Objective: To test the hypotheses we derived last week through the physical performance of scenes.
Revised Core questions: Is there a way to break down the relationship between tragedy, individuality, passivity, and negative historical progression that Tsuno discusses? If we do break this down, what do we put in its place? How does it feel to push some of these boundaries?
Response to Core Questions
I believe there is a way to break down the relationship between all however it needs to be fixed before broken. As stated in my Week 1 Notes I believe the breakage between individuality, passivity, tragedy, and negative progression is not down to the one’s perception of a piece nor down to whom one is as an individual but all of these ideas are controlled by the fact that Theatre and the act of going to Theatre are becoming mediatized and formalized beyond the point of being an individual whom goes to the theatre for subjective individual growth/pleasure. Now with the constructs of how theatre is, audiences are being forced into a community structure creating a conformative hive mind response to theatre and not individual responses. Ys each person is their own within the audience however the way each one responds is now under the social construct of how one should be when at the Theatre. As Tsuno says the ‘I am as much alone as if I were reading a novel, This distinction is, however, that when I read I am fully responsible for my silence’. Thus insighting his aloneness not being his own. You are not an individual in a sense when you in an audience.
Passivity is interesting as yes stillness is something brought along via the feeling of being subdued however in contrast this could be due to the conforming ideas of actually going to the theatre. Quoting Ethan Mordden - ‘Audience reactions at live performances are so programmed as to seem canned, and...theatre audiences, emulating those in television studios, appear to applaud on cue’ - Peter Marks, "Standing room only (and that's not good)," New York Times, December 8, 1995, sec. H: 5. This stillness may be a product of mediatized theatre as we are programmed to be silent in a theatre, and to respond to happenings on stage accordingly however this should not be the case if one is affected by ‘feeling’ for the character/individual on stage ones reaction may be different, it may cause traumatic sobbing, anger, etc thus why are we so still in the audience. If you felt these emotions away from theatre you wouldn’t normally act by being still.
I believe that using a tragedy as a single idea is wrong, indeed, we cannot put comedy and tragedy next to each other in this context as generally when something is funny in theatre the audience is encouraged to laugh however we can put tragedy next to romanticism. With this idea, the idea that Tsuno suggests that as an ‘individual’ within an audience watching a tragedy would react with silent when connecting with the character who has a downfall, the same could be implemented when talking about romanticism if one watching the play connects with the character who obtains this fairytale ending reacts naturally with joy, energy, and glee they would be frowned up within a theatre setting, hence why if this connection is made they remain in absolute silence (as one would in a theatre). This then provides this point that regardless of the genre of theatre, (other than comedy) audiences are expected to respond in absolute silence.
To what we put in place if we break down the constructs set out by Tsuno, there are many ways to approach this idea. Some lay away from the control of the theatre creators, for example, to achieve individuality away from passive response audiences would have to be selected by the piece, or for this example pieces would need to be selected with more concern to personal experience. By doing this the piece would connect to individuals on more personal levels and if done correctly there would be opportunities for the audience to achieve levels of dissociation to space therein, thus implicating a deeper thought process. Further ideas to replace these ideas lie within the use of technology, if we look at Poles by Pps Danse of Montreal and the use of holograms and virtual space to create a piece where real actors dance with virtual others, this idea can be expanded on and then use in a VR setting, with each audience member at their own home, they put on a VR headset and enter a virtual space where the performance would take place. This removes all problems discussed with the act of going to Theatre and the constructs behind it and adds levels of individuality that does not need to be passive and thus response can be true to a natural reaction, this would make the piece far more real and connective then anything viewed in a theatre.
Eric Bogosian’s idea of living in the moment - ‘Theatre clears my head because it takes the subtextual brainwashing of the media madness and shouts that subtext out loud… theatre is ritual. It is something we make together every time it happens.’ This idea ties into Tsuno’s belief of being individual yet combats the passive response ideas. Bogosian is arguing that Theatre removes oneself from the world of mediatized electronic noise and allows us to live in the moment enjoying the spectacle of theatre.
Focus on the piece - Man Who Turned into a Stick - Abe Kobo
This class was expanding upon the first lecture however we used practical work to convey our ideas and theories. Looking at:
Individuality and community within an audience and how to create it
Creating the idea of witness within an audience
We further expanded the ideas of how they attempt to create individuality or community that can affect the way a piece is perceived and/or performed.
My takeaways from this class:
To create the truest sense of individuality in an audience all the ideas surrounding the practice of actively going to the theatre need to be removed. As explored by Tsuno the act of going to the theatre is being plagued by the ideologies of how one SHOULD act in a theatre thus one isn’t able to truly express their reactions. If for the sake of the task have to be in a theatrical space/ rehearsal room in my mind the best way to achieve this would be to achieve an audience who is unaware that they are in an audience. By setting out a collective of people who don’t know who the actors are is the best way to achieve this (in my opinion). So blending the actors with the audience members thus each audience member doesn’t know who the is audience and who is an actor. This could be achieved by having the audience walk around a space throughout the short piece (as well as the actors doing so) and the piece to be performed whilst this action is happening. I did find it very interesting the technique used in class where we as an audience were scattered across the room with our eyes closed as the action took place around us was very effective as we were individuals in control of the actors, we were all vulnerable with no opportunity to be connected to others in the audience.
When looking at creating community beyond the mediatized versions talked about earlier I think the examples in the class where we all lied down on the floor was brilliant, the discomfort of being an audience who weren’t in positions they are comfortable creating a sense of unification as we were all in the same situation. I think the performance is spoken away from us did remove from the idea as it took us away from being a collective and forced us to be individual as we would focus overtly on what was being said thus detracting from the unanimous state. My idea of creating a community would possibly bring the whole audience into a condensed area at the center of the stage and the performance happens around/across them, thus connecting the audience in a way as they become a part of the scene but as one body.
We discussed in class how we would make the audience become witnesses, the ideas where we would be a witness by becoming part of the scene and the other where we as the audience would be almost eavesdropping to me didn’t feel effective, I did not feel like I was a witness I felt like I was a spectator. All that being said, I believe the eavesdropping concept would work brilliantly with more time to rehearse. My idea as discussed in class would be to cause a level of discomfort within the audience which would cause them to want to leave the performance and want to alleviate themselves of what they have seen, as a witness would.
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