Reading week 2

Reading – Week 2

Kalb, J. (2001). ‘Documentary Solo Performance: The Politics of the Mirrored Self.’ Theatre, Vol. 31.3, pp13-29.

Feedback

·         Solo performance is varied, both in style, content and socially/politically.

·         Solo performance has the potential, and often is ‘rife with self-indulgence and incipient monumental egotism’ (14). Often an ego boost for an actor, seen as showing off.

·         Solo performance is an umbrella that encompasses a huge variety of performance, not just documentary or satire/stand-up.

·         Documentary Solo performance arose as a reaction to the lack of effective potential theatre in the last 25 years of America. It is a reaction to what didn’t happen successfully in theatre, or what was close to being revolutionary.

·         ‘Traditional parables’ as Brecht pointed out ‘allows the spectator to congratulate themselves on their sympathetic feelings without seriously questioning their behaviour or beliefs.’ (15). Documentary Solo performance strives to make them question own behaviour/belief, not necessarily to create a revolution about that political theme, but for the spectator to actively think instead of passively self-congratulate for feelings of sympathy etc.

·         ‘Effective political art in boom-time America must be cunning, and the documentary impulse is a form of cunning, even if its practitioners don’t always see that.’ (16). Documentary has more of a political impact than normal solo performance.

·         Documentary Solo performance searches for freshness, a way of discussing gossip alongside ‘powerful topical narratives’ in order to make the performer become active politically throughout their art. (16)

·         Anna Deavere Smith is a very popular Documentary Solo performer. Very important and influential.

·         Documentary Solo performance works by interviewing people about certain specific events of choice, and impersonating them on stage ‘using their exact words and mannerisms.’ (16)

·         Documentary Solo performance looks to perform authentic speech, true characterisation and to share the individual experience.

·         In Documentary Solo performance you need to perform all characters, even the hateful or evil ones and to not show a bias. Documentary Solo performance can be shown therefore to a wider and more integrated audience instead of a specific one.

·         Documentary Solo performer Wolf says you don’t change people’s attitudes through facts, but through personal stories. Documentary Solo performance performs the unspeakable, and makes the mundane remarkable.

·         If Documentary Solo performance is not as loose a concept as it is labelled, it would be called something else and be part of another genre.

·         Documentary Solo performance can potentially be diluted politically if there is more than 1 actor, it can be weaker with more than one. Solo has more of an impact.

·         However, David Hare’s solo performance was not effective, ‘utterly inept’ (23). So not always successful as Solo performance, especially if they have no acting experience such as Hare.

·         Documentary Solo performance looks at real events, in real scale, real things and real situations that are timeless.

·         However, Hooch does not see himself as documentary in style because his characters are in his head, not people being interviewed. He works in the same way through embodying the characters and creating a political discussion/debate.

Reading week 2

Reading – Week 2

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

ERIC BOGOSIAN

Feedback

·         Solo events either go outwards towards observation, or inwards towards confusion. Bogosian does both and neither, he takes the middle way, his characters are ‘observed from the outside, but whose feelings are projected from within.’ (108).

·         Plays only men, and even though they are horrible, they are part of him, his soul. But they know there is something wrong with them.

·         His performance masks a struggle between inner artistic impulses and the truth behind observations.

·         The work has been performed across the world and by many performers, often in groups. The issues are universal across countries and societies.

From Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll

Dog Chameleon – this is a narrative from a man who wants to be normal. He knows he is not and is often a repulsive character. But he is human. I definitely know I’ve been through the thoughts and feelings this man feels, and assume others have too, or at least know someone like him. It raises issues around what is normal, about what is fair and what is right in society. This character is in a dark place, we don’t know why, but his verbal thoughts make the audience identify with him. He is abusive, rude, loud, and seemingly violent, but I am sympathetic with his struggle because it is something I have personally experienced.

From Pounding Nails in the Floor with my Forehead

Intro – this character is immediately happier than the previous one, but he still has similar issues, he is however hiding them. This is more a nervous train of thought from a new or untrained compeer, he flits between compliments and insults in the blink of an eye. He brings up the case of rich people eating like those in a 3^rd world would, though they make it elaborate and try to feel better for it by putting themselves through their experience. He knows that everyone is the same because we all bleed from the same cut, but our likes and dislikes are unique, so we are like snowflakes he says.

