My Ideal Audience

In my previous post I mentioned a few experiences I've had as an audience member.
Here are a few more:

Cymbeline at the Stratford festival in Canada.
What a wonderful show.
Shakespeare pulls out every stop and creates one of the most lush and ridiculous shows I have ever seen.
Here's the SparkNotes:
We sit through the opening of the show: Posthumous flees from the kingdom (I'm guessing England), afraid for his life (because the queen is evil like Snow White level evil) to a friend whose castle is in France somewhere. Posthumous is engaged to Imogen, the daughter of Cymbeline, who swears to be faithful, but Posthumous is goaded into a bet (because he is not clever) by the wily Iachimo played by this creepy mother-lover:

Who says, I bet I can sleep with your girlfriend because women are all sluts! Posthumous challenges him to a duel, but then figures, nah, I trust my girl, you've got a bet!
Anyway, Imogen is pure and chaste, Iachimo is pure evil and they have a scene where he woos her in place of Posthumous because reasons! It's Shakespeare!
So, it is getting all Richard III and I mean he cannot keep his hands off this lady and everyone is ready for her to slap him or screw him and then this plays:

Yeah.
If you're like me the irony is so powerful you can't help but wonder if it is intentional.
Is  it part of the soundscape? Is it a misplaced cue? What is it?
Oh no.
It is a cellphone.
And I mean in a sea of 500 witnesses it is playing...loudly.
So Imogen gets through to the end of her line and Iachimo just waits, staring at her.
It keeps playing.
He looks down at the ground...stewing.
It keeps playing.
He turns out to the crowd and stares.
It keeps playing.

Now I don't blame the person because at that point about 500 onlookers are all scouring the seats looking for this cellphone ready to murder.
It finally, miraculously ends and Iachimo dusts himself off, looks at Imogen, and keeps acting.
Boom.

Now I will say I was mortified for all involved, but I've been granted a new perspective.
Everyone took their time with it.
The cellphone went off and the actor playing Iachimo (see above) felt that what was happening was so important, the audience shouldn't miss it.
He stopped the action to allow the person to deal with their business and when it didn't happen quickly he showed very clearly he expected it to stop.
When it didn't, he waited for it to finish, showed he didn't want it to happen again, and continued.

This is a fabulous moment of communication.
Everyone wanted to be a part of the action and the actors took their time and let everything sink in.
They considered what they were doing serious enough and the audience's attention important enough to let an awkward moment happen for literally the length of a song and then continue where they left off.
I found it masterful storytelling:
"Don't worry, we'll get back to it once this is finally over."
And we totally did!

But what surprised me most was the audience: there was no booing, no talking, no whispering, no snickering during the whole exchange.
I think we were fascinated with Iachimo to see what he would do and how he would handle it.
I believe (because I've seen it happen too often) that if the actors had continued as if there were no cellphone, we, the audience, would have spent the time listening to the song, resenting the person whose phone went off, and missed the whole scene.
Instead the performers acknowledged us as part of the theatrical event.
"I know you're there, I can hear you in the room, I'm busy trying to have sex with this very attractive woman and you're distracting me. Could you not?"
Our attention, both as performers and audience were unified in that moment.

Now ideally nothing "interferes" with the event, but this is live theatre, something always goes wrong!
I am not calling for everyone to turn their phones on in the theatre, though that could be entertaining.
I'm tired of opening announcements being: stop talking, listen to me, be quiet, don't move, don't fidget, eyes front, phones off, oh and applaud at the end.
We, as actors, wonder why an audience is "dead", I think it is because we "kill" them often and early in middle/high school.

I suppose my ideal audience would look a lot like a globe theatre audience or a perpetual student matinee (sans teachers).
Why student matinees?
Kids laugh and joke during a show, they get the penis references, they want to shout at the characters to stop being idiots.
I think that is good and right and proper.
I have never connected as deeply with a show as when standing in front of a sea of students they cry out "Don't do it!" before drinking the poison.
You know they can't stand to see you or your character or whatever leave the stage or the world of the piece.
That is a very moving moment everyone can share because you both know you have to drink the poison!
Appreciating the complexity of that is what an audience and actor is about. I think.

The reason I say no teachers is because they create a hierarchy, which I dislike in an audience or community.
I think there can be a beneficial hierarchy and it can be important for society to thrive, but in an audience, everyone's experience is equal.
But all too often, teachers, faculty, sometimes other students feel they have the right to shoosh one another or infringe on another's experience.

