Performance Theory Musings.

Today marks the break we've had from meeting in class for performance theory since the semester began, and it occurred to me during our last full class together that this course has been my favorite in the MFA training. I find myself bring up the articles we've read during casual conversation and formulating arguments for banal subjects based on theoreticians that have written particularly persuasive passages. But there is a question that keeps tickling the base of my brain- what does this have to do with theatre? How do these articles, that impact me as an empathetic human, become part of the fodder for conversation and influence the work I do as an artist, creator, educator? Is awareness enough?

I want to think that being more aware of the privilege I've been raised into, as a lower-middle class white woman from Kansas who identifies as straight on the Kinsey scale, allows for a more open conversation about what it means to be a minority in this generation and how we represent/ignore/glorify race, color/gender-blind casting, and write or analyze characters in traditional theatrical works, but my inner cynic says "you're one person, how can you make a difference?"

I don't know what I would do. I keep going back to education. How does theatre in schools make a change? I've been an advocate for arts education for years, promoting opportunities for collaboration, encouraging the cultivation of life skills like communication, kindness and giving, presence, but even more by bringing the arts to underserved communities and offering performance opportunities to young people with physical and cognitive disabilities. But is this enough? And what difference does it make? Are our younger generations learning empathy, understanding, and communication rather than turning a blind eye and pretending everything is okay while we continue to have riots and injustice? Are we as bad as this?

Maybe the problem for me, as I'm trying to identify what I would do if I were to teach this class, is that I still haven't broadened my idea of what "performance" means. It is everywhere, everyday, in all our news reports, interactions with friends and colleagues, in our social media presentation of self and others, but does change come with this understanding? Progress is slow, and my fear is that we won't make much of a change in my lifetime.

So like, what is this post about? My lingering questions post-semester. But I suppose having these questions and striving to answer them now is better than the blissful ignorance I had before we began, so perhaps change can start here.

Rocky Horror Picture Show and Tiny Orphans

I know I'm not the only person in this class who is a fan of cult classics, and one of my first obsessions as a young theatrical practitioner (read: music theatre obsessed teenager) was Rocky Horror. Everyone in their late teen years looks for an excuse to wear too much makeup and fishnets, right? ...Right? 

I digress. So. My best friend from high school, who has been working nationally and on Broadway for the last few years, and incidentally who introduced me to Rocky Horror, made a pit stop this year in our incredibly progressive (read: conservative and controlled by the Koch Brothers and Sam Brownback) city of Wichita, KS to do the live production of Rocky Horror as the choreographer and to play the role of Rocky. Generally speaking, this wasn't a big deal, and the population was actually really excited for the show to be staged in Wichita for the first time in years, and Mo has a pretty big presence in town for his influence as a choreographer and the work he did before he moved, so there was a pretty supportive vibe from the locals for the production. The thing is, is that Maurice is black. Again, this shouldn't be an issue, because there's nothing in the script that notes Rocky having a specific race, and when the show is about transvestite aliens and has like, no plot line, who is to say that casting a black actor in that role is revolutionary, right? 

Well, the Wichita Eagle (local newpaper) thought otherwise. Their promotion of the show put emphasis on Maurice playing Rocky by saying "Actor-choreographer Sims says that being the first black Rocky Horror – certainly locally and likely nationally – won’t change the dynamic of the plot."

When I talked to Mo about it, I asked him what he thought of the interview with the paper. He said something along the lines of "he was trying to make a big deal out of it and get me to say things about the role like I was so proud to be given the opportunity to play Rocky and I was like...It's not a big deal, I'm sure I'm not the first black guy to do it. I mean, it's about sex and aliens, how weird does it have to be?" In the article, he's quoted much more eloquently, responding to the question with "it will actually add depth to the show by supporting the idea that Rocky is different from everybody else,” Sims said. “He has a man’s body, but he is a new creature, so he has the mind of a baby. He is experiencing the world for the first time.” That is all to say that while I don't necessarily agree that this was a brave choice for color-blind casting, the overall success of the show was not altered or affected negatively in any way by this choice. I thought the show was a delight, he did a fantastic job, and nothing about casting a black actor took me out of the experience. 