Rash – this man is a lot more hateful and hated than the previous two. He shows not a care for anyone or anything outside his own little world. He has a huge sense of superiority that makes him repulsive. For him, possessions mean more than emotions and feelings. He tries to make himself feel better by giving money to a homeless person, but regrets it because he sees getting an infection in return as an unfair deal. He obviously cares for his family because he is prepared to shoot and kill to defend them, but he acts as an obnoxious arse by treating them like his personal slaves. He sees outside society as inferior and boring. He sees money as the answer for everything, if there is a problem, money can fix it.

All three characters are similar but massively different in the way they express their opinions. These are people from all sorts of life, from the greedy capitalist, the unsure middle man and the down-trodden angry young man. They tell you like it is, or they sugar the pill, or repress things altogether.

Reading week 2

Reading – Week 2

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

Danny Hoch

Feedback

·         Hoch comes from the streets, the hard streets of New York and he is experienced in them.

·         ‘His mimicry doesn’t condescend’ (354).

·         Hoch comes from a very mixed neighbourhood where there was no ethnic majority, therefore his friends and neighbours were from all over the world and now living in New York City.

·         Hoch plays 11 people in Some People, each is desperate to tell their story. He plays a Polish immigrant plumber who is ashamed of his status but searches for better, Blanca, an urban girl misinformed by AIDs, a white teenage rap artist, a Puerto Rican made disabled by police, a black rapper on his 14^th album. Hoch is obviously diverse.

From Some People – Blanca

This monologue is about a young urban woman who is wise to the way of the world, but misinformed about AIDs. It is very matter-of-fact and conversational in tone. She thinks that a condom won’t be needed because they have already had sex, and if they’ve got anything then they’d have caught it from each other by now, and that AIDs can’t get her. She is suspicious that he thinks she is dirty. It is a political and social monologue, and talks about her gay flat mate. This shows her blindness in that he needs help. He has obviously been beaten and is struggling with his boyfriend and own self image and sexuality, but Blanca doesn’t see this. She is very street and urban and has knowledge of the world, but is blinded by her own sense of self-importance.

From Jails, Hospitals and Hip-Hop – Bronx

The monologue is by a man who feels he has been abused by the system and unfairly imprisoned because of his race. It shows a lot about contemporary issues around race, police corruption and the legal system but he expresses the issues that have been hidden or repressed. He believes he is not a criminal, but just poor, and the policeman arrested him because he is a servant and the man is not. He talks about the relevance of TV shows to real life. Race is a huge issue here. He talks to someone who he assumes is black, but has to eventually ask. This shows that race is a bigger issue than originally thought. His friend has to admit to being guilty so that he can get a shorter sentence, even if he is innocent. And if this kind of racism and police corruption is rife in America, one of the most advanced civilisations in the Western world, then it doesn’t hold much hope for other countries.

Both stories/monologues are political and from the point of view of the repressed, but not the conventional story. Instead we see the misinformed urban woman who believes she won’t be caught be AIDs and that she is not affected by racism, and we see the man who is imprisoned for doing the same as a young girl does on her front lawn, selling something, legally, to earn a living in order to survive.

Reading week 2

Reading – Week 2

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

Anna Deavere Smith

Feedback

·         Uses stories people tell her to create work based on race, racism and minorities that are discriminated.

·         In Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 she talks about the policemen that were caught on camera beating up someone, but then acquitted for it.

·         Smith brings to life something that has happened and is now swept under the rug, she looks at them again to bring them back to life, looking at them from a different view of a conventional experience.

·         The audience becomes part of her ‘I’ as a collective ‘we’.

