New Ground-Breaking, Gut-Punching Theatre / UK and Everywhere

Let the madness begin!

2006-06-27T11:20:00.000-07:00

Hello world, this is the first time that I've ever written one of these because I'm ever so slightly technophobic but I'll try my hardest not to bore you...or give your computer a virus for that matter.

So our final drama school shows are over and apart from a couple of pesky essays (one of which is due in two days, hence my newfound desire to write on the company blog) we are now officially out of work actors/director/designer. We face the pretty daunting challenge of making our show strong enough to face/amaze the public and press at Ed. We've been lucky enough to get one of the best Edinburgh venues and we are constantly being told that with a high profile venue comes a responsibility to be good! A close friend of mine who has a very important job in a very important theatre told me that if we're good our careers will rocket and if we're bad we may never work again - bring it on!

We are intending to rehearse constantly throughout July (providing we can find rehearsal space!) so I'm guessing, depending on how rehearsals go, that from now on you'll either see a lot more or a lot less posts on this blog!

Bun Sale

2006-06-25T01:20:00.000-07:00

And now, our newest Apprentice-style challenge?

A BAKE SALE.

Problem is, I have absolutely no idea how to bake anything. I'm a cracking good cook, but get me near anything where you need to measure and I clam up. By the way, does anyone know how to measure stuff in grams? Like, do I need baking scales? If so, that sucks.

Hilarious pictures to follow.

posted by Broderick

Walk the Walk....

2006-06-12T03:03:00.000-07:00

God seemed to be on our side as the sun was shining on the 4th of June.

The Sponsor walk day started with Natasha saying: 15 miles? Are we sure about that?

So 6 hours later we finally made it to Mile End...Blatantly more than 15 miles oh well... the things we do to get to Edinburgh. If we keep training we might even walk there.

Thank you to all our sponsors, all is very much appreciated! ( Photo's will appear and video has been made!)

We got the Fringe Program last week and it is very exciting to see your own show in there! Only 6 more weeks to go and I can't wait.

Next stop is...accomodation
Haha the never ending saga of chaos and creative minds...

posted by Clarissa

Talk the Talk...

2006-05-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

Well...time has come for yet another sponsoring event.

Sunday the 4th of June the Central students of futureMEMORY will walk a part of the Central line. How we practiced and how we have prepared: I'm telling you fM bootcamp is only just a taster of the 4 weeks that are to come in Edinburgh ;-)

Meanwhile rehearsals are full on their way: we are working with the cube ( the staging that we're very proud of!) and working on physical routines to add to the script. All is well on the Central Front!

We appreciate all the sponsoring ladies and gentlemen and we would like to thank those that support us dearly. Let's all pray for sunshine!

posted by Clarissa

Candynecklaces

2006-05-01T14:28:00.000-07:00

Friday: Selling Candy necklaces in SOHO! What can I say? It's a good thing we have such a fine set of handsome young men in our group ;-) Especially Jelmer ( bless you sugar) was a hit and he sold many a necklace. For Natasha and yours truly it was (alas !) a quiet night; our moment had passed in the Swiss..

Lets keep up the good work everyone! *watch this space*

posted by Clarissa

Thank you!

2006-04-28T03:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks a million to everyone who came to our fundraiser last night at the Washington downstairs! I hope you had a great night!
We'll post a couple pictures here and on the website at some point.

If you've entered our raffle, the draw for the prizes is MONDAY and we will contact you directly via email or phone (whatever contact info you gave) if you win. If you haven't entered the draw yet you still have until Monday at noon to buy tickets from us, 50p each or 3 for a £. Email or see us in the Central School of Speech and Drama SU Bar this evening.

Thanks again!

posted by Broderick

...and the joker brought down the pundit by Broderick Chow

2006-04-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

This is a full-text of the presentation Broderick did at the Central School of Speech and Drama Post-Graduate Conference 27 April 2006...

INTRODUCTION
A Proposed Set of Principles for New Political Theatre

ACTIVISTS IN THE theatre-making profession, like any other activists, need a good manifesto. Theatre has long been a tool for creating social change, yet in today’s social climate (and I am addressing my research specifically to the English and North American cultural markets), political theatre seems ‘left behind,’ growing steadily more and more ineffective. These are my propositions based on my research thus far.

