Lautes Lego, A Retrospective

A few weeks ago I tried out another form of theatrical weirdness. Titled "Lautes Lego" and performed by the one-night-only D.I.Y. Theatre Collective, I asked my audience to build their own scenery.


Daisy Duke's Dumpster Den--a redneck roadhouse for a silly hillbilly scene.


You guessed it. With Duplo.

There is something wonderfully coarse about Duplo. Even the most inspired artistic creation by a professional sculptor looks delightfully clunky rendered in the medium. It is very difficult to build a Duplo structure with any finesse or precision, which is precisely why I chose it.


Insight Farm--for hospitality and chickens

Audience members offered a pile of building blocks intended for 3-5 year olds will not feel the need to create anything highly detailed or fancy, which allows simple form and function to shine through. Five minutes with the blocks, laughing and re-shaping, and they've come up with a good rough outline of what they want. This is useful for several reasons--it saves time, but it also offers everyone the confidence to make something creative without having to worry about it being a masterpiece. The simplicity and relative fail-safety of the medium encourages participation among persons who would otherwise feel intimidated. (sticks of modelling clay or paints and brushes would not only be more daunting, but the performers would have less of a consistent product to refer to. also, they generate waste.)


Happy Tower-Retirement Centre for the Stars! (setting for an existential crisis)


Many audience members took delight in constructing a set, but were reluctant to give it a name or theme. The building part was much more fun than thinking. This became more apparent as the night progressed and the audience became even more interested in drinking.


The Cyclops House of Seduction, made by a couple who wanted a raunchy piece.

This has been an ongoing problem in my work.

The performers, in keeping with the DIY nature of the scenery, also asked the audience to come up with first and final lines of sketches, a time limit, and asked that they select an improv game or technique to use, such as "one performer cannot talk," "do the entire scene in reverse" or "do the entire scene as if you have no clothes on." This helped form the structure for the action and allowed each piece to be tailored to the audience's fancy.

It was also needlessly difficult.

The audience, while eager to build their own sets, approached the line-writing task with reluctance and didn't want to choose an acting style at all. I think the reasons for this were many and various. While the Lego was straightforward and provided its own inspiration to a large extent, the idea of writing lines or constructing elements of play seemed too much like work. After the glee of creating a structure and seeing it projected ten times its size on the back wall, audience members wanted the performers to magically be inspired by it and create something on their own. And occasionally they could--if the structure was interesting and sensible enough. Other constructions, like the aptly-named "The Horse with a Chicken on Top and Other Stuff" (not pictured) offered the performers less than nothing to go on, meaning not only was what they came up with uninteresting, but it left them annoyed.

And therein lies the most important hitch with DIY-style theatre. Anything which relies on any creativity from the audience is highly unreliable. There are plenty of people out there who just don't have a creative bone in their bodies. Moreover, there are plenty of people who come to the theatre expecting to be passively entertained, which means if they're called upon to contribute in any meaningful way they're at a loss. They may catch on after a few minutes of diving around in their heads (think. Think!) but anyone suddenly thrown into not just an interactive environment, but a proactive role, may find themselves a little overwhelmed.

I think, if I choose to try Lego again, I'll leave it just at that. I'll have my performers prepared with a selection of scenes, or at least mix-and-match roles, that they can jump into when given a relevant set. Last time it called for barnyard activity, industry, espionage, rednecks, and lust, which is a good start. We could throw in scenes concerning retail, outer space, castles, and sporting events just to be on the safe side, but it makes more sense (and speeds processes) to prepare the performers with something they know they can do rather than expect them to come up with something brilliant on the spot.

For my own records, the rest of this post is a list of what audiences wrote--their lines and set titles. Some of the titles include suggestions for what the scene should be about, others are just the places.