On the other hand, there are a lot of issues I have with the adaptation of Annie 2014 to film. First of all, modernizing the script- um, what?- and trying to update it so it isn't deadly theatre and inaccessible to a modern audience- nice try, it sucks regardless- but with a show that is arguably "iconic" in the music theatre community, with a signature cartoon and red wig, an old, bald white guy, and a crippled president to be forced into the 21st century and race swapped for a black orphan and black tycoon have already raised a lot of eyebrows from fans. I will eat crow if it does work, but thus far, I'm having a hard time buying into the swap in this instance. 

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article2494421.html#storylink=cpy

Theatre of the Oppressed Grad Student

The question about the role theatre plays in major world events reminds me of the one Tim posed in his prompt about the Holocaust, and I feel pretty strongly about my response to that question. By that I mean: I rarely think theatre is the venue to take on a magnanimous issue as a whole under the constraints that typical theatre operates from. We, as artists and audiences, can only suspend disbelief so far, and in tackling an issue of that gravity, the cynic in me says that we would only be so successful. If I’m being honest with myself about taking on the circumstances under which a mass genocide, entire war or an event of crippling oppression, I don’t personally believe I would be able to fathom how much impact an event of that depth could make me feel. If we are using theatre as the vehicle to address something like the Holocaust, a particularly gruesome war, genocide, and social or racial oppression, the best way in is through one person or small group of people’s experience. It may be a bastardized form of the event on the entire scale, but if someone is to take on something of that nature, it is too grand to be accessible, and we’ve failed before it’s begun. So in some ways, yeah, I do think there are some issues where theatre stops being the answer.

That being said, I don’t disagree with Boal’s method of work on Theatre of the Oppressed, which doesn’t come at us in the same passive audience observing kind of way. As a presentation, I’m weary to say yes, and… but as a tool to use as an efficient educational method to self-awareness, being more socially aware and empathetic, and learning skills in which to combat the future impact of such events- even going so far back to the Rehearsing Warrior Ethos article as a reason to consider theatre in this way- is something to consider. Maybe we use the skills Boal talks about in service to searching for the answer to a problem and through that knowledge and dialogue there are steps to be taken in attempt to make change, but a presentation on a proscenium stage about oppression isn’t the way to incite it.

This brings me back around to the first question Maggie posed: what is the next step? Call me an optimist, but I feel like the best case scenario for making change is starting with an honest account of our history and implementing some of these activities that Boal has used for years into our school systems to teach empathy and understanding. I am a huge advocate for teaching life skills through theatre, and starting young with people from all different walks of life is a way in with the upcoming generation who are going to make a difference. For our own theatrical dialogue? I don’t know. But I hope we don’t give up on the ways in which we have a say just because things get a little too hard in the face of technology and ADD.

Motherhood? Ain't Nobody Got Time for That.

At the risk of sounding like a raging feminist (in the negative connotation of the word), I have to take a stand on the maternity leave policies in a University setting, and most specifically LSU. There are several issues I have with the policy- for one, it doesn’t include Paternity Leave as an option for new parents, so we’re already gender discriminating. Two, the section titled “Maternity Leave” in the LSU employee handbook directs readers to Family Medical Leave and Sick Leave, therefore grouping childbirth in with illness or emergencies, therefore all other illnesses and family traumas have to be forgotten, ignored, or a risk of termination if they are used for maternity leave. And three, the amount of time allowed for family medical and/or sick leave (paid) is contingent on the years of service at the institution and what is saved up from appointment date to the day the leave begins, which is roughly one paid day per month, so approximately 4.5 days each semester. But don’t worry, with prior approval from the University, leave without pay is an option if sick leave is exhausted before the time that maternity leave might come into play.

This is an issue because across the board in academic institutions, and really in many professions, with the pay gap for women on the national level, we’re already only earning 77 cents to every male dollar, and one of the reasons the Society for Human Resource Management credits for the gap is what they call “motherhood penalty”, where women in the job market who are unmarried and without children rise to the top of the hiring pool because they are arguably a lower risk for family emergency without dependents, therefore creating a bias against and stereotyping working mothers. As Dr. Walsh mentioned to me in a meeting about job hunting in an academic institution, (I’m summarizing) “the best thing to do in an interview is to smile and assure the search committee that a family and children aren’t something that you’re interested in pursuing” because while it may not be the best circumstances to take a so called maternity leave later on, your job will be protected. The inequality has yet to be addressed because as Dr. Walsh also pointed out to me, women are relatively new on the scene in professorship positions, so the attitude is generally “you should just be happy to be here”.