Twilight: Los Angeles 1992

Character – Elvira Evers, a general worker and cashier at the Canteen Corporation

The character has turned up, accidentally or not, into a place where violence is happening, and as a result she is hot. She is pregnant and there is fear for her baby, but it survives even though the bullet gets lodged into the baby’s elbow. The line that encapsulates this piece is ‘Why you? You don’t mess with none of those people. Why they have to shoot you?’ The story is obviously about racial hatred and discrimination, but is made more controversial because a pregnant woman is now the victim. There is a sense of self-realisation at the end when she realises she should have opened her eyes to see what was going on around her. The piece is about innocent people becoming involved as victims of racism and racist violence/clashes.

Character – Mrs Young-Soon Han – a former liquor store owner

This is about a woman who is discriminated against for her ethnicity. Because she is Korean and has a car and a house, she is not seen by many to be discriminated against, or struggling. But she is worse off than any other ethnicity or race because of prejudice and cross racial/cultural clashes. Due to there being no Korean politicians or people in power, they have little or no say in society’s happenings. The story highlights that racism in not confined to black people, but to all ethnicities and races.

Character- Twilight Boy – organiser of Gang Truce

This is a situation where someone tries to setup a truce, a realistic one, but finds themselves in limbo, or twilight. He tries not to affiliate black with night, death or any negativity. The poem realises that they are of very few people in this limbo state between two sets of people.

The stories are all about racism, but not the racism of a white man vs a black man, but the struggle of the unseen people, the unheard people who are innocent and caught up in somebody else’s war, people who are discriminated against by more than one race but have no social voice, and people who are striving for a truce but find themselves as in betweeners, neither oppressed or oppressive.

Week 2, what to include in stand-up and feedback.

Solo Performance

Techniques to use in comedy/stand-up

Check the work through, especially experimental. What might be funny for you is not always funny for the audience, unless you back it up with the back story. Have sidelines and sub-plots. Stories have to be personal, but also transferable to an audience so that they can understand and appreciate the story too. Cut out the rambling blurb, set up the story but don’t waffle. Keep the audience’s attention. Don’t make it look like reading in a library. Project. Listen to and for the audience’s reaction and play off of it. Visual cue’s help the audience imagine it. Draw the audience in, have some sense of mystique, don’t give it all up at once, make them want it, make them wait, make them want to hear more, want to keep the joke going. Have a connection with the audience. Improvise with the audience and use their feedback, like when someone leaves or comes in late. Autobiographical is good. Has to work on lots of audience’s and lots of re-writes. Have presence on stage. Blur the lines between show and person, act and self/individual. Specific audience isn’t always a given. Have to be sensitive to the audience, but also bullish. Have to adapt to them but not pushed around by them. It’s ok to push boundaries but don’t go over the line. Want to make it look/seem spontaneous. Embody people, be a character. Element of surprise. Have something that the audience can identify with. Say the full name, specificity. Show compassion and that you care. Turn specificity into universality.

‘Local girlfriend always wants to do stuff’ is better than ‘Nation’s girlfriends call for more quality time.’ The targets are different, but the local makes it personal whereas the national makes it impersonal.

Incongruity = two things that do not match, the unexpected brings out a laugh.

Superiority = laughing at people, not with them.

Relief = based on Freud. Conscious investment in serious, laughter through safety, the serious gets laughed off and the tension disappears. The performer gives a conscious/unconscious sign that it is ok to laugh at it.

Feedback for my picture story-

Felt personal, good pace, use of natural reaction and playing off the audience. A visual description helped to make the audience feel par t of the journey. Don’t sit back and relax in the chair.

Feedback for my thank you’s-

No more stool for me! Take more time at the beginning. Have a casual chat at the start, take time between getting on and starting the actual gig. Constantly sarcastic and cynical. Visual descriptions helped again. Pause between jokes. My thinking is quicker than others, I know the joke and the punch line, the audience might have to work a bit harder. Wait for the pause, space and joke. Expand on ‘private jokes’. Share them and express them more. Enjoy it. Branch things out, brainstorm, ideas into a collective. Don’t necessarily go word for word through the script joke for joke, use collective groups of jokes that relate to each other.

Thank You Speech Excercise

Thank You

I would first of all like to thank my mum for seeing the worst possible situation in any given circumstance. As you may know from my accent, i’m from a little town up north and my mum hasn’t really left it. So when I got a letter from a University in London requesting an interview, she didn’t say well done or be careful. Instead she said ‘Well when you get on the train, make sure you don’t stand near anyone with a rucksack!’ Thanks.