Set Titles

Insight Farm
Daisy Duke's Dumpster Den
Donkey's Dockyard
Jaunty Farm. (Find the traveller's baby!)
Plane Train Crane. (the Russians are trying to blow it up!)
Aldwych, London. The Docklands. (Smugglers, Pirates, and the Crown Jewels)
(yet another) Oil Spill
Happy Tower--Retirement Centre to the Stars!
The Cyclops House of Seduction
The Horse with a Chicken on Top and Other Stuff

Lines (Audience--first and last are coupled)

I promised myself I wouldn't cry today.
Yes, I suppose the pool would be best.

I'm the last of my species, actually.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me!

Pluck me, please, treat me like your toy guitar.
He walked in, aghast to find her rolling around in the buff with her goldfish.

Mmm, cauliflower cheese.
You'll have to take me to the cells, officer.

That's a nice shoe emporium.
And other stuff.


Lines (Preset by actors, if audience would rather just select one)

Just because you've taken your top off doesn't mean I'll take you back.

If you've got anything to say, say it now.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

I don't love you any more.

The End.

I'll be back.

This reminds me of a Lady Gaga song.

Wait--if you're here, who's in the car?

So, are we going or not?

Just put the gun down.

I said 20 grams, not 50!

I'm sorry, it's all my fault.

Lautes Licht: Underwater(loo): In Hindsight

Audience-led and designed theatre. The next logical step in the evolution of interactive performance. Good idea?

sorta.

When I set out to study audience interactivity 9 months ago I had no idea that I would be gestating a concept that, while innocent in guise, would disturb me so very much. But here I am, nearly a year later, mother of a form of theatre that gives the audience the power to abuse performers. My performers.

And the scary part is, they use it.

Even perfectly good and generous people take the opportunity to cause harm. Gentle souls enter the room and within moments begin smacking the talent with light, giggling with fiendish glee. Many run, wild-eyed, to grab their friends and show them the sado-masochistic game they've found.

Remember the theme? Red Light Night! A chance for us to act like prostitutes. Most acts were sexy and suggestive dances and acrobatic feats. (or in the case of the March Performance Project, "provocatively tasteful" dances) Lautes Licht, on the other hand, is actually a form of prostitution, so I didn't feel the need to belabour the point by doing anything raunchy.

For the most part, every performance was a completely mundane task. Eating, drinking, running, hopping, putting on make-up, dancing like you would in your kitchen, and so forth. And at low lighting, most of these actions were inoffensive, even pleasant. Recounting a story, munching a loaf of bread, sipping some wine. But if you turned the lights up, it became less enjoyable. She's no longer idly stroking her arm, she's slapping it. Hard. Idly shifting her weight becomes running full-out, sweating, in red spiked heels. Putting on make-up becomes the frantic daubing of a woman who will never be pretty enough for herself.


All the while, the actors stay the course, doing what they're told by the objective power of the light.

I shouldn't feel bad. The actors are not only all competent, talented veterans of this interface, but they came up with their characters and actions themselves. The woman who is alternately bruising her arm and gorging herself on bread not only volunteered for this, she worked hard to develop it in relation to the dramaturgy of the piece. The girl who has set herself the task of jumping in place is only grimacing in pain at high intensity because she wants to communicate to the audience the power they are happily abusing. The actress who is running as fast as she can in heels...demonstrates nothing but commitment to her art.

They set their own limits. They knew what they could do for ten minutes at a stretch. They knew it was hard work but only for one night. They knew. They volunteered. They did exactly what they chose.

Sheez I'm a horrible person.

At the end of the second performance (we had time for 3) we called it off. Believe it or not, not because the actors were exhausted and in pain, but because I didn't trust the audience. Half way through the show they started getting belligerent and stopped contributing to the piece in any meaningful way. (this may have been caused by the venue's refreshment sales, which were primarily alcoholic in nature.) Dimmer operation, which had earlier worked through a sort of bandwagon effect to orchestrate the performance, dissolved into meaningless jerking and flashing. In short, the audience was enjoying it too much.

