When Art Imitates Life, Moral Murk Can Ensue
by sarah pearsonRemember that biting review of Rearview Alanah posted a few days ago?
Well get THIS! Best Fringe story EVER!
As reported in an email from Anders Yates of Uncalled For:
…just yesterday Rearview had the COPS called on them. They’d already cleared everything with the police district that they drive within so that the cops know it’s not a real kidnapping, but they accidentally drove into the boundaries of another district that didn’t know about it and somebody heard pounding on the trunk and so FIVE squad cars showed up and two mounted police. The passengers thought it was part of the show and were joking around with the cops when the cops were trying to be serious. The driver got put in cuffs before the whole thing was sorted out.
In case you didn’t know, “Rearview” stages a kidnapping in a getaway car, in a getaway car. This site-specific piece seemed to impress the folks at Eye, but failed the Indyish Test of Cool.
But this story reminded me of an acting experience of my own from almost two years ago. I was in acting school at the time, and one of my classmates and I met for beers at an Annex hotspot to discuss a scene we were working on. In the play, we were playing opposite each other as ex-lovers who are still in love with each other.
My scene-partner and I talked over a pitcher of beer about our character’s development, until it seemed inevitable that we start actually improvising the characters themselves. In a moment of spontaneous acting magic, we both took in a long deep breath, and exhaled as our new characters. Thus began two hours of uninterrupted improvising in this public space. We both got really consumed with the characters we were playing - it was a surreal, precious and really cool acting experience.
The morally-murky moment came when I went to the bathroom. When a woman at the sink gave me a look of extreme sympathy, I realized just how intense our performance was coming across to the other patrons. Suddenly I felt guilty…”she thinks all this fighting is actually real,” I thought to myself. I felt morally questionable for putting on a performance that the audience didn’t know was a performance. Accepting her sympathy made me feel slightly manipulative.
Be it improvising in a neighbourhood bar, or driving around simulating a crime, do we not owe it to our audience to tell them that they are an audience? Otherwise, are we just being ego-driven, attention-begging arrogant actor-types?
Hidden-camera shows like “Punk’d” or “Candid Camera” are the topic of many a moral debate, since they force people into the role of “performer” without them even knowing it. If it is our right to know when we are the “spectacle,” surely knowing when we are the “spectator” is just as important.
Is it not a tad disrespectful to drive around a busy neighbourhood with an actor stuck in a trunk, screaming to be let out? So much of performance art depends on the simple consecration-of-space. That requires the participation, and certainly the respect of the audience. If I were the person who’d called the cops I’d feel pretty angry right now. It’s not fair that someone can drive around, imitating a cruel felony for “art’s sake” without telling people.
Maybe theatre should stay between four walls. Or at least, in a clear and consensual space. Otherwise, there’s no telling where art stops imitating life, and just plain takes over.
Listen to this article
Published on: July 12th, 2007
Terms Used: acting, Blog, performance, performance ethics, Rearview
About: sarah pearson
Sarah Pearson is a writer, singer, and player-of-keys based in Montreal. She loves bicycles, old pianos and Ile Sans Fils cafés.
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Are you kidding? After a lifetime of conventional theatre, I LOVED Rearview. It was so refreshing - which is the idea of the Fringe isn’t it? I didn’t just sit and listen to the monologue coming out of the trunk. I felt that my role was to participate in it. I had lots to say about the terrorism and kidnapping that was being commented on. After all, a performance is not a performance without some audience participation! My boyfriend did try to silence me by putting his hand over my mouth and one point but I’m certain that the actors appreciated being challenged in their role.
I highly recommend this performance to anyone who dares to step outside the box.
LM
Posted on July 18th, 2007 at 10:07 pm [permalink]
first- i applaud you getting into the show and forcing yourself passed the 4th wall, LM. good on you.
but bah- i gotta disagree about the innovative-ness. but just in theory, since i didn’t see the show, so grains of salt people.
thing is- the back-of-the-car thing has been done a lot. to me it already sounds like a gimmick, and as alannah points out in her review, it’s a gimmick that’s freakin irresponisble in this late stage of our self-inflicted environmental precariousness and near collapse. i think art needs to get over the sense it sometimes has of being above pragmatic concerns. when it comes down to it, art is always bound to the planet and other people. showing reckless disregard for them is callous and very 1980’s. so over.
on the other hand, i also disagree with sarah here - i don’t think art should be kept to the stage or kept to contexts where it’s expected and sanctionned. public and unexpected art has huge power to reclaim some of our swallowed public space and create contexts for public discourse. i just think we need to be specific and deliberate in how we use art to engage a space. driving around in a car to me seems blinkered and wasteful, and not at all conducive to discourse or public shared experience.
unless you force it. challenging the rearview show to live up to its promises of proximity by talking your way into the it.. again- mad props for that one LM.
Posted on July 19th, 2007 at 10:15 am [permalink]
Allow me to list the ways that Rearview could have utilized the amazing opportunity they had (let’s reitorate - an AWESOME site-specific MOVEABLE venue in Toronto’s BIGGEST THEATRE FESTIVAL. USE it, dammit. use it.).
They could have done so so much more, but for concision’s sake, here’s only two:
a) they could have picked up actors along the way - seeming “passerbyes on the streets of downtown TO could have been actors in disguise, brought in to take part in the scene. Think of the plot-development possibilities if, at some point, just one other character is introduced, and seemingly from just off the streets!
b) the audience could have been EXPLICITLY incorporated, rather than blatantly ignored to the point of discomfort. Say hello to us when we enter the car! Do something to inform of our role! Something!! As it stood, the actor who actually spoke never directly speaks _to_ the audience, but _at_them. two simple things would have fixed this: an icebreaker at the start of the show, and a minor tweaking of the monologue that gives the audience some clear permission to speak
I certainly don’t believe that theatre should be kept in theatres. Perhaps that wasn’t clear on my part (it was a question I raised, not a belief I announced). HOWEVER, I think that public performance art must be taken very seriously, because the level of social responsibility is raised when you take things out of the safely delineated four walls. You better take that ethical responsibility seriously. And you better be good. Otherwise, it risks bordering on just plain Showing Off.
Posted on July 19th, 2007 at 10:51 am [permalink]