The act of protest here requires a few things to be successful, and I think the most important one is male support. This isn’t a gender specific issue, it’s a family issue. If I were to take action as a planning party, I think a parade beginning at the State Capitol building and ending outside the LSU Student Union at 3:00 pm on November 4^th for a peaceful picketing protest at the next LSU Senate meeting is the best first step to change. Considering the LSU Board of Supervisors has been under a “no confidence” vote for almost two years, this is a good time to bring up issues that need to be addressed within the system. Direct Action is the best course in this situation, because passive resistance doesn’t make enough waves. Standing idly by won’t draw attention to a policy that is on the back burner.

In our current state, women and gender discrepancies are a hot button for media coverage, and while they can be spun negatively, I think a media presence is something that would shed light in a good way on the issue that needs to be addressed, and might put necessary pressure on the board to consider changes in a policy that hasn’t been revised since 2004. Louisiana passed the equal pay law in 2013 by a 23-13 vote, which was a step in the right direction, so perhaps LSU will join the wave of change and acknowledge that the rights of new mothers should be a separate policy from one that implies crisis or sickness.

This specific protest would close after the LSU Senate wrapped their meeting on election day, but I don’t think there is a concrete ending until the University acknowledges that the policy needs to be addressed now.

Harry Potter + Twitter

Here's the thing- I'm obsessed with Harry Potter. If we start there, the rest of this post is going to make a lot more sense, so if you have a problem with my intense love of all things related to that world, read someone else's post. So here's how this relates to our prompt on time: JK Rowling wrapped up her series on Harry's life when the 7th book was released on July 21st. Five years later a character popped up on Twitter named @mugglehustle. This is a guy who had the brilliant idea to begin reading the series for the first time at age 25 and live tweet, chapter by chapter, his thoughts and reactions to the world that Rowling created years ago. In May of 2012, Muggle Hustle launched a durational play via twitter with the first tweet:

"@mugglehustle: Okay, so yeah. I’m going to read Harry Potter 1-7 for the first time and share my thoughts and reactions here.

@mugglehustle: If you want you can join me and relive your first experiences with the series.

@mugglehustle: Okay, got my set of books from Amazon. Here we go.

@mugglehustle: CHAPTER ONE: THE BOY WHO LIVED

@mugglehustle: Well as it stands now, this book should be called “Mr. Dursley and the Dursley’s Dursley.”

And with his first tweet on the book, I was hooked. This was clearly an extension of this guy's real personality, because it came from an honest place (or so it read to me) but was a somewhat heightened characterization of who he probably is in real life. With each chapter (some taking an hour or more to read and comment on), he took time to have asides to the audience and engage with readers: "I hope I was wearing a dope sweater. RT '@MereLaura Last night I had a dream I met @MuggleHustle and @jk_rowling at a Christmas party.'", commented when he couldn't check in for awhile: " SEND SOME RED SPARKS UP, THUGGLES. I'M TRYING TO FIND MY WAY BACK TO THE HUSTLE."; and made comparisons from pop culture to the books: "What's your March Madness bracket looking like? I have Slytherin making it to the Elite 8 and Gryffindor going all the way."

I followed this journey for a little over a year, chapter by chapter, book by book, with a stranger who I grew to love as much as I love the characters he was writing about, and although I knew the source material so well, it was still engaging, surprising and delightful to read this man’s reactions to each event in the books that I am so fond of. Through his experience, I got to relive them again for the first time.

How does this relate to pace and time? Well, I’d say that the responses @Mugglehustle had to each book was happening as it happened in real time; he set many chapters with a line about the passage of time, or what he was doing prior to starting, or a quip about whiskey going well with books before settling in, which was a constant reminder that the hour or so during which he was tweeting was actually the time passed while he read the book. The time between tweets wasn’t ignored but addressed, and the duration of that time made the hour or so of his interactions with the twitter world go by more quickly than the audience would like. An hour doesn’t feel so long when anticipation for that hour is built up over a span of a few weeks. The reality of the event is never forgotten, because everything he did reinforced that this hour was the only hour he had to be present with us doing this thing he said he would do.

