Apocryphal Theatre Blog

BJ

I was looking at my face in the mirror, my talent, waiting for it to turn into shapes, to give me some inspiration to write, and the boy with the hat came into the room behind me.  He watched me watching myself.  I glanced at him and glanced back.

He took my notebook and pen, the sacred tools of my talent, and wrote in tribute to Whitney Houston’s tribute to Dolly Parton ‘I will always love you’ and drew a heart around it.

It was then that I felt like magic, as he leant the message against the mirror to face me. 

I had a fan at last.

 

The bowing and praying gesture really got to me, it was no longer about me ‘worshiping’ Morrissey, it was my need to devote my self to something other, some presence larger than me.  Somewhere I could lose my self in someone’s larger self.  It opened up the old wound: am I enough on my own? and suddenly I connected to the grid.

BJ

I am invisible
Without your celebrity
To bathe in

Fill this emptiness
With your fame

Recognition makes me safe…

Hi there, just back from our durational performance/installation after one week R&D at Rose Bruford.  Will write more – as will others from the company – about that event but wanted to encourage anyone who did come along, to share your thoughts about it with us (you can comment on this blog post for example).  We were heartened by how many of you came along and now have a lot of ideas for how to move the work forward.

Also, anyone following this blog, your ideas are welcome too, and I apologize if anyone was looking for live webstream as a technical problem with WiFi access made that impossible.  We have learned a lot today and one of those things is to take care of our own WiFI access better – to limit audience members into an installation (we had close to 100 people the first hour and then much more manageable numbers after that) and that theatre students respond differently to an installation/durational performance than art students.  All of these things are painfully obvious in retrospect, but go to show why making work public in its early stages is incredibly valuable…so a shout out to Prof. Nesta Jones at Rose Bruford for inviting us in for the week and letting us experiment in her house.

More photos (amazing photos) from Birthe Jorgensen will follow.  I also hope posts from other company members will follow as we all saw/heard and experienced different things as the space was divided into 8 discreet areas, and where there were video monitors, they showed what was going on in separate rooms, there was an intentional sense of dislocation, that wherever you were, there could be something more interesting, more intriguing Elsewhere and the only way to stop that anxiety was ironically, to sit still in any one place – these included an audience seating area, a room with sofa and mic for interviews and rants, a dark room with props to perform stage directions read from another room, three small dressing rooms which were installations and performance areas and a public dressing room where players changed and Birthe conducted many private photo shoots.  Those who paid attention, sat still and also performed tasks suggested on signs posted throughout the space seemed to have the best time.

JLB

BJ

Below is the structure we have created for tomorrow (Monday’s) durational performance at Rose Bruford College.  We have never created a durational work before so this is a very real experiment.  As part of this structure, we will have a solo show room where people can enter privately and do something in front of our live webstream.  That will happen from 1:30-4:30pm and can be seen at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/because-then-i-would-be-safe-webstream.  We have no idea if anything will be happening in there or not or if so what will transpire, so be aware you may log in and find an empty chair but something cool may be happening as well as we continue to look at where the intensely private and public come together to change our ideas of privacy forever.  And finally, the glitch that made it impossible for people to leave comments has finally been solved, so if you want to leave a comment here, please do and apologies if you tried and could not earlier….We are on a steep learning curve here at Luddite Central…

Structure for ‘Because then I would be safe’:

1-hour cycle that will happen 3 times:

1. Begin by finding ‘celebrity within’ gesture – take as much time as you need for this – can create brand new one (ideal) or work on one you’ve already done – and take through levels of address: to yourself, to each other, to the audience, to the grid. Find emblem of gesture that can be done with ‘stalker’ game. Make sure before getting into place for ‘stalker’ that you have contacted the grid.

1. Stalker – using celebrity within gestures – have to wait for everyone to be in place, so decide in advance where you will each be to begin. Once everyone in place, (you will know by counting off) then begin.
   1. Do ‘stalker’ once around the loop
   2. Do gestures again but move to space to do group dance:

i. 1^st cycle: Madonna (sitting room)

ii. 2^nd cycle: Alicia Keys (interview room)

iii. 3^rd cycle: Beyonce (changing room)

Then make your own trajectory through these gestures (if they involve another person you need to agree in advance what your cue is to get there):

- Your talent gesture / What you would sell / What you are famous for – do these as a cycle – let them be as long or slow as you like – maybe repeat a couple times with different levels of address/presence. In the midst of this cycle, you can become still and pose and witness from there.

- Celebrity gestures: what talent/what sell/what famous for – as with your talent gestures, let take the time it takes – cycle around perhaps more than once and shift levels of presence/address.

- Mix your talent and celebrity gestures with ‘celebrity within’ gesture

- Monologues – Karla, Danielle and Zoe do respective monologues – separately or together (and interfering/cutting up with each other).

- Lucy & Danielle in sitting room gossiping with magazines (also doing product placement whilst being irrestistably face)

- Photo shoot: in preparation room photo shoot with entourage – Dolce and Gabbana ad…perhaps recreating photos on wall? Birthe should be involved with camera, but if you have iPhone or camera with phone you can try this too.

After an hour, Alyssa will tell Karla and she will embrace everyone, which is a cue to repeat cycle from the top – all of above is affected by below wildcards/interferences and actions

Wildcards/interferences/pauses:

- Interview room: When you see someone is on the sofa, you should interview them (suggested questions will be near by – you can interview each other or audience…maybe audacious audience member will interview you or each other)

- Stage directions: when someone reads stage directions in interview room, they need to be executed by whoever is closest in darkroom

- If you see Bill, who will be moving around and attempting to hide in space for whole 3 hours, you need to try to hide (can be metaphorical or literal)

- If you see a task posted, you must do it (the first time you see it, but you don’t have to repeat it if you run into it again). Audience will be invited to also perform tasks when they see them as well.