1. We must do away with old divisions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. And similarly, ideas of ‘bourgeois’ and ‘worker’s’ theatre. These are based on capitalist hierarchy and are losing their potency.

2. Docu-drama / Verbatim / ‘Present-the-Issues’ political theatre does little more than raise awareness and visibility. They rarely challenge audiences to engage intellectually or emotionally with issues. This is a narrow victory. It is theatrical journalism, which, when done wrong, has the potential of losing credibility for both genres.

3. The idea of ‘Theatre for the People’ conjures images of huddled masses and a theatrical dictator raising them up. In today’s world, with our definitions and boundaries blurring and going grey this smacks of superiority. Who are ‘The People?’ (Boal 175). And who are you to make theatre ‘for them?’

4. There is so much power to be had in transgressing boundaries of form and content. People fear change. We all need to be challenged.

5. Satire is an old and well-known tool for challenging authority. But so is intelligent, well-reasoned discussion. An entertainer can do both. Performers can change the world.

6. “Do you remember the great underground resistances of the past? Do you fancy yourself the kind of person who would rise to the occasion? Would you risk your life and liberty attempting to secure the same for somebody else? … Maybe it’s that time right now. Are people clamouring to get to where you are? Is it because the shopping’s better?… Some are afraid of the marketplace. But there’s nothing to fear. Not really. Not as such.” (Darren O’Donnell 2004 – Your Secrets Sleep With Me)

Performers and all theatre makers need to speak with a language that evokes how important their work is or can be.
Political theatre is a difficult genre today. As people have long noted (my example here is Roger Howard writing in 1972), “There is a contradiction manifest in any effort to convey a revolutionary principle using forms expressive of the status quo” (Howard 6). Those who wish to create activist theatre find themselves in a difficult, tangled system, one where art is permeated and intrinsically linked to commerce. Perhaps it is time for the Trojan Horse to resurface.

DIVISIVE ART AND COMMERCE / A THEORY
One assumes art to follow life or vice versa but in today’s world, actually neither is true.

Theory: art is divided along cultural lines that deliberately reflect the economic lines of capitalist society. High art and low art definitions play into the capitalist system, unwittingly and deliberately.

‘Low Art’ ‘High Art’
Calvin Klein advertising, pornography Radley Metzger, David LaChapelle photography
Horror films from Hollywood Takeshi Miike, Haute Tension, foreign horror films
Graphic design on a commercial basis Andy Warhol
Richard and Judy’s Book Club The Man Booker Prize

The defining features of these categories seem to be that the column on the left is engaged with creating ‘product’ for consumption, playing directly into the capitalist system, while the right-hand column is creating (and I take this term with a large salt-lick) ‘art for art’s sake.’ Or, perhaps just isn’t as successful commercially as the corresponding work in the left hand column. I don’t begin to equate anything here, I do not believe all art is equal. I’ve done this to draw attention to the fact that many of our automatic sensors/prejudices as for what qualifies ‘art’ are related to economic triggers, for example labels like ‘Indie,’ ‘Fringe,’ ‘Popcorn Movie,’ ‘Blockbuster,’ and especially, ‘Bestseller.’ Such a label may increase sales and drive down artistic credibility simultaneously.
Radley Metzger, in the 1970s, released the film Score, at the height of the ‘porn-chic’ era, when it was fashionable to view certain ‘highbrow’ pornographic films. However, there is very little difference between Score and pornography today other than the fact that Score may be somewhat less explicit, and the fact that Score is seen as a cultural document since it surfaced at a time when the fashion favoured it.
While these divisions seem mostly cut and dry here, it is actually more complicated. The class system is now divided into subsections, and arranged horizontally than the vertical ‘caste’ system of old. Art is similarly divided today. We can attach a myriad of labels to one single piece of artistic production: ‘Highbrow,’ ‘Indie,’ ‘Ironic,’ ‘Boho’ (all of these could easily describe the music of American band The Decemberists). Still, these labels fit into the idea of art as product and economic success. An independent film may begin life as such but become a great commercial success in a different market – fashion being fickle, this is regarded as selling out. It is all Capitalism.
Here is where I begin to be concerned. In many ways, political theatre has become very fashionable, especially in the current trend to verbatim theatre: The Exonerated, Unprotected, My Name is Rachel Corrie, Stuff Happens, Fear Up, Guantanamo, Talking to Terrorists, Yesterday Was A Weird Day. (I was a part of Fear Up’s UK premiere and will discuss that production later on). Activists working in theatre should be overjoyed, but I am wary of our talent being directed solely to a form of theatre that might be labeled as a fad (or worse yet, be revealed as ineffectual).

