A Reflective Interview About My Performance
////Idea 2.5
//Idea 2.5
I wanted to experiment with how intimate I could make the performance so I decided I would have one on one poetry reading with members of the public. Personally I find my poems special, yes of course that’s because I am bias but also because for a long time I never read them to anyone or even told anyone that I write poetry. I wanted to see if I could instil that same feeling within the people I talked to. The way in which I tried to makes the poems seem special for the single audience member was by telling them that after I read them the poem I will destroy it and it shall never be said again.
But then again I could ruin this feeling of feeling unique or special by introducing the possibility that I lied to them. The reason I did this was Sara Felder an award-winning playwright and soloist talks about “juggling the truth” and what effect this can have on an audience.
“A few audience members disclosed to me their deep sense of betrayal and disgust when they found out that a touching story presented as autobiographical theatre was based on a lie” (Felder, 2012, 39).
What I find interesting about this is that it shows the level of the audience’s attentiveness and investment into a performance.
(Mighty, 2014). A video of me experimenting with idea 2.5*
When I told the blonde haired woman that what I had previously told her might have been a lie, she was only slightly shocked. Whereas when I told the older lady that it might be a lie, she replied saying it would be “disappointing”. They both had a completely different level of attentiveness to the poems and this could be seen through their responses. However not letting them know if it is truth or a lie, allows them to choose/hope for the scenario that is most satisfying for them. This acts as a sort of post-performance because they continue to think about which is their more favourable outcome and mentally involves them in the small performance.
Citations
Felder, S. (2012). JUGGLING the Truth. Theatre Bay Area, 38-41.
Framing with the Help of Spalding Grey and Whoopi Goldberg.
//Confessional Theatre
Spalding Gray’s performance Swimming to Cambodia is a very perplexing performance because the material presented is very self-indulgent yet manages not to become preachy or disengaging. Spalding constantly talks of his own experiences, actions and emotions and in his attempts to find his “perfect moment”.
(KOMENTARJI, 2009)
I wanted to understand why and how he does this, so that I may use the same techniques when performing my poems – which are self-indulgent. I believe that my performance will be greatly improved upon I can present it in a way that doesn’t make the performance seem self-indulgent.
The first idea I had was to have the audience participation within the performance. This wouldn’t be self-indulgent because the audience not just feels involved but is involved in the performance. However Spalding Gray never had audience participation to get them involved and invested in his story, instead he even created a 4th wall between himself and the audience. David Price Terry an assistant professor at San Jose State University writes his thesis about Spalding Gray’s confessional theatre and in Terry’s thesis he makes note of how Spalding Gray frames his audience “as theatrical patrons, trusted friends, therapists in a session, priests witnessing a confession, and voyeurs” (Terry, 2005, 04). What I find clever about this is that Gray frames his audience as people who would be deeply interested in his performance depicting his self-discovery and internal turmoil. He does this by presenting his story in a deeply analytical fashion, explaining each and every encounter. The audience wants to find out if he does find his “perfect moment” because they care for his wellbeing.
(Jordan Ned, 2014)
The Frame of Self-Discovery and Personal Growth
Similarly Whoopi Goldberg has her audience invest in a clearly made up character of a little girl who slowly understands the world around her. The audience invests because they want to see the growth of this character in the same way they want to see the growth of Spalding Gray. I decided to not just say my poems and try and recreate the environment and emotional environment I was in when I wrote them. Instead I would present the poems and accompanying stories as a way of understanding myself. I want my performance to be self-discovery through poetry where I demonstrate to the audience my attempts of growth in the same manner that Whoopi Goldberg and Spalding Gray’s characters want to grow into wiser and better versions of themselves.
Furthermore these Spalding Gray gets the audience invested in the performance by using music, lighting and imagery to change the atmosphere of the performance space into these eastern landscapes and Gray’s internal mind. I wish to also do this by creating atmospheres that symbolised the poems. For example there is a poem I might use which depicts WW1, and I would frame it by having backgrounds sounds of war with loud explosions and gunshots while the lighting would be dim and flickering like a bulb with bad wiring or a flickering flame. With each poem creating a new atmosphere the audience is taken on my short story of discovery, and they are engaged because they become part of the atmosphere for each state.
Citations
Jordan Ned (2014) Whoopi Goldberg Direct From Broadway 1985 YouTube. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RAm86ybr8w [Accessed 20 April 2014].
