desperate optimists : " are we getting somewhere?"


Joe and Christine's notes for talk at Wooster Group conference

Presented 14th May 2002

We'd like to use this short time by making some connections to the work of the Wooster group by referring to two short video sections from some previous performance work that we've done. In specific, we want to narrow this down to two particular uses we've seen in the work of the Wooster Group that have a particular connection and resonance for us.

But before we do that let me relay a little anecdote: as recently as 1998, we were told by the nation's principle arts funding organisation, the Arts Council Of England's Drama Department, that using video wasn't really the stuff of theatre and that although they would support our bid they communicated to us that there was anxiety from the panel that we were spending too much money on video and that we should be doing more to get real, human beings on stage.

Now bearing in mind that “Dolly The Sheep” had already been cloned, this kind of suspicious reaction to the use of video in live performance was very depressing news - so much so that we decided that this show would have to be our last touring work of live performance. It was time to move on.
We have no idea if this attitude or policy has changed within the Arts Council- we never were too bothered to go back and check.

Anyway, now that we've gotten that off our chest let's get back to the issue at hand, the image behind me is a section taken from a video that featured in a performance we made in 1997 called Stalking Realness. Actually I must apologise for the quality. It is a recording made off a VHS OFF a VHS so it's become quite degraded but nonetheless as you can see it's a close up of an anus. Of course, it could also be called an arsehole, or a ring-piece but today it's looking definitely like an anus!

Like the Wooster Group in To You The Birdie, we're keen on using video to frame the body or, precisely, its constituent parts, Kate Valk's, feet, Willem Dafoe's head, Ari Fliakos and Scott Shepherd's legs and genitals. Why do we like this? Well it's often a funny thing to do, sometimes it makes us look at our bodies in a totally new way. I don't know about you but before we made this video we'd never really seen a 29inch anus before. The reaction to it was always mixed - horror, giddiness, hilarity, disbelief. To frame, and by implication, rescale body parts is not just one of the first things one might do with a camera, there's also something about it that asks us to look at the real live performer's body. There's something about the tension or potential humour of this which we find very powerful, but it also uses high-end video technology in a very human almost interrogatory way. The other aspect of how this video was placed in the performance space is something we can also relate to the work of the Wooster Group. The idea that video does not have to be illustrative of anything or a doubling up of something that is being said by a performer interests us a lot. To just have the video placed in the space as a rogue element, something mischievous, troubling, unsettling, rupturing or a fun element is something we love to see. It's something separate from the live actors, they have no moral responsibility over it, as if their hands go up to say “Nothing to do with me!". Was it Gaston Bachelard who said “When contradictions accumulate things come alive!"?. Video is an option par excellence for the activating of contradiction and counter-points - certainly when handled as deftly as it is in the work of the Wooster Group.

In a way it reminds us of a comment by Richard Foreman that we read years ago - he said that he was always striving to create a space in which accidents might happen. In our experience, this kind of space is more likely to be decentred and multi-layered. As Susan Melrose once wrote - a space in which the eye can wander about the stage. The other night I never felt like I was missing out on something if I heard other members of the audience laughing at something I hadn't seen as I was busy looking at something else. That was just a choice I made at that particular moment and this menu of choices had been very kindly offered up to me by the company. Video can be placed very effectively into such a space.

Actually another thing we're struck by and like very much is the Wooster Groups' use of monitors over video projection. Again, it's the scale of these objects - even when they are those fancy-pants new plasma screens - that is very human. At the same time the resolution and density of the body seen on monitors makes them more real and less ephemeral in the performance space. Also, monitors can have a wonderful 'real' presence in the space and can move. They can be a part of the choreography of the show in a very real and physical way.

Incidentally, at the time much discussion was held as to whether this is a woman's or a man's arsehole.

The second reason we are very attracted to the use of video in the work of the Wooster Group - evident in To You The Birdie by the presence of the angel/god like figure perched above the space in the clouds looking down on everything below - is the possibility video offers of bringing people on tour with you that might never otherwise be able to come along.

I'll pause now to play the second clip we've prepared to kick this final part off.

This brief section is taken from a performance we made in 1998 called Play-boy in which the two live performers were shadowed by the presence of seven video performers for the entire show. For the two 75 minute videos we made for Play-boy, we interviewed our family and friends and asked them to talk about Irelands most important and controversial play - The Playboy Of The Western World. It was this show that the ACE were so worried and anxious about - why did we want to spend money on video instead of giving work to a real live performer? Now, for us, the highlight of our show Play-boy was the presence of the seven people who appeared on those videos we made for the show. Never in a month of Sundays would any of these people have been able to perform in the show or tour around with the show. But in a way, that isn't even the point because there is a huge difference between an edited, framed, composed video person in the space as opposed to the same person being present live in a performance space. There is little comparison. The kind of 'performance' we got out of these seven people over the course of 2 hour long interviews/interrogations is something we could never, never replicate on stage or would even want to. So, when I see Steve Buscemi's mother framed on video in Brace Up it is not the same and could never be the same as her actual feet in the space. Ultimately, it is the presence of the frame that does it for me. Controlling and framing content - which in a very complicated way is what the Wooster Group do in their approach to stage, lighting and sound design in their work. That is what is horny about theatre for us - that is what keeps us curious about performance despite our ultimate cynicism about theatre as a cultural field of endeavour and its inability to get with the programme.

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