To my brother, thanks for giving me a complex about my weight. The first time you called me ‘fatboy’ was affectionate at 5 years old. 18 years later, thanks to you, I can’t go near a mars bar and my idea of a horror film is ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’

Thanks to my dog Patch for ever failing to make me laugh. I swear that dog knows he’s funny. Like the time we went for a walk and I forgot the poop a scoop bags. Stupidly I verbalised this thought and he proceeded to take a crap right next to a squad car with two policemen sat inside. It’s OK, I don’t wear that scarf anymore.

Thanks to my dad, whoever, wherever you are, for being a complete fucking coward and running away at the slightest glimpse of hard work. You’re a good male role model. And for the receding hairline, cheers.

Thanks to my English Literature teacher at school. You’ve been one of the biggest inspirations in my life, and you’ve made me appreciate the importance of wearing deodorant.

To my Drama teacher, how the hell you made me want to do drama at university is beyond me. But if there’s one thing that i’ll always remember it is that the social and political reasoning behind Brecht has something to do with your Grandmother’s homemade bloody JAM!!

I mustn’t forget my friends, thank you for deleting many a video of me that should never have been created, for making me believe when I was about 12 that ‘sodomite’ was an affectionate term for ‘good friend’, for kidnapping me on my birthday and making me think that i was genuinely going to be killed (seriously, they didn’t tell me they were going to do it and turned up whilst i was walking down the road and got out of a car with guns and balaclava’s on and putting a bag on my head, bundling me into a car!), for ruining my 20-20 vision with a bottle of 2 litre coca-cola, for “accidentally” filling my car with carbon monoxide, that’s 3 days of my life i’ll ever get back, for stealing my clothes whilst i was swimming, and finally, for making me appreciate my truly natural talent and gymnastic ability by bundling me into a locker for 45 minutes.

And finally, to my neighbours, thanks for the 2 hours sleep last night. I appreciate it is valentine’s day but could you please keep it down next time?

Photograph Story Excercise

The sun’s shining, the skies are blue, its midday at the end of hot august 2009. The summer to remember. Sat next to me is Aimee, a school friend and flatmate. We’re sat in my car, outside her house in the middle of Lincolnshire about to drive to our new flat in London. My car is a Daihatsu Hijet MPV. Now if you know anything about cars you’ll know that its shit. It’s a van type car thing with six seats, in 3 rows, so two at the front, two in the middle and two at the back. It guzzled petrol, it barely went anywhere without something falling off, it even had a motorbike engine instead of a real one, and it was even older than me! Basically, it was an embarrassment. But it was mine. It was my first car and it had character. And I loved it. You know guys have to name their cars and I’m no different. She was called Ella. Unless she was being stubborn then she would be called Trev, but I had to stop calling her that cos it makes me sound like I’m driving a German porn star with a dodgy moustache! Sadly Ella has recently passed away to the big cloudy car park in the sky where she can drive at the actual speed limit for once. This was the end of a spectacular summer, well almost. I’d been in Edinburgh performing at the fringe and my flat was almost free to move into when the landlord called up and changed his mind. Balls! We have 2 weeks to find a house and move in before uni starts again! This was Aimee’s first year at uni and my second year, but I was finally getting out of the uni’s halls of residence, which resembled the inside of a broom cupboard in the shape of a sodding pizza slice. I don’t know which pillock designed them but they obviously never lived in the poxy bloody thing! So we rushed back from Edinburgh to find somewhere, anywhere that we could call home. After rejecting a few crack dens and whore houses, here we are, sat in the car, her sister is taking a picture of us before we set off for our new flat. I’d already driven a van load of stuff down but in the background of the picture you can see the last bits we’d forgotten to pack, which turned out to be about 30 boxes of crap that filled my oversized white elephant of a car. The car’s packed, we’re about to move in, ready for a long road trip to London. The sun’s beating down so we have the windows wide open, only cos we can’t close them without a screwdriver. There’s an unlimited supply of coca cola, party rings, crisps and crappy CDs to keep us amused for the 4 and a half hour drive. This is my memory of the best summer and it means a lot to me. Since then I’ve gone through my fair share of crap, who hasn’t, grandparents getting cancer, family members passing away etc etc blah blah blah. Not to mention living with a guy who’s a complete fuckwit and never paid his rent and stressed me out for a full year! Anyway, Aimee puts on some S Club 7 classic, London is waiting to be discovered, the flat’s finally sorted, the sun’s shining, I couldn’t be happier. The world was lining itself up to be my oyster. I pulled slowly out of the drive feeling happier than I had in a long time when.....Shit. Stalled.