Patrons began to push into performers' spaces, mocking, mimicking, and eventually even stepping in to replace them when they rotated. One such booze-addled punter occupied the arm-slapper's space and readily picked up where she had left off--gently stroking in the dim, smacking himself hard when it got bright. A train wreck of a woman with heavily shadowed eyes gyrated under the stairs, trying to sexily respond to the light, while a real actress grinned and grimaced overhead.

I really can't tell if this girl wanted to demonstrate to the show creators that she got it, or if she missed the point entirely. Yes, you are behaving like a real prostitute, dear--you're allowing yourself to be manipulated and controlled in a sexual way. Good job! We were demonstrating that point, as well as the harmful effects of submission and abuse of power without grinding our pelvises on the wrought iron, but you're communicating it well too. (Honestly I think she just couldn't pass up an opportunity to subordinate herself to the whims of random strangers, but I'm a little hopeful.)

Some very interesting responses came out during this strangeness, though--audience members' attitudes toward taking the helm were many and various. Allow me to share some direct quotations:

"I fucking love being in control!" (plaid-shirted Australian male)

"I don't want to control it. I'll be too sadistic. I'll just make her run." patron turns light on and watches performer run in heels for about 15 seconds. Turns it off. "See? I'm too cruel." Steps away.

"I was playing for a while, but then she looked so tired I felt bad, so I stopped. But then there was someone else waiting to try. I wanted to stop him." (curvy blonde woman in a short skirt with a silk flower in her hair. Early showing.)

"Check it out--you can make her eat! Shove it in there! Omigod!" (tall man in a band name t-shirt)

"Ow, this really hurts!" (one of four hipsters who had begun smacking themselves in time with the performer.)

"Holy fuck, she just keeps going!" (curvy blonde woman in a short skirt with a silk flower in her hair. Late showing.)

Meanwhile, around the space, dozens of audience members were dancing along with our Chilean, trying to learn his sexy, energetic choreography; in the back men were challenging one another to drink along with the performer at the top of the stairs (who had water in her wine bottle); they were closing in around a performer to listen to her describe, in explicit detail, a date that had gone south when her lover asked her to fuck another man so he could watch. They were, in all honesty, thoroughly engaged. They were also completely trashed.

The most significant reactions, though, were from inactive patrons. While most used at least a brief time to jerk the performers from bright to black quickly while on the boards, while their hands were not occupied, viewers became staunchly defensive of the performers.

"Stop that! You'll hurt her!" "Let him rest--he's exhausted." "What the hell's this about? It's just making me uncomfortable. Why do they keep going?" "If you don't back off she's gonna come over here and smack you."

No. No she isn't. Because that's the point of this little exercise. Given the opportunity to abuse someone with no consequences, you'll take it. Won't you?

The piece gave some people pause to reflect. And many stood in the back or the middle to watch the piece as a whole while others manipulated the board. They sipped their drinks and moved their eyes to each performer in turn, drawing connections among them, writing a story in their heads. They would listen to the stories and watch how they related to the other performers pushing themselves harder and harder to appease the incessant demands of the public.

As soon as they got it, some people felt disgusted--both with the piece and with themselves. I call that success. Others didn't get it, or got it and figured it was still their only shot to command another person so they might as well use it. However it was internalized, it worked, it gave the actors a workout, and it kept me thinking. Not a bad day at work.

Lautes Licht: Underwater(loo)

This Saturday (the 21st) the Lautes Licht team will be working in the tunnels under Waterloo Station for the Old Vic's "Red Light Night." This is a 4 hour arts club immediately following the Tunnels' much-touted "Dark Carnival." It will be a loud and raunchy extravaganza of Red Light District themed-and inspired art, performance, music, and more.

For those familiar with my interpretation of the piece, you may not be surprised to find that I think this could not be a more ideal niche for the show. Lautes Licht is the most disturbing PG-rated piece I've ever created--an opportunity to manipulate and exploit other human beings in an eerily non-sexual way. The cast will be clad in frumpy and comfortable pyjamas and trainers while the audience will likely arrive in corsets and fishnets. This works in my head, in a funny sort of way--hopefully it will come across well for the viewers and operators too. Here are these free people willingly clad in the constrictive, restrictive, and frequently bondage-inspired garb of the sex industry, pulling the puppet strings of perfectly ordinary people in attire usually reserved for Buffy marathons.