Verbatim theatre is important for the reasons that it increases awareness of issues and promotes visibility of certain groups. Unfortunately, it is generally not much more than journalism. I believe that if we do not find other forms of expression, people will become inured and cynical to verbatim theatre, just as they we are now inured to agit-prop theatre.

RESEARCH – TRANSGRESSIONS IN THEATRE
Many boundaries are arbitrarily drawn. Art is the safest place to cross them.

‘… a paradox exists within the realm of art: rule breaking behaviour is thought to be preserved against sanctions imposed on common sociality because of its context inside the art frame, and it is conversely labeled and sanctioned as deviant by those outside of the art context…’ (Wheeler 269)

My research, drawing on my dissatisfaction with current political theatre led me to the idea of transgressive theatre. I would define transgressive theatre as theatre that: ‘conflate(s) life with art allow(ing) liminality to happen because taken-for-granted boundaries are crossed, thus highlighting a boundary that was previously invisible’ (Wheeler 272). Liminality and liminal moments are moments of uncertainty (and therefore, transition); it is in these moments that change, especially social change, happens.
It is important to note that though my definition of Transgressive Theatre may contain shocking material, it should not solely be defined by this; it is not simply the ‘In-Yer-Face’ theatre explored by Aleks Sierz. This is a definition too narrowly content-focused, whereas transgressive theatre is actually more a measure of intent and affect/effect. We cannot simply focus on material that crosses boundaries of social decorum simply for the fact that this too has been co-opted by the commercial system.
I decided my practice would involve Stand Up Comedy and Autobiographical Performance / Performance of the Self. In this way I could draw on artistic traditions seen as ‘entertainment’ (stand up), and ‘ART’ (capital letters intentional – by this I specifically mean performance art), crossing these boundaries and exposing them as arbitrary labels. I began writing a show called Heartbreaker, the title of which is directly stolen from my favourite album, a definitively ‘low art’ artistic statement (or is it irony?). There is a definite activist statement – it is an anti-Globalization show – which is contained in the stand-up material which runs throughout the show, but also in the overall form. I divided the show into thirty fragments, to represent the splitting apart of the self. It combines many forms: tragicomedy, poetry, prose, and different narrative styles (sometimes playing in characters, other times third person narration.) Using Stand Up in a theatrical format allowed me to cross a boundary within the commercial system I noted earlier. While many comedians are entertainers, some engage fully with important issues; making this explicit by putting stand up into a theatrical context shakes audience complacency – if they cannot know what to expect, moments of liminality begin to occur.
Here is an excerpt from the final speech of the show:

“But he cannot speak to her. And he knows, he is certain of this, she does not know who he is. It does not break his heart. His is made of tear-proof nylon. He leaves the bar. He has a flight to Tokyo in the morning. Light is emerging over the hills. And tomorrow everyone in Phnom Penh, Tokyo, Moscow, Rome, Oslo, London, NYC, Toronto, LA, Edmonton and Vancouver Everyone Will be waking up” (Chow – Heartbreaker)
Incidentally, that character spoken of there is Maddox Jolie, a future speculation of what Angelina Jolie’s adopted Cambodian son will be like in fifteen years.
What drew me to Stand Up comedy was the idea that a comedian is licensed to speak on certain issues (the “Jester” role). The Jester role in itself is limited – though they may comment on the behaviour of kings, who licenses their right to speak? Now, many comedians are breaking free from that role and revealing themselves to be far from fools but among the most aware of all performers. A good example of a ‘transgressive’ comedian is American comic Sarah Silverman. She is growing in popularity due (in part) to her appearance in the film The Aristocrats. Her joke was infamous, culminating with:

