A couple of things.
First of all, what's with the lab coats? You walk in and Maiko, Jaime and Chris Nelson are standing there wearing lab coats and holding clip boards. It just seems so unnecessary, so obvious and so patronizing to the audience. Oh, you're scientists! I get it. Zzzzzzz. No, you're not scientists, you're theatre gaylords.
I love the project, I just don't think it needs all the extra fixings. I feel it reveals a lack of faith in the fact that they as theatre practitioners are legitimate social researchers, they don't have to force us to think of them as scientists.
But, why not? Why pretend to be scientists when you can actually BE scientists by approaching the work with some of the chops a social scientist might. Which they do. A little. But if they were really scientists I think the exploration could be more specific and the quantitative connections between the boxes more refined. But I was only able to catch 3. I feel like there's another conceptual level that's missing. And trying to wrap it all up in cheesy lab coats just won't cut it.
And then all the acting. Good acting. But acting nonetheless. In their promo stuff they talk about "intimacy" but being intimate with the audience is more than seating them close enough to smell what you ate for lunch. It requires exposing some vulnerability both in the performance and in the creation. And these, like pretty much all shows, was an airtight affair with no room for any real intimacy. I feel strongly that if your gonna perform in my lap then you should be open to my participation. But here were slick, beautiful, little pieces, often slightly expressionistic or something, cleanly memorized and recited by the actor. The text was taken from real interviews but had been tinkered with too much to get a satisfying sense of the real person behind the performance. Again, I think another lack of faith is revealed. A lack of faith in the potential for their subject's unadulterated stories to be interesting. Less would have been much more.
But formally, the things were great. It was very much like watching a huge budget show. Fantastic effects and lots of mesmerizing Magic of Theatre. What show wouldn't benefit from a budget that would allow for babies to drop from the grid, sand to pour from the ceiling and walls to be crumbled in front of us? All that was gorgeous. But, like I said about the Electric Company offering at Hive, I want to be dazzled AND moved.
I offer these criticisms with the understanding that I think Theatre Replacement's work is among the 2% of theatre actually worth talking about and is, therefore, excellent. But within the narrow band of excellence I think there's still lots of work to be done.
PS: after hassling Maiko about the lab coats, she hassled me about the shirt I was going to wear for A Free Show for the People of Pakistan at the PCC and I realized that she was right and I changed it. Now, let's get back to talking about those lab coats....
6 comments:
Okay, I see...So you just wanna get everybody in on this thing. Well, good for you. That's good social acupuncture, or whatever. Here I am.
So maybe the labcoats are a bit much. It's something we're trying for this first round. I like them for a couple reasons, which yes, yes you told me were not satisfying to you. And your point about theatre practitioners as LSR's is true.
But here's the bottom line. Because I don't wanna spend all day on this thing. There is a small area where Theatre Replacement's work perhaps crosses into or delves into social acupuncture, but then there is a huge mountain or gap between our work and your work, and that's just fine. You see, we still LIKE theatre. Call us GAYLORDS, or whatever, but where you would opt to stick with the actual people people and not theatricalize it further, we merely chose to do something else. We are still making theatre, we hope. Some could argue that Q & A is lacking a conceptual level, something that would make it both entertaining AND moving. Tomato tomato.
While I'm a big fan of you, our work is clearly different. We still ACT, we put things in theatres, we build sets, and we like flashy lights sometimes. What can we do. If all else fails, think of the lab coat as this: a COSTUME. Remember what that is? Or was that flashy vest you wore not one of those.
That being said, I hope A Free Show for the People of Pakistan killed.
I loved the boxes but felt as did Darren that the finished quality of the performances replicated conventional performer/spectator relationships. There were a couple of moments when performers physically touched me, sometimes accidentally (knees and feet), sometimes deliberately (handling objects etc.) and these moments were interestingly uncomfortable as if the code was being tested. Maybe I'm just yearning for more influence like a lapsed actor. I wanted the performer to respond to ME, to incorporate MY presence not me as generic audience....and I mean more than just switching languages. I still loved them though.
This is Neil Cadger speaking by the way. Can't seem to log on.
Welcome Maiko,
You say you "still like theatre" as if there's only one way to do theatre. I like theatre too but feel that most work is locked into certain conventions and assumptions that need to be questioned.
of course our work is different but my comments are not about that difference, I'm just talking about what I don't like about Bioboxes.
Sure, some could say that Q&A lacks something conceptually but nobody has. Would you like to? Bring it on. And back it up. I think Q&A is conceptually pretty close to seamless which is not to say that it's not sometimes boring, awkward or stupid. But conceptually, it's pretty complete. The only flaw I see is that it requires the host (me and Naomi) to decide when an interview is finished and to coach the previous interviewee how to choose the following subject. I would love if it it just flowed naturally.
The vest is a great example. It's not a costume, as such, it doesn't try to convince the audience I am someone/thing other than who I am. In the video clips I used, you see someone give it to me as a gift and, in the show, I just put it on. So it's doesn't function as a costume but, rather, serves to create connections and resonance between the past and the present, between that which happened and that which is happening. I'm not pretending anything.
Will you marry me?
Yes! I felt it the same way. The Labcoats reminded me of a bad MFA project I saw in 1999. I didn't see the point, other than maybe they liked dressing up in costumes. Which is half the reason I got into theatre.
sorry i deleted my last comment cause it didn't make sense. what i meant to say was:
I think the point was that they wanted to present a dissection of their subjects lives. the heads were chopped off the bodies and we got to explore the inside of the head. It's was a lab to study these lives. And thus the lab coats. I just think that that is over-stating it. Again it's the shift from telling to showing to being. They showed us - which is an improvement from telling us but why not simply accept the fact that they are researchers and leave it be. The costumes become a redundancy, like they have to make sure we get it. But i think the piece is clear in that respect. we get it.
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