by Jiv Parasram

Rumble

I recently came out of a workshop on the development of a new project. It’s quite multi-disciplinary, with the key artists being - as you might expect - from different disciplines (Theatre, Opera, Contemporary Music). Something that often comes up for us when we work together is talking about how things are done in our respective disciplines, and also how we tend to personally do things differently or not. It’s a lot of learning for me each time we work, and I remain grateful for the questions it makes me return to that I might not otherwise: Why are we doing some things that way? Is that normal? Is that safe? Is this a process thing right now, or just something in the form?

Shortly after - the next day actually - I found myself speaking to a room full of students at the University of the Fraser Valley. Again, distinctions between form and process came up. In this case, I was trying to explain the difference between presentational theatre, and performance art. In both - there is rarely a ‘fourth wall’ division between audience and performer, the performance is premeditated (at least conceptually), and both can include audience participation or not. Besides the framing that one may be in a gallery, and another in a theatre, is there much of a difference? The thing that the students picked up on, was that I kept saying one was ‘real’ and the other was not. Understandably, they were curious as to what I meant by that. I suppose I was too.

What I meant was that Theatre tends to simulate realities through the use of theatrical techniques and symbolism. Performance art is actually happening - perhaps what is happening is not quite what it looks like to the viewer, but there is a real impact. The example I gave was of a Norwegian Performance Artist I’d once seen on video. Regretfully I couldn’t find his name, but the image remains clear for me. In this performance, he sat in an opened freight container. Inside the container was a stark, but “lived-in” living room, or studio apartment. He proceeded to slit his wrists, set the place on fire, and remain in the burning container for some time bleeding out before the performance was over. Now, he did ‘slit his wrists’ safely I should say. Piercing the flesh and bleeding, but he was careful not to actually hit a major vein. I don’t know for sure, but looking at the way the furniture burned, I also suspect some of it was flame proofed. I don’t know that for sure though. It was a video, I wasn’t there, and I can’t even remember his name to look him up. The main point I wanted to make though, in this rather extreme example, was that in theatre- we wouldn’t actually cut through any flesh at all; we’d probably just use make-up.

The question that I’m interested in however - is what exactly we call ‘real.’ Though the ‘slit wrists’ example was useful for the students, they made a good point poking some holes in my half-baked argument. If the experience of the audience at a theatre show is evoking emotions - aren’t those emotions real? If the play itself puts forward a type of representation that has never been seen on a Vancouver stage before - is not that political action real?

Perhaps what I actually mean is that one lives in the world of symbolism, and the other lives in both the tangible world and symbolic world. Theatre, in this case, would be the completely symbolic medium. To take this further and think it through a bit more - I want to consider where theatre lives in relation to mediums like dance or music. In both dance and music, what you are seeing is most definitely happening. Someone is playing that violin, they are pressing down on the bridge, they are using the bow. In dance, someone is actually holding a suspension, moving that fast - or that slowly - changing their rhythm in front of you. In theatre - is someone actually crying in front of you?

This line of thinking starts to open up a larger question of style, aesthetic, even taste. I’m sure there’s a plethora of further distinctions to be found in even simply those vague examples of music and dance I just gave - but I’m a theatre guy so I’m going to be more discerning and obsessive with the form I spend my time in.

The thing is, I think Theatre can be real. I think that that person can be crying in front of you. And while I see the validity in that type of craft - It’s just not really my taste, or preference that it be so. I am more interested in the type of theatre in which someone is not really crying, rather they are communicating that the character is crying. This helps me stay focussed on the story rather than actually having to worry about the person made to cry on stage. That’s just me though. But sometimes I wonder if it’s because I’m desensitised to emotional response.

Something we may take for granted in Theatre is the normalization of mining one's own experiences for story. Every art form draws on the experience of the creator, but theatre is quite free with it. Beyond simply diving into sense memory, theatre asks us to also add a kind of compartmentalization to the memories we are mining. We might seek love, and if we are working with sense memory - we are not seeking the circumstances of a specific love - but rather the affective physiological or psycho-somatic responses. From there we may determine how to either simulate and recreate it (crying in front of an audience) or evoke it (communicating crying to an audience). This is a major part of the artform, I feel. And not just for actors - though certainly it is their body and nervous system on display so perhaps most dramatically seen through them. While I don’t seek an ‘authentic’ or ‘real’ moment from actors when I am working as a director, or writer - I do seek one in myself. I’ve often come back to a constant truth for myself that if I have not wept during the creation process whether writing a script or achieving a stage image - the piece is not ready. I’m not talking about waterworks and snot fountains necessarily, but sometimes a moment of beauty occurs and it might cause tears for a moment, and then it's gone. That’s what I try to find in myself, and hope that we create the conditions for an audience to also find it in themselves too, each night. But the freedom and regularity to which I engage in that process is perhaps more unusual than I have considered before.

The combination of working with other disciplines and working with young people beginning to study and practice theatre in a major way has made me think that the best way I can describe what exactly theatre artists do best is to say: “Hey, check out my inner child. Let me just punch him in the face for you for a while. Is that good? You getting that? More or less punching? And like…stage left or more centre?” It’s not that this is specific to only Theatre, but we’re really good at it. It’s a bit of a super power to be able to feel the emotion without having to re-live the moment from which it’s sourced. A real ability to disassociate - and perhaps re-associate. It’s probably very counter to what people are trying to achieve in therapy… but maybe that’s why so many theatre artists go into counselling - we’re already kind of doing it -albeit the wrong way - but have usually developed coping strategies if not healthy boundaries.

So is that real? I still think no. Indeed, in rehearsal we might create the situation to beat down that inner child and find that pure emotional moment (though that’s not a process I would recommend personally), by the time the audience is there, a safe container should have been established to simulate that moment. When that container cannot be made, but we still keep it in the show - that is when we put forward exploitative and extractive modes of performance. And so, theatre, I think, should not be real. Perhaps its process should draw on real things, perhaps the artists need to draw on real emotional memories in that process, but what we put forward for an audience should not be real. Because if what we are watching is reality, wouldn’t we be using our artform to normalize passivity or indifference?  I don’t think I want to use the artform to make it acceptable to watch someone actually suffer, and do nothing but think about it. But if we are simply demonstrating suffering, that’s ok to intellectualize, that’s ok to take the opportunity to practice living in the discomfort of that moment; because when we have practised holding the discomfort we are not too overwhelmed or shocked to offer help.