This is where I run into the most trouble: whose experience is more valid, the individual's or the group's? I don't think there is an easy answer.
Because every person has the right to an experience, whatever that means.
But what does that mean when it is a communal experience?
Some of this is touched on in my previous post, but let us treat is as a thought experiment:
Someone vocalizes a little too loudly for another person's experience. So without knowing, someone having a deeply moving experience has 'impacted' another's experience.  Whose is more valid? Whose need is greater? I don't know.

I am reminded not of my own experience in Greece, but a colleague who went to an American production of Ajax at a Greek conference.
The audience ripped it apart during the entire show, talking about what was good and bad while it happened, laughing at the awkward moments, applauding the students' work.
At the end of the show, they shot to their feet and gave a standing ovation.
My friend was flabbergasted, but she did have this theory, "They left nothing for afterward, the entire audience knew what they felt and expressed it during the whole run that by the time the cast bowed the only thing left to do was to applaud them for their work, regardless of how they [the audience] felt about it."
This. I love this.

What if, instead of silently experiencing the show we create a dynamic for talking, for laughing, for exploring it with one another as it happens.
That way we can create a communal event that everyone can enjoy while it happens and if someone doesn't understand or isn't enjoying it, we can engage with them, explain to them, feel more at ease in the theatre and therefore more electric.
Because the audiences I love best are the ones I can connect with, the ones who let me know if I'm good or bad.
I think the theatre could go back to a playing space and hopefully look more like the Globe, the amphitheatre, or this:

People say the theatre is dying, but playing, acting is such a human quality that I cannot believe it for a second.
If we could create the kind of dynamic with the audience that sports has with its fans, then I think  would be the right direction.

I want to give people permission to curse, swear, scream, laugh, cry, take photos, videos, shout at/with me, and maybe, just maybe share something special.

Why am I such a Bad Audience Member? (9:30)

I witnessed the funniest Oscar Wilde play EVER and couldn't laugh.

I should preface this by saying I have never found Oscar Wilde amusing onstage.
I have loved his plays since high school, the wit, the satire, but never a staged performance...ever.

Now, back to the show:
We were at the theatre, we showed up, got student rush, 15 euro for front row seats.
I walk all the way to the front of the theatre in my Captain America t-shirt and Chucks, sat in my seat, and looked up to see this:

I was literally breathless.

We have Oscar Wilde, an Irish playwright, writing about the English, performed by the Irish in front of the Irish and exactly three Americans.
The play opens, two women walk out fanning themselves, stand next to a chaise and slump as if to say, "Woe is me."

The audience roared.
Without a single word being uttered, we got it, the hypocrisy, the satire, the irony:
These people are so god damn wealthy they can't possibly have issues; they simply have to make their own.
I fell completely and utterly with this man:

Yeah, that's right, I said it.
For the first act, I whooped and hollered, laughing with everyone, some of the verbal quips so brutal they elicit an actual, "Jesus Christ!" from me.
The lights go down, the actors exit, we bask in the enormity of what we are a part of.
And then the house manager asks us politely to step outside.
We were being too loud; he understood we were enjoying the show, but we were being so boisterous it was interfering with the rest of the audience and actors.
Now let it be said, this man handled it with grace and aplomb, but I was livid.

For the second act (which was fabulous by the way) we were unable to laugh.
We figured we could, but now it was "How loud is too loud? What is appropriate?"

I will never forget how remarkable a show it was, nor how badly I wanted to laugh.
Now I won't say we were blameless.
I talk during shows and my friend has a laugh that wouldn't be surprising on a buxom Viking strumpet in the throes of passion.
Loud, certainly. But enjoying the show? Without a doubt.

So what is the point of an audience member?
What is our function in the artistic event?

I used to think it was to passively receive a story, process it, and dissect it later.
But performing in front of an audience consistently for years now, I don't think that is enough.
The audience is a central part of live performance.
What are we there for if not to share in the joys, triumphs, and failures of not only the characters, but the actors as well: I saw you drop that line! It's okay. We can laugh about it.

I think now that the audience is there to share with the performers in the theatrical event.
It is a collaborative effort that both work towards in order to mutually enjoy.
Performers have to be proficient so that the audience can willingly believe.

On the same trip, we saw Antony & Cleopatra at the Globe.
Antony had a fever the previous day and had missed a show.
We stood in the pouring rain for three hours until his Act V speech.
He forgot his lines.
He called, "Line"
And the audience was breathless.
Every single person in the audience (to my mind) was shouting with their whole selves "You can do it".
This was an actor at the top of his game struggling with a bit of memory at the end of one of the hardest roles ever.
We were there for him.