Reading week 1

Reading – Week 1

Birbiglia, M. (2010). Sleepwalk with Me: and Other Painfully True Stories. London: Simon and Schuster.

Feedback

‘Please Stop the Ride’

Highly autobiographical account of childhood and adolescence. Focuses specifically on ‘making out’ and his account of it, but with side stories and links. Good use of short analogies that lead back into the main point. Uses hindsight to see the humorous side of something that was then a troublesome time for him. The story is highly personal to Mike, with people that are named specifically as characters in his life, but it is something that everyone in the audience can relate to because it is a universal subject. This is why it is so funny, because it is a normal everyday situation that everybody will or has found themselves in, which is why it works so well in comedy. It is a universal story, not far-fetched or absurd, which are funny and work for other comedians, but something that the whole audience can share without feeling alienated or left out. It also helps that some of the themes he discusses are rude, such as masturbation. Mike brings to life, and centres the story in real life, by referencing people by their full names, and listing actual films, titles, dates and places. He breaks up the narrative with conversations, thought processes and sidelines. He makes it sound like an adult story in the way he delivers it, but points out the immaturity of it, such as ‘no alcohol, just warm sprite.’ The story keeps moving and changes. It is all about kissing and relationships, but it doesn’t stay in one place, it works autobiographically because he tells the audience about other relationships and why they failed, usually with a punch line. The stories and jokes take a while to build and end with a punch line or amusing situation, not just a whole group of one-liners with a similar theme. This is another thing which makes it personal, he is telling us about his life too, not just pouring out one-liners.

‘Something in My Bladder’

This follows the same theme as ‘Please Stop the Ride’ in that it is autobiographical stories with amusing sidelines. However, personally I don’t find this story as personal or intimate as ‘Please Stop the Ride’ because it deals with something that almost everyone knows about, even if they haven’t experienced it, so it is still emotionally touching and the audience can still identify with it. ‘Something in My Bladder’ makes light of what is otherwise a potentially depressing and very dark and life-changing experience. It doesn’t ridicule the problem of cancer in the bladder/prostate, but sees the funny side of it. Probes and tests are not funny, but by setting them within stand-up, Mike Birbiglia seems to be getting therapy from his story by sharing it with people. It shows humour through ignorance. The story is riddled with punch-lines, and he acknowledges the scariness of his situation, but has taught himself to laugh at it through hindsight.

Reading week 1

Reading – Week 1

O’Donnell, D (2006). ‘A Suicide Site Guide To The City.’ in O’Donnell, D. Social Acupuncture. Toronto: Coach House Books

Feedback

·         Very autobiographical play, especially through specific dates, times, place.

·         Written a long time before it was performed, but said as if it was made up on the spot. However it doesn’t hide the past or the knowledge of it. It acknowledges and plays with the fact that during writing it he is lonely, but somehow simultaneously surrounded by people because the words will be heard by people. There is a link between the past and the present and future.

·         It is potentially very funny. It sees the humour in random or bad things. It is light hearted at times. He talks about himself as an actor, an actual person, not a character within a play. He is not acting. He also talks about the technicians, however I’m not sure how if it was written several years before being performed. Does he know he is going to use these technicians? Are they actually called that or is he lying to us?

·         It is very dark at times. It shows the dark side in him, and the potential for the dark side in any of us. The suicide, the molesting, the weirdness, the drugs, violence and potential anarchy. He is seemingly unstable and highly emotional. Shows the potential dark side in anyone and everyone with examples in the play, like murder, homicide, terrorism, willingness to create anarchy and mayhem, guns, knives, drugs, weed, cocaine etc.

