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.