KOMENTARJI (2009) Swimming To Cambodia (Full Movie) Part 1. [online video] Available from http://www.mojvideo.com/video-swimming-to-cambodia-full-movie-part-1/62c7d064d144bf4ef3d4 [Accessed 20 April 2014].
Terry, D.P. (2005) Spalding Gray and the Slippery Slope of Confessional Performance. Ma. B. S. Northwestern University.
Group Work, Meta Physical Reality and First Poetry Reading
//Group Work
The task was simple enough – as a group of 3 we each had to select a short 1-3 sentence extract for our form of literature and put them together to make a performance with appropriate lighting and sound. As a group we decided to randomly select our short extract because the task itself was seemingly random. We assembled the sentences to create a form of dialog with some element of a plot/emotion/effect.
(Mighty, 2014) Group work script.*
It seemed like we were hoping to create or find meaning out of this random amalgamation of words, so we experiment. We said the line together, we said the lines separately, we overlapped different lines, and we changed our tempo, rhythm and inflections in the hope that we could create meaning.
(Mighty, 2014) Experimenting with how I say “visited a foward post”.*
During our tech set-up we used lighting and sound as a way of creating meaning. For example we created a playful underwater atmosphere by using blue strip-lighting and the song “Under the Sea” from the movies The Little Mermaid. As the song played we all said the one line that held any reference to the sea and that was “Casson building aquarium”.
(Angela Chan, 2009).
What I find interesting about this experience is that we were constantly looking for and creating meaning where there was none to begin with. I think documentarian Ken Burns puts it best when he says “we superimpose meaning over the chaos, we tell jokes, we tell stories, we put a frame around things and that’s a way of trying to create a narrative about stuff that has no narrative.” This understanding of reality is equally relevant to our group work as we felt that if our performance didn’t have a narrative of some kind it would lack substance.
First Poetry Reading
I tested out the foundations of my new performance Under My Hair as I read 5 poems to the class. There wasn’t any imagery, lighting, sound or narrative, I simply stood at the front of the class reading poetry and believing I had a performance. What was pointed out was that the poems alone held no substance as a performance. Within a stage all forms of reality are heightened, acting becomes louder, personalities become bigger and men and women become heroes and scoundrels. Whereas poetry alone is captivating at an open mic, it is not as captivating when used as a staged performance because the realm of a performance is a heightened reality where meaning and narrative has to be slightly exaggerated. My responsibility as an actor is to find the meaning within the poems by framing them with light, sound and imagery and making them relevant to the audience.
Citations:
Angela Chan (2009). Under The Sea – The Little Mermaid with Lyrics. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpqdexBnNkM [Accessed 13 April 2014].
Team Coco (2014) Documentarian Ken Burns— Serious Jibber-Jabber with Conan O’Brien. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCxbCYHVZ7k&list=PLVL8S3lUHf0TIbLusugli-_6OhbvqgMvD&index=2 [Accessed 13 April 2014].
A Change of Ideas
//The first draft was a fail.
After presenting the first draft of my idea The Man You Hate I got a mixture of responses. “It was too DIRECT”, “it focused too much on Hitler, which is clichéd”, “and the performance wasn’t relevant to me”. These were not reason alone the want to change my idea; however I then realised that the idea was paradoxical and juxtaposing. How could I create a performance that seemed real and intimate while presenting a character that isn’t real and isn’t intimate but direct? This is reason why I found myself to using clichés stereotypes about WW2 and Nazi’s because that was to only way to frame this character as familiar or real. I created a bad performance because I used material that the audience were used to, and bored with. Some horrific parts of the character did not come through because the audience was desensitised towards the denigration of Jewish men and women.
One Door Closes, Another One Opens
While looking over my notes for solo, I come across a few poems I wrote a while back. And as I read on a small grin turns into a large toothy smile as I realise I could do a performance about poetry – my poetry! They are intimate and personal, well written (I don’t have to write a script) and they hold topics that are relevant to my target audience of university student.
(Mighty, 2014) The poem I found 3 pages away from my solo essay notes.*
The research I did to find out how I can present The Man You Hate in an intimate and realistic manner is transferable to this idea as the poems don’t have to replicate a sense of reality as they are real, instead I can use this knowledge to better create a feeling of intimacy and community with my audience.