·         Very very political and socially aware. Not absent from contemporary issues like Otto Vass, September 11^th terrorist attacks, Presidency and War in Iraq. Political movements and class system. Talks about internal/American class and politics system, but also the worldwide issues.

·         He plays lots of characters and things, but brings it back to self and story. Breaks down the monotonous monologue by playing other people and changing the dialogue.

·         Very clever use of technical, like Sound effects, light effects, gunshots, mime to sound etc.

·         Plays with the audience’s assumptions, especially at the start and the end, with the guitar, the hat passing and the man outside.

·         Use of placards and songs, though not at the same time or the same way, the songs say one thing, the placard another.

·         Uses direct address to the audience.

·         Simple props, costume, set, sound and lights.

·         Makes the audience question performance and truth. Is this really a man telling us his thoughts or a clever use of staging and acting to lull us into a false sense of security?

Types of solo performance to look at

Types of solo Performance includes

Stand – up/Comedy, monologue, rapper, music/musician, poetry/monologue slam, autobiographical writing/storytelling, dance, magician, speech ceremony, spoken word, online (blog), live art, art, solo theatre, mime, multiple character/persona, sports (like golf), interviews, preaching, news/weather presenter, lecturer/teacher, gymnastics, ice dancing, sports dance, free running, martial arts, skate boarding, biking (BMX), stripper.

The written response to the photograph.

The sun’s shining, the skies are blue, its midday at the end of hot august 2009. The summer to remember. Sat next to me is Aimee, a school friend and flatmate. We’re sat in my car, outside her house in the middle of Lincolnshire about to drive to our new flat in London. My car is a Daihatsu Hijet MPV. Now if you know anything about cars you’ll know that its shit. It’s a van type car thing with six seats, in 3 rows, so two at the front, two in the middle and two at the back. It guzzled petrol, it barely went anywhere without something falling off, it even had a motorbike engine instead of a real one, and it was even older than me! Basically, it was an embarrassment. But it was mine. It was my first car and it had character. And I loved it. You know guys have to name their cars and I’m no different. She was called Ella. Unless she was being stubborn then she would be called Trev, but I had to stop calling her that cos it makes me sound like I’m driving a German porn star with a dodgy moustache! Sadly Ella has recently passed away to the big cloudy car park in the sky where she can drive at the actual speed limit for once. This was the end of a spectacular summer, well almost. I’d been in Edinburgh performing at the fringe and my flat was almost free to move into when the landlord called up and changed his mind. Balls! We have 2 weeks to find a house and move in before uni starts again! This was Aimee’s first year at uni and my second year, but I was finally getting out of the uni’s halls of residence, which resembled the inside of a broom cupboard in the shape of a sodding pizza slice. I don’t know which pillock designed them but they obviously never lived in the poxy bloody thing! So we rushed back from Edinburgh to find somewhere, anywhere that we could call home. After rejecting a few crack dens and whore houses, here we are, sat in the car, her sister is taking a picture of us before we set off for our new flat. I’d already driven a van load of stuff down but in the background of the picture you can see the last bits we’d forgotten to pack, which turned out to be about 30 boxes of crap that filled my oversized white elephant of a car. The car’s packed, we’re about to move in, ready for a long road trip to London. The sun’s beating down so we have the windows wide open, only cos we can’t close them without a screwdriver. There’s an unlimited supply of coca cola, party rings, crisps and crappy CDs to keep us amused for the 4 and a half hour drive. This is my memory of the best summer and it means a lot to me. Since then I’ve gone through my fair share of crap, who hasn’t, grandparents getting cancer, family members passing away etc etc blah blah blah. Not to mention living with a guy who’s a complete fuckwit and never paid his rent and stressed me out for a full year! Anyway, Aimee puts on some S Club 7 classic, London is waiting to be discovered, the flat’s finally sorted, the sun’s shining, I couldn’t be happier. The world was lining itself up to be my oyster. I pulled slowly out of the drive feeling happier than I had in a long time when.....Shit. Stalled.