Posted on No Comments on “All the bar’s a stage” – Characters.

“All the bar’s a stage” – Characters.

Solo performance can be both narrative and non-narrative, containing characters that help tell the story. Narrative performance can rely on these characters in order to hold up a mirror to an audience and how the world around them functions – e.g. a portrayal of a drunk character who is only misogynist when he is intoxicated could force an alcoholic to rethink his addiction to alcohol.

Other uses for characters can be to tell stories to an audience in order to contextualise the performers objective – a performer who portrays his father can show the audience exactly what kind of a man they had to grow up with. When thinking about this in mind I decided to explore the character element by showing the audience what kind of people I work with.

This began as an experiment, standing in front of an audience and performing the three different people you can encounter when working behind a bar: the first being the type of woman who gets annoyed at being asked for I.D. when they don’t pass for 21. The second being a Liverpudlian chef that ‘flew off the handle’ when an item on the menu had to have a slight change – e.g. swapping carrots for peas The third and final being a drunken Scottish fellow who propositioned the barmaids whilst they were on duty.

This exercise allowed me to see the importance of giving context and animating characters on stage in order to create an atmosphere the audience could feel relaxed in. From this I took myself another inspiration of paralleling the use of characters you meet in a bar against another familiar forum people know – the “all the world’s a stage” speech from As You Like It.

Using this as a stimulus for my characters I created the following parody of the speech:

All the bar’s a stage
and all the men and maids merely servers.
They have their exits and their entrances,
and one man in his time sees many parts.
The Acts being seven stages,
at first the infant drunk –
mewling and puking over toilet bowl.
The the whining school boy with his I.D.
and best birthday badge, creeping like
snail shy to the bar.
The lover-chefs – flaming like grill with
angry ballads made to work on
christmas day. and then the manager –
full of strange oaths and bearded like santa
jealous of youth and quick in quarrel.
Next, the justice in full round belly and good capon lined,
with eyes severe and mouth to match. And
so he sees these parts, the sixth age shifts
into lean and slippered old regular, with
spectacles on nose and wallet close to hide.
His youthful hose, well saved for a pint to find.
For his shrank shank and big manly voice, turning again towards
childish treble, groans and moans in his stride.
Last scene of all, that ends this strangely typical time
is second childishness and mere oblivion.
Sans speech, Sans sight, Sans legs.
Sans everything.

Through this I wish to be able to create a relaxed atmosphere in which I can show these characters through a familiar theatrical forum of Shakespeare. In hope to find out whether paralleling Shakespeare and autobiography could convey and contextualise the story I want them to hear.

Posted on No Comments on Time is of the essence – Audience Participation.

Time is of the essence – Audience Participation.

Time is complicated.

In order to develop ideas for shows and ways in which certain subjects can be approached in performance I took the idea of time in order to use an ambiguous subject in order to create a narrative for a show. Utilising this subject allowed me a freedom to experiment with audience participation.

When thinking about time I realised how finite the time we have is, such as the grand journey of life is but a simple blip in the four hundred thousand years that humanity and humans have existed. I decided in that sense to create a performance where the audience would learn for themselves how finite it is.

I started by compiling a list of things a person could in a five minute time frame. This is what I came up with:

Things you can do in five minutes:

  1. Create a piece of art.
  2. Destroy a piece of art.
  3. Write a short review of a show.
  4. Have sex.
  5. Roll 5 cigarettes.
  6. Play hangman.
  7. Tell a convincing lie about yourself.
  8. Perform a monologue – “To be or not to be” etc.
  9. Practice holding your breath.
  10. Recite a sonnet. “my mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” etc.
  11. Drink a pint of beer.
  12. Tell someone about your day.
  13. Watch a video.
  14. Sing a song.
  15. Do a presentation on the current war in Iraq.
  16. Read aloud a page of a book.
  17. Mug/Rob someone.
  18. Offend the women in the audience.
  19. Attack a man’s ego effectively.
  20. Tell people all the things you can do in five minutes.

I decided that this alone could be a performance much like that of Spalding Gray. A series of points on a piece of paper in order to trigger immediate responses from my own pre-written text. This in turn would take the audience on a journey through a finite period of time and all the things you can/cannot do within that time constraint.

Moving forward from this idea I decided that it could be more beneficial for an audience if they were to try these things themselves with the performer, myself, as a medium to help them create these instances. Through this method I would be able to show the audience not what I can do in that period of time but what everyone can do in that period of time.

This process allowed me to understand the importance of audiences and their potential to contribute to a performance as much as the solo performer does themselves – in turn the audience and performer would form a ‘double act’ on stage maximising the understanding and lasting impact the show can have.