So what better than a website where you can practically instantly post your own video and instantly see the number of views you get from it? And how many short videos are there on YouTube that show you how to do any number of things?

            This ability YouTube provides the public of creating and posting videos of themselves for the masses also plays into the narcissistic mindset that seems prevalent today. That often the greatest connection people have is to the devices that record these videos for them. Communication has almost become a three-way street, with technology acting as the mediator.

            YouTube may be spreading the narcissistic, instant gratification-seeking attitude of the 21^st Century, but this is not to say that it doesn’t also have plenty of positive affects. YouTube has become a fantastic and cheap way for artists to share their work and receive feedback from other artists and a wide-ranging audience from around the country and around the world. It allows for young or inexperienced filmmakers to try their hand at getting their work out to the masses in an affordable way. It has also become a great teaching asset. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a video worth?

            The answer to the second question is a bit more elusive and something that I have been thinking quite a bit about lately.  I feel as though a new form of guerrilla theatre is needed, but not in the style that Davis talks about. Let’s call it “infiltrating” theatre. Getting the 21^st Century audiences’ attention is a tall order. Collectively, we are obsessed with spectacle and technology, but I also think nothing has changed in the fact that what everyone responds to the strongest is a sense of truth. So perhaps, the 21^st Century theatre must start with finding a way in, a crack in the defenses of the audience, because once you’ve captured the audience’s attention, it is so much easier for them to accept your truth.  The idea that came to my head is an example (more of a skeleton) of what I mean by “infiltrating” theatre. I would be interested to see the response to a show that at its core had a particular truth prevalent to audiences today; it would start with an episodic form that appeals to the short attention span, and these bursts of action would be propelled by technology, a spectacle of some sort, whether it be through lighting, projection, sound, etc. However, as the show goes on, these exciting, spectacular episodes would slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, get longer and less technologically driven. So that by the end of the show (let’s say a 90 minute show at tops), everything has been stripped away except the truth that was there all along.  This could be represented in any number of ways, perhaps a single actor standing on a bare stage under minimal lights.

            That is just a bare-bone structure that I think would be interesting to explore, and it would be exciting to mix mediums so that it was not simply a text-driven show with spectacle around it, but that the mediums of text, movement, dance, music, spectacle, etc. were all inter-woven, leaving the still moment at the end more powerful.

Hamlet in Prison

A show I really enjoyed was one of those rare productions that made me forget that I studied theatre, therefore the pesky little critic in my head was shut off, and for the duration of the performance I remained completely enthralled. I apologize to the other MFAs who have repeatedly heard me talk about this performance. I saw it in Chicago in a tiny black box theatre with no set, hardly any lighting effects, and very basic costumes that made me wonder if the actors were simply performing in their street clothes. The show was Mojo Mickybo; it had only two actors who played numerous roles, but mainly focused on two boys growing up during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. One was Catholic and the other Protestant. Through the show, the turmoil around the boys began to change their relationship, and a friendship so innocently and passionately based on their mutual love for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid started being torn apart. The connection the two actors had with each other, and their ability to transform themselves so truthfully and seamlessly into other characters while at the same time building this compelling friendship, was profound. The fact that they couldn’t and didn’t need to hide behind any design elements was even more impressive; actually, I think having anything more than the bare-bone structure would have taken something away from the performance. It struck me too how beautifully it was all staged. There were absolutely no arbitrary movements, I was never confused about where I was even though there was no set, and there was a stunning cinematic quality to it.  I was completely wrapped up in the lives of these characters in a way that I had never experienced in the theatre before and really haven’t experienced since.

            I had a much more difficult time thinking of a performance that informed or convinced me of something true, and I find it upsetting that I don’t know that I have been involved with or seen a show that has made me feel this. And since the question is dealing with finding truth, it seems profane to try and fudge the answer. However, this question did make me think of a particular episode of the podcast, This American Life, that I listened to a few years ago. So I listened to it again to refresh my memory. This episode talks specifically about a performance of Hamlet, even more specifically about the performance of Act V, the violent climax. The unusual thing about this production of Hamlet is that it was performed in a prison, the Missouri East Correctional Center. So, this bloody play of Shakespeare’s that follows the indecisive Hamlet as he hems and haws over whether or not to commit murder was acted out by men who actually have committed murder and are living out the consequence of it. Agnes, the director, whose theatre company is now solely focused on these prison performances, talks about the inmate actors: “These guys call it like they see it, and it’s true. Dead true.”

            As the podcast goes on, Jack Hitt, who leads us through the story, talks to some of the men involved. He comments that these men “have an intimacy with the material that doesn’t exist anywhere else.” His interviews with them are incredibly interesting and, often, incredibly poignant. Danny Waller, playing the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, says that this character really spoke to him, because he felt like the man he killed was speaking through him in this role. In some ways, the role helped him deal with and understand his past. The man playing Claudio talks about his soliloquy of regret and shame, and how he hoped that when his wife saw him perform it, that she would see his own regret and shame at what his actions had done to their lives. The fight in the graveyard between Laertes and Hamlet was staged not as a sword fight, but as a knife fight, which many of the men were very familiar with. Laertes’ death was an extremely somber moment, taken very seriously by all the inmates who came to watch the show.