Except the performers are actually all professionally beautiful people under the t-shirts and flannel trousers, while the audience is actually comprised of ordinary folks with sensible jobs out breaking the monotony of their daily lives for one deviant night. Audiences are out to be entertained, to escape themselves, and debauchery-themed club nights fill a vital role to that end. If these leather-clad Lady Marmalades were like this all the time everyone in the office would be driven to distraction. Everyone knows they're playing dress-up. But sometimes even your friendly and helpful receptionist needs to glam up and indulge her trashy side in a loud, dark place. It's edgy. It's dangerous. It's a well-researched, medically-endorsed cathartic experience.

Art clubs provide a space for responsible adults to look sexy, think with their genitals, and be bad in a supervised and controlled environment. They're a place to have all the dirty fun you imagined the cool kids were having when you were a teenager, except with less risk of getting caught by your mum, arrested, or pressured into sneaking off with that popular guy who expects a blow-job but thinks pleasing a girl is disgusting and degrading.

The point is, you go to the art club knowing full well that, after spending Sunday nursing an expensive hangover with burnt toast and instant coffee, you'll put your tie on and go back to your real life--the same old responsible, upwardly-mobile you.

It is an ideal place to bring a piece of theatre that requires an audience that is willing to manipulate and unapologetically jerk on willing strangers. Particularly when they get a good look at them and realize that they're being handed beautiful, talented willing strangers to command. Not beautiful like a painted prostitute in a picture window, but beautiful in that wakes-up-with-dribble-and-hair-plastered-to-her-face-and-she's-still-hotter-than-you-with-a-makeover-on-a-thin-day way. Beautiful, in short, in burlap.

They're wearing pyjamas to distinguish themselves from the audience, and to showcase the way manipulation is always disgusting, even when it's in completely mundane ways. And these people you're playing like an accordion? They volunteered for this to show you a side of yourself you may not want to see. But the jammies may serve a more sinister purpose, as a reminder to the false-eyelashed audience that for some, even real life is sexy.

Considerations

"Perfect"
Presented by Theatre With Milk, Please
Dilston Grove Gallery, Southwark Park, London
July 14-16, 2010

A 30-minute exploration of post-feminist theory through the medium of interpretive badminton. While preparing for the game two women contrast themselves and each other against society's unrealistic and often contradictory ideals of feminine perfection.

"Perfect" is a light touch theatrical interpretation of Naomi Wolf's 1989 authoritative text "The Beauty Myth." It gently prods the Big Issues that have surrounded women and girls since antiquity: weight, attractiveness, strength and submission, ownership of sexuality, and the power of religion and men to pit us against one another in our desperate plea to be the best woman, and thereby win.

While it may raise a few eyebrows it does not raise any new questions or attempt to answer extant ones which now plague women more than ever. It simply and artfully demonstrates that the concerns are still current and felt throughout womankind.

The themes expressed are not lost on the audience, and the piece is executed with artistry and precision. But the ending leaves me wondering why. While I do not expect or particularly want theatre to teach, I do want it to offer me something in return for having watched it. I have no patience for that which seeks merely to "Raise awareness." I am aware. I am a woman, and the men in the audience know women too. To suggest that the content of the piece accomplishes or reveals anything new would be to ignore all feminist art and performance of the past century. It left me expecting resolution, suggestion, hope..or even despair. I would have settled for hopelessness if it was your sentiment. But it ended with mere status quo. A return to the outside world.

