BLOG
I start this installment of Stories From The Strange Side with a short preface: this performance was created for an audience of one and crafted to make the most out of that shift in the performer-audience relationship. The contract has changed. Proceed, informed. The theatre lobby is empty when you arrive. No performer, no seating; it doesn’t look like anything has been changed at all. Looking around, your gaze falls upon a note taped to the floor, inscribed with an arrow, pointing to another and another beyond; it appears your intrepid host has left a trail of breadcrumbs for you to follow. Seems you’ll have to work for this performance. The notes lead you on a short jaunt through the building into a dead-end alcove. There, attached to the back of a chair, is another piece of paper. There’s no arrow this time, but instructions: Sign (there’s a sheaf of papers and pen resting below) and Listen (an iPod and earbuds lie adjacent). You pick up the pages, and your brow furrows as you flip through them; the sheer quantity of sections and subsections seems in line with the giant title—WAIVER—but the tiny print reads only ‘i will not tell lies’ over and over again, for pages. Curious. You sign on the line. Next, the earbuds. A single high tone fills your ears, shutting out all other sound, and a few short seconds later the world goes black as a blindfold comes over your eyes. Your breath catches for a moment. A pair of hands comes to rest on your shoulders, turns you around, and urges you forward with a gentle push. You can’t quite say what happens next. It’s hard to find the ground with no sight or sound to guide your footfalls. Your attention turns to the feel of the floor, its slight gradations and bumps, the tap of tile or cushion of carpet, to try and work out where the hands’ quiet instruction leads you. Some of the variations seem familiar—there are only a couple places in the building that have a long downgrade like that—but ever is doubt present in your mind. You can’t be sure. At long last the hands pull you to a halt and, with a little downward pressure, settle you in a chair. Out come the earbuds, off comes the blindfold, and while you couldn’t quite say what you expected, it certainly wasn’t what you see. Vines and ivy hang from the padded walls of…is this the freight elevator? Hung all around you are childlike drawings in various hands. Some depict a journey like your own, some show dinosaurs, others are unidentifiable. In the center of the space, atop a fine Oriental rug, sits a low table cluttered with a variety of curious objects. A stack of blank paper lies in the middle, with various pencils in a jar adjacent; a pair of Marx glasses accompanies a flask of fart putty in the far corner; a lone toy cow stands to your left. And so on. Your guide, for the first time showing his face, takes a seat opposite you. He fills his ears with the white tone, covers his eyes with the blindfold, and speaks. “You have 30 seconds to be free.” What you do with that time is your own business. Perhaps you follow in the tradition of some of your companions and draw. Perhaps you take bolder action and play dress-up with your complacent host. Maybe you just play with the fart putty. When your time is up, your guide removes his sensory blocks, goes to the elevator controls, and brings you back up to the real world. The chains of responsibility return, the shackles of duty wind themselves around you, but that 30 seconds of liberation remains, unassailable. Prompt: Create a performance for an audience of one. Discovery: Master your space.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About My BlogStories. Archives
May 2020
Categories
All
|