Experiments – Billy Cummock Solo 2016

May 4, 2016Billy Cummock No Comments

Billy, Don’t be a hero. – Script first draft.

Billy, don’t be a hero.

Pre-set:

The stage is set out with the feel and look of a construction site. The song ‘There’s no business like show business’ is playing on a radio situated on a step-ladder. There is a small brick wall set out in the centre of the space – it is lit with a spotlight. A bucket turned on its head to one side and another filled with cement to the other – a trowel is sticking handle first out of the cement. A man carrying some sandwiches and a cup of tea walks in to the space in builder’s attire: yellow hard hat, high visibility jacket, workers jeans/trousers and a pair of steel toe capped boots. He sits on the lopsided bucket and begins to eat. A light comes up to reveal his face. He then starts to speak.

Clocking an audience member looking at him.

Eyup. You alright are ya? Been here long? Waiting for som’ing? A show perhaps? A story? Yeah? Fair enough. You may be a little disappointed. (re-consider)

He finishes his sandwiches, takes the last swig of his mug of tea.

Ah!

He puts the mug down and continues building the wall that is already part constructed.

Well, if you’re here for a show then I can say you’re not gonna really get one… but, if you’re here for a story I’ve got a good ‘un, it’s about three Billy’s who needed to escape and found it. I wanted to be an actor. Yeah, I know – fat bastard wants to be on stage – as what? Christopher Biggins body double?

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I studied for it. GCSE, A-level and even a degree. It wasn’t until I reached A-level that I decided I wanted to do it.

I played this old bird called Madame Arcati, medium she was, this clairvoyant weirdo who went with whatever she wanted to. In many respects, she was a lot like me – outgoing, outspoken and a bit of an outsider. I remember playing her – in this big ol’ dress with a stupid turban on. A fucking turban like. I felt like a right dick, but then I walked on stage and forgot all about that.

He picks up the lopsided bucket and starts to mimic Madame Arcati’s mannerisms and speeches talking to the audience as he does.

I’m afraid I’m rather late; but I had a sudden presentiment that I was going to have a puncture so I went back to fetch my pump.

Going over to a member of the audience.

Doctor Bradman! The man with the gentle hands.

Coming out of Madame Arcati’s character. Becoming himself again.

And that was her. Yeah I know, I know. A bit camp. All it needed is for me to chuck my shoes and start singing I am what I am. Anyway, her defining moment was when she was possessed by the ethereal spirit she used for her séances call Daphne and I remember doing it and having to chant the same line over and over again.

Resorts back to Arcati.

Little Tommy Tucker sings for his supper. Little Tommy Tucker sings for his supper. Little Tommy Tucker sings for his supper. Little Tommy Tucker sings for his supper.

AH!

Falls over the wall.

Bollocks! I’m gonna have to crack on really. I’ll carry on with the story but I just need to build this at the same time.

Anyway, performing as Arcati made me see the potential I had in acting. I wanted to break away from the traditional working class jobs tat were set out for people like me in Rotherham. I mean, me dad were a miner, then a mechanic and finally, a plumber. He danced once…not exactly going for CEO of the Arts Council of fuckin’ England.

Before Arcati, me dad didn’t exactly seem overjoyed about me wanting to pursue drama. In fact, he hated it. Always going on about how [in the likeness of his father] “why would you wanna do drama. There’s no money in it. Why don’t you go in to a proper trade?”

He changed his mind once he’d seen me act, changing his mind and proclaiming that I got my talent from him. Fame-hanging Bastard.

My story, in many ways, reminds me of Billy Elliot. We both came from underprivileged working class backgrounds up north, we both wanted to go in to the arts and we both had mining fathers who disapproved until they finally saw our talent.

In the likeness of Billy Elliot’s Dad.

“Ballet! Fuckin’ Ballet. It’s for girls.”

In the likeness of Billy Elliot.

“But what about that Wayne Sleep? He’s as fit as an athlete.”

I could’ve been like Billy Elliot to be fair. A dancer.

Stephen Warbeck’s Royal Ballet School from Billy Elliot plays. Begins to mimic the Billy’s dance in the sports hall – badly.

I always though it were brilliant how he stood up to his dad in that sports hall. Flicking his heels and staring ‘im dead in eyes. Although now I can’t exactly dance – never really could. I just thought I could.

Continues building the wall.

It wasn’t meant to be like this really. I could’ve done it, yeah. If I’d had only believe in myself. I remember doing Site-Specific Performance in 2^nd year. What a load of shite that turned out to be. Listen to this right, I built shelves and got a 2:1. SHELVES FOR FUCKS SAKE. And now here I am building something for the rest of my fuckin’ life. Jesus Christ man. Shite fucking specific… all over again… I’m not bitter about it though.

To be honest with ya I’m just happy I had a chance, you know? I had a chance to be free for 3 years. To do what I want… and it felt good. Really fucking good, like flying or somet like that.