            Sometimes we hear actors say that they like acting because it gives them a chance to wear someone else’s shoes for a while, to express emotions we don’t usually get to express so overtly, and to forget about their own life for a while. I’m sure that this is also something these prisoners experienced. However, it struck me while listening to these men talk about doing the show and dealing with their characters’ actions, that sometimes the most powerful thing about acting isn’t getting the opportunity to escape from yourself. It is finding the opportunity to discover something new about yourself, or to deal with and let go of something you are holding on to that you cannot seem to find a way to let go of or deal with in everyday life. Sometimes, it is only through living in another person’s skin for a while that allows you to see things from another angle. It is easy sometimes to forget how powerful theatre can be and the affect it can have not only on the audience, but also on the actors themselves. It truly has the ability to transform the way you view the world and yourself, if you let it. This podcast was a healthy and much needed reminder of that, of why we do what we do.

Here is a link to the episode. It’s long, but definitely worth it:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/218/act-v

To answer the second question as briefly as possible, I think there are more similarities than differences between performances offering some kind of truth and performances that strive for documentary “verbatim” or naturalistic reality. In a sense, every performance is endeavoring to present a truth of some kind. Some truths may be more profound than others or may reach further to reshape a truth. Often times a truth can surface or be reshaped just as effectively, in not more so, in a fictional, unrealistic show. Would the prisoners at the Missouri East Correctional Center have gotten more out of just sharing their personal stories in a verbatim documentary style than they did out of performing Hamlet? I don’t know, but in listening to them talk about the process, it seemed to me, that the distinct similarities between the script and their own actions combined with the distance that the Shakespearean text allowed, provided them with even more freedom to express everything they had in them to express. On the other hand, would I have come to the same realization of truth about their performance had I just seen their Hamlet and not listened to a documentary style podcast about it? Who knows, perhaps it was the combination of the two that made the truth effective for both the prisoners and me. Martin brings up a good point in “Bodies of Evidence” in regards to documentary theatre: “Governments ‘spin’ the facts in order to tell stories. Theatre spins them right back in order to tell different stories . . . There is no ‘really real’ anywhere in the world of representation.”

Gender-Bending

Judith Butler does not ignore the fact that we categorize people in numerous different ways whether it is by gender, sexual preference, etc. She does make the argument that the categories we shove ourselves and others into become a performance, whether conscious or not. There are certain qualities that have been deemed indicative of manliness, femininity, etc.  We have a place and a box for pretty much everything in life. It is in our nature to examine, classify, and label; we like to know where things belong. When we don’t know where to put something, because it doesn’t seem to fit in any one particular box, it can have a jarring effect, especially in a world that demands us to be so politically correct. For me, the concept of androgyny came to mind while reading the Butler article. It is something that fascinates and befuddles most of the population, because of our intense desire to be able to classify someone as male or female.

This example may be a stretch on the prompt, but on the topic of androgyny, the performance act that came to mind was our production of Romeo and Juliet this summer. I was cast as Benvolio, a role originally meant for a man. As we know, gender-bending is not unusual in theatre, especially when doing Shakespeare. However, I found playing a gender-bent role to be a very interesting experience. I chose to play the role as a woman; she was a tom-boy, much like Anybodys in West Side Story, and my Benvolio was completely in love with Mercutio. Since we set our production in Renaissance Italy, all the women wore long, renaissance-like dresses, except for me. I was dressed more like the men. Androgynous for the time period we had set, but by any other standards, definitely dressed as a girl, with leggings, boots, a boat neck dress top, and a fitted vest, though I wore a rapier and dagger. To me, my performance was clearly a woman. I didn’t attempt to make any indications that I was a boy, because that was not my intent for the character. I didn’t even do a whole lot to play up being a tom-boy; I let the situation of my character do that for me. However, it was interesting how many people asked me, after seeing the show, whether I was supposed to be a man or a woman. This made me wonder if the preconception of Benvolio being a boy, and the fact that it is a “manly” name, is harder to overcome than actually just seeing what you see: a woman playing a woman who just happened to be originally written as a boy. If Benvolio was originally written as Benvolia, and was meant to be a girl, would there have been any question? Most likely not, because the idea of her being a tom-boy would have been pre-established. It made me realize that people have a difficult time re-categorizing things they have already put a label on, even if what they are seeing right in front of them contradicts their original categorization. It makes me wonder what people in the audience who had no prior concept of Benvolio thought of my gender in the show.

What if we were to take this concept even further (and let’s face it, it’s probably already been done) and gender-bent all the roles in Romeo and Juliet? Gender-bent in the sense that the women were playing all the men’s roles and the men were playing all the women’s roles, but they were all still playing their own personal gender identities. That is to say, like my Benvolio, we would all be performing our particular role as the gender we identify as in everyday life, even though that role would have been originally written for a different gender. Therefore, the only thing we are really changing is the perception of gender through established gender roles. The women would be sword fighting and heads of the household, and the men would be taking care of Juliet and planning the party. The costumes would indicate the actual gender of the actor. Juliet would still be “Juliet” but also referred to as “he”, and Romeo likewise referred to as “she”. I wonder then, what the audience would take away from the production. Would there still be a confusion of who was supposed to be a woman and who was supposed to be a man? It brings up Butler’s idea that gender is not simply something you are born as; it is also something you perform. In the context of this gender-bent production of R&J, If we just purely be our gender in the sense of what we were born as, but then take on performative qualities and duties of another gender as they relate to the show, we are, in a sense, playing both genders, and allowing the audience to see both of those genders in us at the same time.