‘“Joe Franklin loved the Aristocrats,” she says. “He was, like, our rehearsal director when dad and my brother weren’t there. And my mother, and my nana—weren’t there. I was on his show. He said it wasn’t a ‘taped show,’ but we, like, did a show. . . . It was his office, but he had a bed in it, like a couch, that he called Uncle Joe’s bed for little people.” She looks awkwardly into the corner of the room and, after a few seconds, turns her eyes back to the camera and says, “Joe Franklin raped me.”’ (Goodyear 2005)

Joe Franklin, a famous television personality, threatened to sue Sarah. We often hear ‘it’s “OK” to laugh’ in reference to a comedian’s more shocking material, ‘because they’re just joking,’ and often a more careful comedian will do something in their delivery to signal this to the audience. Silverman does not signal anything. As Paul Provenza, director of the film says:

““Everybody else has gone so far out of his way to make it abstract and surreal in order to feel comfortable with these kinds of transgressions. She chooses to make it more real, and to actually have the emotional experience of somebody who’s suffered this horrific, horrible existence. It’s very disconcerting and uncomfortable.”’ (Goodyear 2005)

If watched out of context, without a crowd of people in one’s own home, read on a page, the infamous ‘rape’ joke is barely funny. It’s chilling. What Silverman does, repeatedly, in her comedy is to recognize a boundary and then act as if its not there (‘…she crosses boundaries it does not occur to most people even to have’) (Goodyear 2005). It is extremely methodical and, in the end, effective; the sexual politics brought up by Silverman’s calculated joke are very interesting. While one may be shocked at her gall to make a joke of rape, one is also forced to consider their own attitudes towards it in light of the fact they’ve just laughed at her ‘story.’

Another project I was involved with as part of my research was a devised performance now called Girl in Box, to be premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2006. It is a radical reworking of Euripides’ The Bacchae. What is notable is the distance (in terms of content) between our starting point or stimulus and our work-in-progress at this point. We began devising from pictures and news reports about the murders of women in Ciudad, Juarez, but, not satisfied to create issue-based theatre that simply said ‘this is wrong,’ we used the material to inspire a forty-five minute performance that touches on gender politics, sexuality and sexual morality. Some of the final material was ‘in-yer-face’; it had shocking moments, and two members of the production team quit. Yet, it was natural for this material to be divisive. Because we began with true to life material, it seemed we released a safety valve within the creative team, allowing certain boundaries to be crossed. Better to be divisive along lines of content than be judged by category, which, I’ve explained, is economically determined.

While traditional political theatre plunges itself directly into social accountability, transgressive theatre flaunts the very necessity of accounting to society in order for audiences to question boundaries. And boundaries, after all, only exist to protect the arguments underneath them to be broken open.

DECLARATION OF INTENT
If we have to play by their rules, in their system, we will. Just watch us.