That brings me to question two: If these plays bring us closer to right here, right now, what’s the next step? I don’t know. Maybe more neo-futurist plays but done from an improvisational stand-point and without any scripts. Maybe the audience gets to be a more active participant in having a say about the duration of the piece. Maybe we, as observers, could be drawn into a play as a character or scene partner at any time, so we have to be fully engaged and ready for a turn or we might miss our chance to be present. I’m not sure what the next step is, but I’m also not disheartened by turns theatre has taken in the last few years, so I think the best thing to do is keep asking the hard questions, trying new things, and assessing the effectiveness of each theatrical event as it happens.

P.S. You can read all of @mugglehustle's tweets for each book on his website mugglehustle.com.

Found Space

This question is really exciting to me because I’m always looking to choose pieces that push conventions into a realm of accessibility for audience members who wouldn’t typically want to go to the theatre. As a director, I often search for site-specific and found spaces because I love the challenge of repurposing something into a venue where magic can happen and where the setting has a role of its own without needing to be created for the production it holds. A few plays come to mind when I first read Amar’s question, but one that I’ve been interested in exploring most is adapting Dante’s Inferno into a staged production but placing it in an underground parking garage that has nine levels.

The audience would enter from the ground floor through the “gates of hell” as Dante does in the novel, and pass under the inscription that translates to “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” before the play begins. Once entering through the passage on the first floor, Virgil and Cheron would introduce the audience, who take on the role of Dante, to the levels of hell, each movement coinciding with a deeper floor of the underground parking garage. There are actors who are employed on particular levels that tie to the descending circles of hell, and a new guide in each circle tells his/her story through the journey down to the next ring below, until getting to the River Lethe at the 9^th circle and back up to earth and the light of day. (I’m banking on there being an elevator that can hold a small audience and a couple actors back to the ground floor)

The most interesting quality that feels like it could potentially be affective with this production is the physical descent with the actors through each circle, one because of the spiral journey down each level the audience physically has to go on with the actors, but also because it takes the group further and further down below the ground and comfort of the outside world. It would work during the day for this reason, and the return to the world above might be more rewarding if it were produced on a sunny afternoon rather than a dark and scary evening just for the juxtaposition of light and dark.

However, this is a grandiose idea that has a lot of good intentions and not a lot of thought into the problems, and while I think it has the potential to bea really exciting use of space, it would most likely be a fucking nightmare. Without taking into consideration the issues of permits, outside interference (because we probably couldn’t shut down the parking garage for art, I mean COME ON) and the sounds and safety hazards cars and inattentive humans create, a parking garage isn’t the most acoustically pleasing space to work in, so it would be incredibly difficult to work against that challenge for an actor. There’s also the issue of lighting- to use the space as it is, I wouldn’t want to bring in outside sources because it isn’t the safest environment for expensive equipment, but the dull green fluorescents don’t particularly highlight an actor. It could potentially work in favor of the hellish quality Dante is going for in his novel and the hollow echo plus the awful lighting are some of the reasons a parking garage appeals to me, but by and large I think the challenges at this phase of brainstorming far outweigh the cool use of space with such a classic.

I don’t definitively agree with Kantor’s opinion, because I think there is a lot of opportunity to do good work in a theater. Do we sometimes need to think outside of the box and embrace using the space in an innovative way? Absolutely. But has our exploration of the art form up to this point lead us to a sterilized approach to the work? I don’t think so. It arguably has to adapt to the world since things are constantly changing, but the fact that even bad theatre creates a dialogue proves that we can’t always know what to expect.

Highlights Post

I’m so encouraged by the thoughtful responses these questions prompted, there seems to be common thread of optimism in our theatrical future and the ability to embrace the growing technological elements with grace. Here are some of the standouts.

Ashley Adams writes from a personal experience on her own solo show that one person productions have to compel the artist and somewhat abandon form for what they want to do. She makes a point that many successful solo performance artists fall into the “masturbatory” category because they do what pleases them and abandon form, which in some ways, is the most affective approach because it keeps the artist present through personal commitment to the work.

http://suecoatesthtr4130.blogspot.com/ argues that Frankenstein is a great example of using technology to support a show that is a “theatre” piece and not in danger of being performance art, and goes on to say that the use of advancement doesn’t have to take over live performance just as television didn’t end the movie experience.

Inhttp://thegingyboosha.blogspot.com/, he says “Cinema may move us but live performance, compelling works, literally change us because we experience it with the performers…there is a give and take during live performance.” He links us to a performance to a clip of a Wooster Group performance that impacted him, but that he didn’t quite understand. It incorporated the use of media and technology, but it was the juxtaposition between the technical aspects and the physical presence of the actors that made the piece land the way that it did, and goes even further to remind us that while we can see the clip of the performance, it will in no way have the same impact that it did live.