- Reaction/response said out loud in corridors (structural, including curtains) – if you are overwhelmed with reaction/response somewhere else and verbalize it, then go to nearest corridor and stand still for 1 minute.

- Stillness – at any point can stop and be still where you are

- Witness/relax – going to sitting area, can get some water/food, sit and watch/generally take audience POV. Witnessing can happen anywhere and also include still moments or during actions.

- Witness/support/disrupt/ignore – be aware of your relationship to each other and ‘the rules’ when doing actions.

- You can always allow each others’ gestures to affect you and maybe even change yours, once you feel yours have been established. You can also allow audiences responses/gestures affect you, maybe taking some of them on as well.

- If you speak with audience at any time, attempt to do product placement – and do it a little too much…making visible what happens unconsciously – also use the opportunity to start a trend.

Events happening simultaneously:

1. Julia will sometimes go to mic and ask questions about celebrity and/or read writing from celebrity journal or blog or transcripts, etc. Others, including audience, can do this too.
2. Players/audience can create ‘solo show’ in dressing room with webstream – suggest each player do monologue there (Victoria Beckham, Nina, Hamlet, etc…) Will be a few costume bits and pieces there to be used. Audience will be asked to tell person on door with programs (Ginnie, Alyssa or me) that they are interested in solo show slot so we can know who is in there and can chance sign from ‘unengaged’ to ‘engaged’.
3. Birthe will be taking photos when not directly engaged in exercise (her choice to come in and out). She will at different times engage in ‘camera dance’ (what she and Lucy discovered during Feldenkrais work) with you and perhaps audience as well.
4. Boris will be shifting lighting, sometimes from lighting board, sometimes in space and sometimes, as with stalker (if he wants to create celebrity within gesture) will be part of direct structure.
5. Julia will be moving between the door, helping along solo show and sometimes at mic with various texts/questions.
6. Bill will be dressed as celeb with sunglasses and always remain out of reach, maybe seen for a moment but never fully, but always in room. He may also attempt tasks he reads whilst doing this.
7. Attempt to start a trend – some kind of continual copying and then awareness when it has shifted – see how much you can get audience involved.

ROOM names and levels of presence:

Sitting room – off-stage on-stage secular-sacred

Interview room – personal on-stage secular

Dark room –sacred personal offstage

Changing room – warm-up on-stage secular

Preparation room – personal warm-up secular-sacred

Solo Show room – personal on-stage sacred-secularized

Transformation room – personal off-stage sacred

Corridors – on-stage off-stage secular sacred

TASKS that will be placed around the room for audience or players

Ask someone to accompany you to one of the small dressing rooms.

Make a confession to someone in the interview room.

Stand in the light.

Sit still for 5 minutes and look at yourself in the mirror

Sit still in silence for 5 minutes and pay attention to what you see, sense and hear rather than your thoughts.

Listen.

Follow someone without being noticed. Take on one of their gestures.

Speak into the microphone using text on music stand.

Allow yourself to be changed.

Hide and listen.

Revisit a space 3 times.

Follow 1 player for a while.

Which celebrity do you grudgingly feel drawn towards? Ask to be changed into him/her.

Pick your spots

Imagine yourself as Britney Spears

Imagine you are a celebrity. What would you do differently here?

Do one of these tasks:

Sing Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ into the microphone

Eat your lunch

Take off your make up…and then redo it.

Do one of these tasks:

Fashion yourself a ‘Pob’.

Wash your hair in the sinks

Swap clothes with a friend

Do one of these tasks:

Phone your Mum/Dad/siblings/best friend/agent/worst enemy and tell them that you love them

Cry

Drink and keep drinking until you need to use the bathroom

Do one of these tasks:

Present your own TV show

Give a political speech

Envision your own perfume

Talk to a stranger

Hi there to anyone reading this blog for the first time.  I realize how to comment is not as clear as it could be, as you need to press the button ‘no comments’ to comment first…in any case, if you are reading this and want to give us any feedback, please feel free as it is all wildly useful to us now.  Today we are structuring our installation/durational performance for Monday at Rose Bruford.  Whilst this is intended for students at the College as part of their in-house symposium, if this project intrigues you, you can contact me at julialeebarclay@yahoo.com about a possible guest ticket.  Thanks for back-channel comments, and again, please feel free to post any future ones as well!

Another title we began to consider yesterday was ‘If we were important’ which resonated with my experience in A&E the day before – kept wondering, would I be treated differently if I were important?  Ie, a celebrity, wealthy, a politician, etc… Who do which rules apply to in this world?  In UK, with NHS, care is much for equitable than in US but also there is a kind of decision making that is clearly influenced by class, who says what to whom, etc.  Is this why the young man thought he would be safe if he were famous?  Perhaps he was right?

The question is: who is important?  How do they get treated?  How about the rest of us?  Why is this?  We create the world, so why have we created it this way?  And if we don’t like it, why do we tolerate it?

BJ

This photo shows why I was not at rehearsal yesterday and was only at part of one today – on route yesterday fell down in front of London Bridge and had to be carted off to A&E.  Very embarrassing and kinda scary.  Now worst thing is tiredness and getting sympathy stares from people who are convinced I am in an abusive relationship.  If I was male would it be seen this way?  Vanity can be more painful than pain…

Blogging more later but good news is, as visible from blog, work proceeded without me and will be putting structure together  tomorrow for installation/durational performance on Monday…and tonight, to sleep….