I mentioned earlier my involvement in the UK premiere of Fear Up at the Camden People’s Theatre, a verbatim theatre piece about torture in Baghdad and Guantanamo. It was compiled from writings of Iraqi civilians, survivors of torture in Guantanamo Bay (including the Tipton Three) and American soldiers, officers, and civilians. I played several of the American characters. It is an incredibly timely and relevant piece, yet I felt a certain dissatisfaction after performing it. I wrote in my journal following the performance: ‘… it became a hell of a lot of “Liberal Cheerleading.” I’m not denigrating that, it is important, but is it really all we can do as politically conscious artists – to prop up those who are actually engaging with the issues and doing real work?’ (Chow 2006)
Following along these lines, the Guardian’s Michael Billington wrote in his review of My Name is Rachel Corrie: ‘Theatre can't change the world. But what it can do, when it's as good as this, is to send us out enriched by other people's passionate concern.’ (Billington 2005) This seems appropriate to the culture we live in – less apathetic than simply feeling inescapably entrenched in a system. It is what Roger Howard wrote of when he spoke of bourgeois versus worker’s theatre, while today in our Globalized world, even terms of establishment and proletariat begin to play into an economic system of exchange (‘giving voice to those who have none’ is a common, and somewhat ‘vertically’ arrogant way of describing documentary theatre).
And no one is more entrenched in the system of buy and sell than the actor. It is particularly demeaning for the actor since one’s own body is the product on sale. The very foundation of the actor’s world is based on economy; one requires headshots, an agent and a listing in Spotlight (or Casting Workbook), these in turn are deductions for self-employment when filing income tax, along with (hysterically) several basic human needs including food, shelter and clothing.
If this is the reality, I propose we create theatre that embraces this and fights for change and awareness of the global system of inequality in which we live; similar to the Culture Jamming’ made famous by Naomi Klein. Culture Jamming was most famously popularized by satirical faux-advertising in the early nineties but can include any and all ‘Trojan Horse’ activism. ‘The most sophisticated culture jams are not stand-alone ad parodies but interceptions – counter-messages that hack into a corporation’s own method of communication to send a message starkly at odds with the one that was intended’ (Klein 281). I not proposing any one style, since that would be all too easily co-opted – rather, I am proposing we change our intentions when we begin making theatre, moving away from narrow achievements in identity politics (Klein 114) to challenging assumptions.
Let us fight on their terms. Let us become products of our own creation.

… AND THE JOKER BROUGHT DOWN THE PUNDIT

Al Franken debated Ann Coulter at the University of Judaism in May of 2005. Coulter, a neo-conservative pundit, is notoriously theatrical in her dominatrix outfits and clown-like appearance; Franken is just a comedy writer. In Franken’s opening statement to Ann, he uses the method of stand-up comedy itself not to satirize Coulter, but to pull apart the very foundations of her argument and leave her exposed for ridicule.
‘When my daughter was six years old, her teacher asked all her students to write about how their parents had met. We told Thomasin that… I saw Franni across the room, gathering up some friends to leave. I liked the way she was taking control and I thought she was beautiful. So I asked her to dance, and then got her a ginger ale, then escorted her to her dorm and asked for a date. My daughter wrote, “My dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink, and then took her home.” Now all the facts were accurate, but what my daughter wrote was extremely misleading. Now my daughter wasn’t lying. She didn’t realize that what she wrote made her mom seem like a slut. Ann, however, is not six years old. And she has developed her own techniques for misleading, by leaving out important facts’ (Franken 2006).
ON 15 October, 2004, during the Bush/Kerry election debates that would ultimately end with George W. Bush continuing his presidency for another four years, the comedian Jon Stewart appeared on a television ‘debate’ show called CNN ‘Crossfire.’ Crossfire was notoriously partisan in its politics; there were two hosts, Paul Begala represented ‘blue,’ or Democrat interests, while Tucker Carlson, a young-ish guy with a bowtie who more resembles a Foxton’s agent than a political pundit, took the Republican side. The episode which aired on 15 October was not its usual fare and Jon Stewart was far from the usual guest. Yet Stewart, who publicly criticized Crossfire extensively on his own satirical news program The Daily Show had been invited onto the show on the merit of his political satire. Stewart is not, as smart as he is, a pundit of any source – at heart he’s a performer. Here are some examples of their conversation.

‘STEWART: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations. And we're left out there to mow our lawns.
BEGALA: By beating up on them? You just said we're too rough on them when they make mistakes.
STEWART: No, no, no, you're not too rough on them. You're part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.’ (Stewart 2004)

And:

‘STEWART: …But let me ask you guys, again, a question, because we talked a little bit about, you're actually doing honest debate and all that. But, after the debates, where do you guys head to right afterwards? … Spin alley. …Yes. You go to spin alley, the place called spin alley. Now, don't you think that, for people watching at home, that's kind of a drag, that you're literally walking to a place called deception lane?’ (ibid).

And:

‘CARLSON: I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion.
STEWART: You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show’ (ibid).

