Reading Week Progress

• During the reading week (22^nd – 26^th February) I did some research on the site specific subject.
• The notes from the beginning of this blog are based on a document I found from a book names “Making a Performance” written by an actress, Katie Normington, and two others name Emma Govern, Helen Nicholson.

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• SCHECKNER – Environmental theatre works through creating a living in styled performance.
• A style of performance based on the natural state of everyday life whilst having an alternative meaning.
• Polish Director – GROTOWISKI – Created living environments through witnesses.
• GROTOWISKI – “Dr.Faustus” – His perception of the table scene, his audience members were seated within the scene, around the table.
• This is an example of how his audience would witness his workings. They would live that specific moment of his performance with his actors. They would be just as involved within the making of the scene just without dialogue. Mute characters.
• GROTOWISKI’S style of environmental theatre gives the witness’s a sense of community. If not because they are being involved within a situation with others both actors and the other witnesses. But the community created for the witnesses alone because they are all just as on edge and apprehensive as each other. This gives them a sense of security that they aren’t alone.
• The reading itself refers to this ‘community’ as similar to the spectators in a religious situations – VICERS vs WORSHIPERS. – Due to the living moment that is lived by all within that situation.
• TRADITIONAL THEATRE IS AS FOLLOWS:
• ON STAGE – INSIDE –the living moment
• AUDIENCE – OUTSIDE – only spectators to the event.

• Within Living Environment Theatre the boundaries set in place by traditional staged performances are completely banished. The audience are invited in to closely witness the ‘living happenings’.
• LIVING SPACES – A techniques used frequently within the workings of a theatre company called ‘RECKLESS SLEEPERS’
• RECKLESS SLEEPERS group was founded in Nottingham in 1989. Their works are a combination of all the following:
• DURATION PIECES – On going performances that are detailed/repetitive.
• SOUND INSTILATIONS – Performances based on the sense of smell to create an outcome.
• EXBIDITIONS – Travelling performances that include more techniques such as activities to engage the audiences to focus and think about the topic of the entire piece.
• OUT DOOR PERFROMANCE – Performance that involve all of the above but outdoors.
• One of their very famous pieces was when the group were commission to create a piece of living theatre based on ‘The Last Supper’.
• The groups research Brief was to elaborate the phrase ‘Eating your words’
• To gather information and practical evidence the group took to the streets and read text from pieces of paper. Once they had read the entire piece of text they would move onto the next after putting the previously read one into their mouth.
• They continued this process until they had no other room spare to talk their own words. This thought of having the words but not the voice gave the group a solid stimulus.
• They looked at convicts that had been sentence to either be executed or live a life on Death Row. The autobiography’s that were written but convicts were used by RECHLESS SLEEPRS, the exact words from the convict’s mouth and their case numbers, table number, and a number with no significance.
• The result performance was performed in GLASGOW at the Tramway Theatre, 2005. All 39 audience members were given an invitation to a dinner party at this location. Before they entered they all received a table number, an incident number and number.
• The audience were escorted to their specific seats. An actor dressed as a chef would appear and shout a number across the hall. That person with that number would be fed 1 dish from the three optional: CHOCOLATE CAKE, COTTAGE CHESE, and LIVER AND ONIONS.
• The dishes were specific to the performance due to these three items were the exact things that Death Row occupant Lennie White asked for as his last meal before his execution in 1997.
• LYN GARDNER- a Drama and English graduate from Kent university – Gave a review of this piece in which she mentioned that “it gave a voice to the voiceless” This being due to the actually words wrote or said by the convict before their death.
• She spoke of how the imaginary words spoken buy some of the actors would be relatable to that of those unfortunate souls who were murdered by the chemical explosion Hiroshima.
• These aspects of a performance, use of imagination, are created by many different techniques: A director’s encouragement of using non-performing throughout the research and rehearsal process.
• Also by the reportage and down playing of emotion within the piece, deliberately just reading the text from a written script.
• As well as emphasising the game playing from each actor, they also play up to the audience. They continuously refer to the audience as themselves: “I don’t know what to say this.”
• This leading to an all matter of questions:
• ARE THEY THEMSELVES?
• ARE THEY INVENTED PERSONA’S AT ALL?
• ARE THEY MOMENTARILY REPRESENTATIONS OF THE PEOPLES WHO’S WORDS THEY SPEAK?
• This performance was performed at the TRAMWAY THEATRE in GLASGOW, Scotland. This buildings history is as it sounds. It was a building created to be a tram shed on the edge of GLASGOW. This building was also used by PETER BROOKS when his performance of “MAHABHARATA” toured.
• The building itself is a quintessential industrial due to its –
• CONCRETE FLOORING
• EXPOSED BRICK WORK
• DUCTING- Air ventilation systems
• GIRDERS – Support beams for a structure.
• During the performance the tables themselves were cluttered with wine and food – this heightens the irony of the building due to the unhinged effect of the derelict building.
• The Last Supper performance it’s self-acted as a realisation for both the actors and the audience. That both fact and fiction can be equally unreliable as each other. That history’s stable entity is and can be banished.