I'm hesitant to encourage theatre makers to have a clear and distinct idea they want to communicate to audiences when they create a piece. Audiences these days are rarely impressed with the ideas you have to offer, and would rather have the ability to digest that which they see seasoned with their own experiences and inclinations. This is intriguing in a way, but also a useless pain in the ass. The conversation with the audience has begun to follow thus: "This is my idea." say you. "That's a nice idea." says the audience. "do you agree with my idea?" ask you. "Not at all, but it reminded me of something, which I suppose has merit." says the audience. "Oh." say you. "I suppose I'll respect your assessment, or lack thereof. At least I expressed myself." "And at least I got something out of it, even if my interpretation had nothing to do with your intention." smiles the audience, sipping the wine that you really couldn't afford to offer to everyone but did anyway because you felt obligated to (and secretly hoped it would soften any reviewers' comments regarding your piece.)

All that said, you do need to have a point. Otherwise it is just art--meaningless, useless art. Like a still life or :cringe: Cubism. An exercise in intellectual masturbation. A stylized reflection of normal life--just as confusing and devoid of direction, but with better choreography.

Sometimes I really hate theatre. Sometimes I'm in awe of it. I never really feel qualified to do it. Even if I have an idea, a point, a valuable lesson to teach or at the very least cathartic experience to offer--surely everyone else has already done it, and better. I'm a trite old has-been from the moment I set out. And to a great extent I'm not willing to put my personal reputation on the line to learn if my work is worth seeing, or may be someday. I'm a big chicken who doesn't want to establish the point from which I'll progress.

It is with this area of my personality, then, that I can applaud work created by my classmates. Even if it's not great, even if it drags the envelope back a few stages, at least they have the balls to put it out there and get it watched, field critique, and develop from there. So while no, I did not enjoy Perfect, and found that it represented the symptoms of a social concern but did not address the causes, I applaud the fact that they made it and put it out there, a standalone show, a real piece, a real event. It takes guts.

Reflections on recent work

I've been busying myself with lighting lately for several companies who would have otherwise been up a creek. I wish to stress that I have not been these companies' standing designer and had not engaged with their methodologies or artistic foci at any earlier point in the process, so while I did give each show my full attention I was not a full member of their groups. I chose, arranged, hung, focused, and programmed their lights, but ensured that the scenographers within the groups created the looks, timing, and dramatic impact that they believed would best support their pieces. It was a rather awkward position to be in, as the tech/artist/peer trusted to save the day without taking over. Lighting is something I know how to do, but I am neither an expert in nor an enthusiastic student of it.

Which may strike you as funny, seeing as my personal piece is entitled Loud Light.

My focus this year has been on scenography's interactive potential. I don't merely want to immerse the audience in the landscape of the piece, I want to give them the ability to change it, and see what they do with that power. With most scenic elements--set, dressing, props, etc--that has the potential to be very interesting, but very, very expensive. If people think they are invited to break shit, they probably will. (Anyone remember Yoko Ono's Cut Piece?) So a cheap and difficult-to-break alternative is, of course, lighting. You put the instruments in the air, keep the audience away from ladders, and let them screw around with things in a safe and repeatable manner.

And repeatability is no trivial matter. If after the fourth participant has had a swing at it the changeable scenic element is busted beyond repair, or reshaped to something else entirely, it becomes a different artwork. It becomes a study of the object itself, and how it is malleable. To study the audience, you must allow each person to have the same shot at the piece as everyone else. Otherwise each progressive turn is a new and more challenging handicap. So, while perhaps giving the audience Lego bricks, a camera, and a projection screen to make their own set--with the clear instruction that they dismantle everything when they're done--could be a valid option, giving them a pile of lumber, a skil saw, and a nail gun is not. If the actions of one audience member affect the ability of the next person to participate, the freedom to create is compromised. It's not good or bad, it's just a different piece.

I'm going to take an opportunity, if one comes up, to use Lego and a camera to see what kind of scenery the audience creates. I have no idea if it will work like Licht but it might be fun. People do like hands-on performance. They like to feel not only involved, but necessary. And Licht's function hinges on that. While I don't assume this is the future of theatre in the making, I do hope it is engaging. (And I don't think scenic input from the audience will feel too much like the disturbing manipulation I've seen with Licht. It should be fun and light. I hope.)