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.