Speaking of flying, and ol’ birds. Kes. Barry Hines and Kes.

A proper Yorkshire man’s story, a proper story about ambition within the working classes.

Billy fuckin’ Casper mate and his bird Kes. A Kestral.

And there’s a speech in there about letting the bird free and it made me think of when I first performed in front of mi dad. I love it. I loved performing and I felt free. And Casper probably describes it best…

Puts on the falconer’s glove. In the likeness of Billy Casper.

The most exciting time was when I let her fly free for first time. I’d been flying kes ont’ creance for about a week, she was coming to me owt up to thirty, forty yards and it says int books that when it’s coming this far, straight away, it’s ready to fly loose. I daren’t though sir. I kept saying to myself, I’ll just use creance today to make sure, then I’ll fly her free tomorrow. But when tomorrow came I did same thing again. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. I did this for about a week than I got right mad with mi’sen ‘cos I knew I’d have to do it someday. So ont last night I didn’t feed her up, just to make sure that she’d be sharp set next morning. I hardly went to sleep that night, I was thinking about it too much.

I wake up and I think right, if she flies off, she flies off, and it can’t be helped. I go down shed. She’s dead keen an all, walking about on her shelf behind bars, and screaming out when she sees me coming. I take her out int field and try her on creance first time and she comes first time an’ she comes like a rocket. I think right this time.

Picks up a stuffed bird and holds it on the glove

Bear with it…

I unclip creance, take swivel off an let her hop ont fence post. There is nowt stopping her now. She just stands there with her jesses on. She can take off and there is nowt I can do about it. I am terrified. I think, she’s forced to go, she’s forced to, she’ll just fly off and that’ll be it. But she doesn’t. she just sits there looking around while I back off int field. I go right int middle, then hold mi glove up and shout her.

COME ON KES. COME ON THEN.

Pause

Nowt happened at first. Then, just as I go walk back to her, she comes. You ought to have seen her. Straight as a die, about a yeard offa floor. Ant speed! She comes twice as fast as when she had creance on, ‘cos it use to drag int grass and slow her down. She comes like lightning, head dead still and her wings never make a sound, then wham! Straight up onto mi glove, claws out grabbing fort meat. I am that please I don’t know what to do with myself. Well, that’s it. I’ve done it. I’d trained her. I trained her.

Returning to himself and continuing building the wall.

And that’s me really. I could’ve done it but I just didn’t. What more can you do? I defied my own past and got into university. I could’ve done something else but I’m doing this.

That’s the joy of coming where I come from. No one really cares where you end up… ‘cause they hated you guts in the first place.

Continues building the wall.

I’ll si’thi later then.

The lights go down. Billy, Don’t Be A Hero begins to play.

May 1, 2016Billy Cummock No Comments

Self-Loathing or Self-Loving? The influence of Shia Labeouf.

Running for your life.
(From Shia Labeouf.)
He’s brandishing a knife.
(It’s Shia Labeouf.)
Lurking in the shadows
Hollywood superstar Shia Labeouf.
Living in the woods,
(Shia Labeouf.)
Killing for sport,
(Shia Labeouf.)
Eating all the bodies
Actual, cannibal Shia Labeouf.

(Robcantor, 2014)

Shia Labeouf, performance artist or self indulgent idiot clinging to his last shreds of fame? At the premier of his new movie Nymphomaniac, Shia Labeouf arrived on the red carpet wearing a paper bag over his head; he was dressed in usual red carpet premier attire all with the addition of a paper bag that simply read “I am not famous any more”. Since that faithful day Labeouf has collaborated with two artists Luke Turner and Nastja Rönkkö creating unique (and some not so unique) pieces of performance art.

Methodology: MetaModernist Manifesto

Labeouf’s methodology is based on his and Turner’s own manifesto which has been labeled as the Metamodernist Manifesto. Through it the aim of the work is to “recognise oscillation to be the natural order of the world” (Turner, 2011) to which the interpretation suggests a lateral movement forward and backward. The manifesto’s aim is to use it’s art in order to break away from the lateral movement that Labeouf and Turner see as the natural order. Their aim is to make art that is both exciting and ground breaking.

#IAMSORRY

This performance was born out of criticisms about a short film which Labeouf produced called Howard Cantour.com. Viewers remarked that Labeoufs work held similarities to comic writer Daniel Clowe’s Ghost World. The performance played on this plagiaristic mentality, with Labeouf’s performance seemingly borrowing concepts from Marina Ambramović and Yoko Ono. The Performance consisted of a participant coming in to the gallery and choosing an object on the table and then taking the object and a bowl of 100 paper segments bearing writing. They then sat in front of Labeouf. The participant can do whatever they want, most would read the writings on the paper which consisted of tweets about the actor. Some of the tweets criticised Labeouf and others praised him.“a third-rate imitation of the works of Abramović or Yoko Ono” (Jones, 2014) it was said that “#IAMSORRY [was] reminiscent of a more recent tradition of performance art that started in the early 1970s and replaces the sadism of the surrealists with a masochism in which the performer is a victim” (Ibid.)
It is alleged that one participant raped him during the performance although this is under speculation.

