German Expressionism: Experimental Performance (South Hill Park 2010)
I would like to briefly reflect upon an experimental piece of theatre that was performed in the style of German Expressionism called Death/Commodity. I both wrote and directed the piece and was interested to see how audiences from varied backgrounds reacted to the piece, however in all cases the audience was an average theatre audience, with some members of the audience part of an arts centre, with significant theatre experience; none of them had studied theatre at University level.
South Hill Park provides a safe environment in which to experiment creatively and without boundaries allowing one to push theatre to the extremes. This consequently allows one to assess and obtain the validity, the quality, and the reception of any given piece of theatre.
I felt that it was important to try and contextualise and realise some of the lessons that I have learnt at University, to see how radical, unusual and avant-garde performances are received by the average theatre audience.
The audience South Hill Park attracts varies but comprises (usually) of middle-class males and females, working in the local area, married and with children. While the education of said audience varies the theatre going audience is well educated and it can be assumed the majority have received further education at a University or college. There is also a strong youth theatregoing audience, cultivated by various out-reach programmes and by the well established and powerful Missed Out youth board that work from within South Hill Park to attract a younger theatre going audience.
I will begin by outlining what I thought worked well with the performance and what I felt was well received and understood by the audience before then identifying the shortfalls of the performance and finally ending with he lessons that were learnt through the experiment.
With regards to what worked with the performance, it is safe to say that the performance unequivocally challenged preconceptions of what the theatre should be. It without doubt redefined the normal operating boundaries within which the normal theatre going audience feel familiar and safe with viewing. This is simultaneously both a success and shortfall of the piece.
The audience were at points so engaged that they didn’t move from their seats, the were frozen to the spot or else gasping for air while observing the seemingly boundless dimensions of German Expressionism. One is not used to observing one human dribble medicine into the mouth of another. But this is where the theatre begins to speak, semiotics come alive and a world of possibilities is opened up. The audience are engaged in that moment. If we use theatre as a means of defining what it is to be human, then the audience are forced to try to understand what is being said through this action, the meaning is not explicit and so it is up to the audience to determine how and why this is a part of human life. How does it fit within the context of the piece and how is that extendable to the context of the world.
Death/Commodity included a shorter performance called Pills/Of/Life. The language adopted in this piece was more accessible and explicit in contrast to the poetic and implicit language used in Death/Commodity. And I learnt perhaps one of the most important lessons yet. After being exposed to poetic language for several years I have come to be able to understand it and use it effectively, however it is indeed a language in its own right. The lesson learnt is that if you present this kind of language to an audience you must be sure that they have also had similar exposure to the language, otherwise it becomes incidental to the action. The sounds become more important, but if the audience cannot accept the language as a series of sounds in a montage of action and performance and if they also fail to successfully deconstruct the semiotics and do not develop an assumed meaning for the text, then they are removed and distance from the piece and are unable to engage with the piece. Pills/Of/Life used less poetic language and the audience reported they were much more engaged with that piece as it was more conventional, traditional almost. It was familiar.
If the language of the theatre is too far removed from normality then there is nothing for the audience to hold onto and so truth and intentionally fail to be communicated to the audience. It does not matter how important one considers semiotics to be, one must not forget that semiotics is not just that which can be seen, it is everything right down to the single phonemes and units of language that we also deconstruct in the attempt and in the search of creating meaning.
Postmodern theatre does not require empathy for the characters, as there is no ultimate answer to be obtained from the piece. The characters are not at the forefront of the acting. Postmodernism has encouraged non-matrixed and task based acting styles to emerge. This was due to the dismissal of overarching so called truths’, which consequently makes redundant the method actor. Postmodernism gave birth to theatrical forms such as post-dramatic theatre where the focus is (unlike theatre pre dating postmodernism) not on the understanding of the text, but on the experience of the individual. However problems became prevalent in the post-show discussions where it seems that the average theatregoer is not willing to participate in the deconstruction of a readerly-text. They like the meaning to be shaped for them, the average audience feels compelled to find a structured story line and they almost become worried and anxious if they don’t immediately understand what they have witnessed or if what they understood from the piece differs from their neighbours perspective. Time and again II was asked if their interpretation was correct. Of course, they were all correct. Intentionality is lost the moment the script goes into the hands of the director and the actors, the moment the actors give the piece to the audience and invite them to watch and make of it what they will. One could offer supporting evidence relating to Bathes the death of the author or arguments relating to the fallacy of intent. But that is for another post. As previously mentioned the performance was unambiguously post-modern in style. One of the aims of postmodernism is to challenge assumptions. When performance groups challenge this through a postmodern lens, they present controversial material. By doing this it arguably compromises the possibility of representing anything truthfully.
‘Postmodernism’s radical contingency can seem to place it (the theatrical work) outside of history, beyond the possibility of commenting on the past, the present or the future’ (Allain and Harvie, 2005: 192). I believe that this was also a problem
What the audience were most impressed with and at times mesmerised by was the precision and competency in the actor’s execution of the director’s instructions. The style requires precision and in a very short rehearsal period, the actors found the true meaning of ensemble and I had the pleasure of witnessing some of the finest ensemble work I have ever seen, and this was echoed in post-show discussion.
There was also an appreciation for the inclusion of so-called informel art. The piece broke free from form; matter was freed from the laws of construction, everything from wooden sticks to bodies. Objects were thrown, torn, spat on, eaten, spat out. What failed, and I am conscience of the fact I now talk using lexis coined by Kantor was the notion of Zero Theatre. Our theatre included things, which in normal theatre gets lost. Our theatre was a theatre of negative emotions, a theatre in which the audience were challenged as to the role they were to play in the process. Unlike Kantor we did give pointers, indexes, which allowed the audience to create some form of meaning, though we did try to create disharmony between text and action.
I would like to finish by saying not only was this experiment interesting in obtaining information about what the theatre audience want or at least think they want, it was interesting to see how far an audience can be pushed and where I would like to gradually move the boundaries for the average audience, but this must be executed slowly with a gradual development of style to audiences that have had gradual exposure.
From this report one might be inclined to see the negatives, however the piece was well received, especially by the more open-minded younger members of the audience, who are not bound by the rules of the world and have an intact creative mind. Though it may just be superficial; the show looked cool and was good as a consequence, aesthetics are obviously not the most important pursuit of any member of the creative team, one hopes for a more intellectual engagement.
And this intellectual engagement was present, and it generated much talk and controversy about the theatre and opened people’s eyes as what theatre can be used for. The shortfalls are firstly correctable and in most cases identified by myself as the director and as the person who conceived the idea in the first place.
I learnt that the average audience are not ready for such an intense experience of performance, but many of the stylistic elements of the performance can be taken forwards and used, the grotesque, the unexpected, the degraded reality, the characters, the precision. But in almost all cases for the average theatregoer, it must be in much smaller doses.