Maggie and http://powerpackedpunch.blogspot.com/have a similar take on the issue: Maggie mentions that theatre is dialectic, continuing on a wheel where everything comes back around, so change is just around the corner even if we’re bogged down by the inundation of technology now. She finishes with a lovely statement that “The thing about theatre that I think will ensure its escape from extinction is the presence at its core, the truth. No matter how advanced or spectacular technology can be, it cannot be as powerful as simple human connection and presence.” Scott says that while he isn’t concerned about technology overtaking live performance, he makes the point that if it does, we might again experience the simulacrum effect of technology being the established norm, it becoming its own copy, and by identifying the body as the antithesis of technology, the cycle will come back around to live performance. In opposition to these opinions, SanChavis takes a very different point of view saying that yes, theatre is in danger of being diluted by film and technology, but if it becomes the only form of present expression, then we might as well embrace it.

In my opinion, Andie says simply what we all seem to intuit but haven’t said yet- cinema is an individual experience, theatre breeds a culture of community and human connection. There is constant interaction between everyone in the room, therefore it has a pull that film can’t ever accomplish. So while it might be in danger of evolving, there is a reason it has stayed around for as long as it has, and that reason is a need for basic human connection.

Tastefully and respectfully, Tim abandons the prompt for a deeper investigation of the relationship between theatre and technology and muses that the issue isn’t an available access to technology, but a growing “abstraction of embodiment”. The rest of his post draws on his background on philosophy, which is really interesting and poignant, so I recommend reading his post because my attempt to summarize it would be insulting and ineffective.

Garrett speaks to the increasing difficulty for our generation to connect without the use our smart phones and this desire to record events rather than live them in the present and sums this feeling up by noting that “in order to enjoy the moment we are experiencing we now have to satiate the need to record in order to remember first and foremost”.

In response to the prompt about Imagined Memory, Yvette made a very interesting statement that brought up other questions for me- “Art is carefully crafted like this as well to convey a specific message that the audience will perceive and to shape the audiences thoughts on any given issue.  The media's tactics are mirror images of artist's tactics.” – does this make us manipulative and cheapen what we do by being really selective of what and how we show our work?

Maggie shares that imagined memory can have a huge impact on the theatre because the preconceived ideas we have from our access to media coverage become ingrained in our system, but she isn’t certain if this is a bigger obstacle or asset in out work. If the theatre strives to break conventions, general conceptions, and unsubstantial judgments”, they have to exist in the first place.

Alexandria links us to Highland Coffees and Teas closing, which hits close to home to many of us, explaining that while she is a patron, her experience of reading about it through many filters and lenses through the use of social media and online news sources, she found herself being affected by the words of others rather than honoring her own pleasant memories.

Lauren Graham makes an interesting connection to home videos and memories, noting that her experience of events in her past are actually memories of a video, which made her a third party observer of her own experience.

Several of you spoke about experiences with 9/11, but for Joe mentions that as a young man who observed the early stages of the event through media coverage, his reaction to the tragic event gained meaning when he moved to NYC years later and visited ground zero. He feels that his sensitivity to the event was much more in tune because he felt connected to it because of the live feed. He follows up his personal experience by noting that technology has the ability to be incredibly moving, especially in live performance if it is used wisely, but if it isn’t treated with finesse has the potential to become white noise.

As a native of Colorado who moved to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, Amanda talks about her fears of moving to the South because of the events shown on television and the significant focus on derelict and impoverished areas rife with crisis. Relocating to this area, she learned how much the media skewed reality by only showing a portion of the aftermath of this natural disaster. She comments that the media has a “large hold” on our opinions and reactions, and by showing just one part of the story, the partial truth becomes a developed reality.

Michael also talks about Katrina, but from a native’s perspective. Even though he was familiar with the city, the devastation, and the effects the storm took on the lives of many habitants of the city, he says the constant coverage and repeated imagery made it too easy to separate from the issue and watch as a bystander. He ties this back to his response of to the first question, which you should read here, and reflects that with the media “there's a separation, a comfortable distance that changes the way you view and feel about art…No amount of media sensationalism can give you what it's like to actually be somewhere witnessing and experiencing something.”