#INTRODUCTIONS

A performance based upon submissions from students at Central Saint Martins University in London. Labeouf, Turner & Rönkkö “requested that the students send a piece of text to introduce each of their works, to be presented during a live stream broadcast during the degree show opening. They stated that this text could be “as poetic, abstract or literal as you like – with the emphasis on expressing the feeling and tone of the work being introduced.” (Jones, 2015)

#ALLMYMOVIES

Labeouf rented out the Angelika Film Center, New York for a movie marathon. It consisted of 29 films over 3 days – the films only had one real similarity. They all starred Labeouf (obviously) with the main focus of the performance to live stream of Labeouf’s face during the whole endeavour.

Throughout the performance there was a herd mentality of emotion when watching the films with audience members sharing the same feelings and expressions that Labeouf shared towards his own movies when re-watching. The reactions were likened to an “experience of emotional empathy or, as Rönkkö puts it, ‘synching of emotions’ to contagious yawning” (Stansfield, 2015).

On the significance of their work:

“LaBeouf and his collaborators discuss the elitism of the art world. However, as LaBeouf asserts, it’s an attitude prevalent in the film industry too. The movie world is just as elitist. I get emails from people in the movie world, people telling me, ‘You gotta maintain mystery.’…but truth will always find its way out there. Sincerity is the new punk rock.

On his emotions following the performance:

“I walked out loving myself,” he says. “Not in some grandiose, you’re fucking awesome way, but in like, you’re a part of a community. You’re a part of this human thing. You’re in this human thing. I’ve always felt as though, ‘I’m just an animal in this human thing. And I’ll play the human game. I’ll wear the human mask.’ But coming out of there, it’s the first time I’ve actually felt part of this — it was very humanizing for me. (Stansfield, 2015)

What I learned from Shia Labeouf

Whilst researching the merits of Labeouf’s solo work I came to figure out (quite early on) that Labeouf’s works included himself as the pure centre even though he collaborates with two other artists. Now, when discussing this with other’s I found that the general population decided that Labeouf’s work was more of that of self indulgence rather than of any real art. This made me think about what art truly was. When compared to other performance artists and solo performers is Labeouf the lesser? or is he merely stigmatised because he was already famous before he began this endeavour? In accordance with most Solo performers autobiography can naturally come to the forefront of performance – Abramovic’s work explores the limitations of the body but at the same time it only explores the limitations of her own body as she cannot not possibly be a model for all human life.

In conclusion, Labeouf’s work has taught me that self indulgent performance art is no more damaging and no less educational that performance art that tries to steer itself away from an indulgent nature. I will be bearing this in mind when I go on to write the script for my performance and shone away any feelings of making my performance overly personal because when it is just you and the audience… it’s personal.

Works Cited:

Jones, C R. (2015) Shia LaBeouf is about to introduce your grad show. Dazed Digital. 26 May. Available from http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/24842/1/labeouf-ronkko-and-turner-are-introducing-the-csm-grad-show

Jones, J. (2014) Shia LaBeouf’s #IAM SORRY: art is often violent, but nothing can excuse rape. The Guardian. 1 December. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/dec/01/alleged-rape-of-shia-labeouf-is-inexcusable-but-so-is-bad-art

Labeouf, S. (2015) #INTRODUCTIONS. [Online Video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqHVMNjP0QA [Accessed March 1st 2016]

Labeouf, S. Rönkkö, N & Turner, L. (2016) The Campaign Book. [Online] Available from http://thecampaignbook.com/ [Accessed March 5th 2016]

Robcantor (2014) “Shia Labeouf” Live – Rob Cantor. [Online Video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u4M6vppCI [Accessed 23rd March 2016]

Turner, L. (2011) Metamodernist Manifesto. [Online] Available from http://www.metamodernism.org/ [Accessed March 5th 2016]

Stansfield, T. (2015) Shia LaBeouf speaks out about #ALLMYMOVIES. Dazed Digital. 17 November. Available from http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/28444/1/shia-labeouf-speaks-out-about-allmymovies

February 12, 2016Billy Cummock No Comments

“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.

February 12, 2016Billy Cummock No Comments

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:

Create a piece of art.
Destroy a piece of art.
Write a short review of a show.
Have sex.
Roll 5 cigarettes.
Play hangman.
Tell a convincing lie about yourself.
Perform a monologue – “To be or not to be” etc.
Practice holding your breath.
Recite a sonnet. “my mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” etc.
Drink a pint of beer.
Tell someone about your day.
Watch a video.
Sing a song.
Do a presentation on the current war in Iraq.
Read aloud a page of a book.
Mug/Rob someone.
Offend the women in the audience.
Attack a man’s ego effectively.
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.