The reason that I bring all this up is an open letter written in the Metro Times to the jerk who sat behind him.
I found it to be quite horrible.
If only because it was wildly one sided and allowed for no other experience.
The hatred and contempt for these audience members from a fellow audience member is palpable:

I’ll tell you what’s awkward you [sic]: A trio of art-hating pseudo-hipster malcontents going to an opera, putting their feet up on the seats, and talking at a high volume throughout the entire performance.

 My dear trust fund hipster container of men’s effluent, you are the one who drives people away from this city. It isn‘t the crime. It isn’t the lack of opportunity. It isn’t the segregation. It is you.

Now, I would never deny the writer's experience of the event or how they feel.
It was strong and clearly quite personal.
However, these ideas may be shared by other members of the audience, even by the cast.

That is what disturbs me:

I am left wondering who tells us how to act?
Whose to say their experience isn't valid, that that isn't a valid way in which to engage with art?

I move for a more collaborative theatre.
One where audience and performer commune for a time in the theatrical experience together.
Where sharing occurs in both directions:
The performers, their performance and skill, the audience, their joy and appreciation.

This post is becoming a bear.
I think I'll continue this post later...

Learning & Creativity: How Babies Rule the World (3:13)

Creativity is the most valuable resource we have available.
It is the foundation upon which both the arts and sciences are established.
There is no situation in the world where the phrase, "Oh, what a predictable solution!" is considered praise.
And yet, institutions, I would say categorically kill creativity in youth.
Sir Ken Robinson makes one of the most compelling appeals to redeveloping the school model in order to capitalize rather than economize our growing workforce in an ever-changing world:

If you don't have time to watch the entire TED talk (which is brilliant) here are some key points:

• Creativity (defined) is the ability to come up with new ideas that have value
• Creativity is impossible without the ability to fail or to make mistakes
• Failure and mistakes are precisely the thing schools stigmatize every day
• Creativity is not learned, but natural, and can be schooled out of children

Don't believe me?
Here is a chart of the Scientific Method:

I've made it color coded for convenience and to be less scary.

It is a flow chart, essentially you come up with an idea, draw on past experience, test it, figure out of it is working, and if it is, draw conclusions, and finally share that with others.

Now this chart daunts middle/high schoolers of all ages.

AND YET! AAAAAAND YET!

Babies do this.

That's right.

Fucking babies:

Babies perform research.

They have rich, detailed ideas about how the world works, and when it doesn't fit into their mold, they engage with it, expecting further discoveries.

Creativity and research go hand in hand since we are infants.

To squash one will kill the other.

It is so innately human to be curious about the world, to feel awe in the face of wondrous objects, and to search for truth and replicate it.

And yet we deny children and teenagers the ability to search for their own unique perspective on the world: schools cut funding to sports and arts programs, colleges are reduced or combined, and parents and teachers tell children that their hobbies are not careers.
This is the single greatest calamity to happen to the education of our youth, a remnant of the Industrial Era where our education system is lodged, where children are run with factory bells to train them (can you say: Pavlovian conditioning?), where maths, sciences, and finally the humanities are given importance, rather than equal or individual study.

Keith Johnstone, an improviser and theatre teacher, says this in his seminal work Improv:

I once had a close rapport with a teenager who seemed 'mad' when she was with other people, but relativly normal when she was with me. I treated her rather as I would a Mask--that is to say, I was gentle, and I didn't try to impose my reality on her.

I'm remembering her now because of an interaction she had with a very gentle,  motherly schoolteacher. We were in a beautiful garden (where the teenager had just seen God) and the teacher picked a flower and said: 'Look at the pretty flower, Betty.'

Betty, filled with spiritual radiance, said, 'All the flowers are beautiful.'

'Ah,' said the teacher, blocking her, 'but this flower is especially beautiful.'Betty rolled on the ground screaming. Nobody seemed to notice that she was screaming, 'Can't you see? Can't you see!'

In the gentlest possible way, this teacher had been very violent. She was insisting on categorising, and selecting. Actually it is crazy to insist that one flower is especially beautiful in a whole garden of flowers, but the teacher is allowed to do this, and it is not perceived by sane people as violent. Grown-ups are expected to distort the perceptions of the child in this way. Since then I've noticed sch behavior constantly, but it took the mad girl to open my eyes to it.

I say let us be gentle with one another, let us not insist or push our own realities on one another.
In so doing, I hope that we can understand one another and learn from one another.
No one can teach you to be creative, no one can teach you to be an artist, no one can teach you to be a scientist; you already are one.
And no one can take that from you.