My point here is that while Stewart questioned the journalistic integrity of the Crossfire hosts by accusing them of providing the viewers with theatre rather than intelligent debate, his performance on the show, unintentional or not, was extremely theatrical. What is exciting to me about this idea is that the Crossfire moment was one where activism and theatre/entertainment blurred lines. Stewart crossed a boundary.
Where he once commented from the safe team of ‘performers,’ he stepped into the realm of journalists and using the power available to him as a performer, created change: Crossfire, which indeed cheapened the level of discussion in America, was cancelled shortly after this episode aired.

I think it can be done.
‘People Matter’ (O’Donnell 2004).

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Billington, Michael. ‘My Name Is Rachel Corrie’ 14 April 2005 Guardian Unlimited 21 April 2006

Bonney, Jo et al. Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts From The Twentieth Century Ed. Jo Bonney. New York : Theatre Communications Group 2000

Fischer-Lichte, Erika. Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring Forms of Political Theatre. London and New York : Routledge 2005

Fortier, Mark theory / theatre: an intoduction. London and New York : Routledge 1997

Franken, Al ‘An Evening With Ann Coulter: Opening Statement’ 4 April 2006 Midwest Values PAC 20 April 2006 < http://midwestvaluespac.org/blog/156/an-evening-with-ann-coulter-with-full-speech>

Goodyear, Dana. ‘Quiet Depravity: The Demure Outrages of a Standup Comic’ 24 October 2005 New Yorker Online 15 January 2006

Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. London : Penguin Books 2005

Klein, Naomi No Logo London: Flamingo 2001

Mintz, Lawrence E. ‘Stand-Up Comedy’ Comedy: A Geographic and Historical Guide Vol II Ed. Maurice Cherney. Westport and London : Praeger Publishers 2005

O’Donnell, Darren. A Suicide Site Guide To The City. (Viewed Production). Mammalian Diving Reflex. Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2004. 26 August 2004.

O’Donnell, Darren. Your Secrets Sleep With Me. Toronto: Coach House Books. 2004.

Sierz, Aleks. ‘Beyond Timidity?: The State of British New Writing’ PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 81 Vol 27 No 3 (2005) : 56-61

Stewart, Jon et al. ‘CNN Crossfire’ 15 October 2004 CNN.com 3 April 2006. CNN

Wheeler, Britta B. ‘Negotiating Deviance and Normativity’ Performance: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies ed. Philip Auslander. London: Routledge 2003 (269-288)

6 Days to go....

2006-04-21T06:53:00.000-07:00

Six Days to go until our first Fundraiser... Are we scared: yes we are! Are we hopeful: yes that too! All are welcome in the Washington on Thursday the 27th at 8pm where we will organise some moneymaking events, so hope to see a lot of you there.

Meanwhile combining a full-time course with all this Edinburgh-extra is a little stressful sometimes. Rehearsals start again this Saturday ( not Next Saturday right Brody?!) and I can't wait!

PS: Oh and Next Friday its Candy Necklaces Day: watch this space...

posted by Clarissa

Fringe Frenzy

2006-04-14T03:47:00.000-07:00

So... I just read Brody's post and since no one explained this technophobe how to work this posting marlarkey it took me awhile to log on. But here we are; not from Israel but from the Netherlands this time.
Our lives seem to turn around Edfringe: so much to do so little time! Weekly meetings, updates on the developments and obviously funding ideas...( Does anyone have a spare couple of grants lying around they're not using at the mo?) So watch out London as you will be invaded these coming months by some desperate actors who will be doing anything ( well...almost) for a bit of cash! Pricelists will be posted later ;-)

Yet it is a good process and I cannot wait to start rehearsals again! (Hope to start posting a little more then now I got the hang of it.) Enjoy the Easterweekend y'all...

posted by Clarissa

and we're on...

2006-03-20T13:40:00.000-08:00

Hello to everyone!
This is the first post of the new futureMEMORY blog. You can go see our full website at futureMEMORY1.tripod.com
This is a blog for the members of the company to post, well, anything.

Meet our company! (Click on name to see photograph)
Sam
Emma
Broderick
Richard
Natasha
Clarissa
As well as Jelmer, Chris and Adam, who seem to be camera-shy.

Hopefully lots more will follow. Clarissa is off tonight for Israel, where she's promised to somehow post something at some point.

Night y'all

posted by Brody