The main inspiration for my show is from popular solo performer and writer Ursula Martinez. Martinez’s work “fuses theatrical concepts, personal experience and popular forms to create innovative challenging, experimental theatre that is highly entertaining and reflective of our contemporary, post-modern world. At the core of the work is a commitment to exploring humour and what is is to be human” (Martinez, 2016).
Free Admissions:
Martinez’s latest venture sees her building a wall slowly in front of her audience whilst slowly revealing things about herself, “Free Admission, sees Martinez freely share a number of personal details, thoughts, feelings and opinions whilst flippantly constructing a brick wall. With a few breezeblocks and a trowel in hand, she undertakes a half conversation, half musing whilst cavalierly slapping cement onto the ever-growing construction” (Perks, 2016).
Martinez’s work creates “a neat visual summary of the contradictions of Ursula Martinez’s witty, introspective performance. As she literally walls herself in, the simple act of laying bricks is accompanied by unvarnished truths, both harsh and intimate” (Saville, 2016).
“It begins jokily with Martinez admitting some of her personal quirks and insecurities: how she has a bit of a thing about anal hygiene and how she sometimes gets jealous of Catherine Tate, with whom she once shared a stage. Almost every sentence begins with the words “Sometimes I …”, which gives her words a provisional quality and means they can hang in the air like inscrutable Chinese proverbs. Gradually things take an urgent and darker tone, the laughter still bubbles but more uneasily as the wall rises and Martinez’s words are lobbed over the top like unpinned grenades primed to explode” (Gardner, 2016).
The Inspiration:
Ursula Martinez inspired me through the similar use of manual labour within performance. Martinez uses her wall as a metaphor for walling yourself in – a way of containing emotion – however, broke this metaphor by freely admitting to personal thoughts, feelings and experiences whilst building her wall.
I wanted to use my wall in a similar way, I wanted to use the labour aspect of my performance – building the wall – in order to further emphasise the feeling of loss and setting up barriers when explaining that I wanted to become an actor and be free from the traditional social conventions of Rotherham. I also wanted to utilise humour throughout my piece to contrast the performances content whilst also relaxing the audience in to my performance.
Works Cited:
Gardner, L. (2016) Free Admission review – Ursula Martinez bares body and soul. The Guardian, 10 February. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/feb/10/ursula-martinez-free-admission-review-soho-theatre-london
Martinez, U. (2016) Ursula Martinez. [Online] geneclosuit. Available from http://www.ursulamartinez.com/
Perks, D. (2016) Review: Ursula Martinez: Free Admission, Soho Theatre. [Online] A Younger Theatre. Available from http://www.ayoungertheatre.com/review-ursula-martinez-free-admission-soho-theatre/
Saville, A. (2016) Ursula Martinez: Free Admission. Time Out, 10 February. Available from http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/ursula-martinez-free-admission
Leave a comment