The theatre piece sputtered. The actor was afraid
to look at the room he was struggling to control. People were around him,
drinks in hand, wanting to enjoy themselves. The actor wanted attention, he
wanted to be loved, he wanted the people listening to take his side and really
trick themselves into thinking, “Yeah, this actor from Ottawa really gets the Blues because he’s telling us a
story about this girl that he once thought he loved and how he suffered a
not-quite-real heartbreak because of it. Yeah, I can dig this.” No one in that
room, by the way, was foolish enough to trick themselves into thinking this.
This was an event of musicians and real artists (not saying theatre is not real
art, but this kind of performance did not belong at the event because there was
no passion, no real understanding of the thing that was coming out of the
performer’s mouth and being presented to the public, many of whom were also
performing at some time that evening and many of whom were musicians). Instead of stepping up to the challenge,
this thespian secluded himself from the wonderful event happening in the, how
many?, five or more different rooms around him? Before his act, I spied him,
script in hand, head down and buried beneath the words on his pages, sitting in
the very space he was later to perform in. I think he moved to see one of the
acts leading up to his. Or maybe he just looked up from where he was because
another act was happening in the same room, I can’t be sure. But you know what
the most aggravating thing of all was? His act was maybe halfway into the
palette of programming arranged that night. And
he left after he was done. He didn’t even stick around to see the act that
the organizers of the event, the ones responsible for him being there, put on
themselves. He didn’t stick around for the burlesque, or the headlining band. He
disappeared after he lost the room. Rather: he actually disappeared as he was losing the room, because a
musician who played earlier in the night stepped in to accompany him and
totally took what little attention he held onto right out of his hands and
into her saxophone.
I tell you this not because he is a
Canadian star who, because of that, I guess, should have demanded respect, or
something, but because it saddens me that the worst part of such an inspiring event was
the sole piece of theatre. It saddens me because I call myself a theatre
practitioner. It saddens me because the Canadian star claimed to have been
developing this for years, through many workshops and, I believe, grants. It
saddens me because this isn’t the only incident like this that I’ve
experienced; time and time again, in an atmosphere where people are present,
where there is no real distinction between the performers and the audience,
where the people who are at the event are there, drinks in hand, just wanting
to transcend, to party, when “theatre” is added to the programme it seems
continuously unable to capture the attention and emotions of the room.
Why is independent theatre so often the
most inaccessible of the fine arts? There are a couple reasons I think this happens.
ONE, I think it’s because “theatre”
naturally assumes attention will be given, that certain preconceptions will be
met. So the traditional performer of plays doesn’t really have to fight to gain
it right from the top, because the lights dim on the audience and everyone
assumes they should be quiet now. Because these preconceptions are the standard for the majority of produced theatre as a result new, independent theatre
generally caters to those who acknowledge them. Those who acknowledge them are, namely, theatre people. TWO, I think this happens because of bad curatorial practice. If
the piece of theatre requires people to sit quietly, contemplate, and use their
imagination when they shouldn’t have to (the actor in this instance was still
on book and stumbled to find his place a couple times), then maybe it’s not the
best idea to add them to the line-up of an event that is taking place across an
entire floor of a loft and is labeled
as BYOB, and was also,
coincidentally, the organiser’s birthday.
When placed side by side, the other fine
arts have immediate merits; they evoke something almost innocently, but clearly
tailored from you, because they never forget that the crux of their art is to communicate with the audience.
When placed side by side at events with the
other fine arts, it seems people just don’t know what to do with independent theatre (especially people who are not in theatre and, as a result, don’t care
about appealing to its clique by staging theatre
for theatre people). The same, I believe, can be said vice versa; theatre people generally don't know what to do at these kinds of events.
And I think it can all be summed up very easily by the following awkward exchange, that most of us will recognise, between a
theatre practitioner and potential audience member:
“Hey,
what do you do?”
“Oh, I act.”
“Wow, that’s great. Can you show me?”
“Oh, I act.”
“Wow, that’s great. Can you show me?”
...
The question then becomes, "Why can't we show them?"
