28 November 2006 Written by Andrew Eglinton Print This Post  Email This Post

This is the second part in a two-part retrospective article on Shunt’s production of Amato Saltone. You can read the first part here.

iii. Caught between comfort and fear

In a well-lit tunnel there is no moral dilemma, it is just a passageway between two points. But when a tunnel is plunged into darkness a paradox occurs: whereas the entrance to the tunnel remains a ‘comfort’ zone, the exit is now riddled with the uncertainty of what lies between. The relationship between the individual’s gaze and his/her knowledge of the surrounding world (4) is removed and subverted through the imposition of darkness. It may be that it was a conscious decision to put the audience through this initial ‘test’, perhaps as a transformational device as I have suggested above, however it is arguable that through Shunt’s repeated use of darkness/blackouts to achieve this disorientation/alienation effect in the main body of the performance, the impact of the subversion weakens as it becomes a recognizable and controllable pattern. Once aware of the pattern, the experiential/environmental artifice of the performance begins to crumble, prompting the search for a ‘coercive’ narrative or a new pillar of meaning underpinning the performance. Michael Billington touches on this point in his review in the Guardian newspaper: “I would like to see Shunt move beyond sensory titillation and show they can rise to the demands of narrative.”

Billington is so intent on pinpointing the weaknesses of Amato Saltone that he allows no room for a different understanding of narrative (a point which I raised in section one); a fragmented narrative based on the juxtaposition of imagery, sound and the environment, in which the individual’s choices of position and interaction along his/her journey allow for a unique experience and understanding of the show. What is problematic about this type of structure and particularly in Shunt’s implementation of it, is that to be viable with any sense of integrality, it requires sustaining the audience’s sense of ‘freedom’ while still nurturing tension between comfort and fear, all in a non-linear and non-repetitive way. Shunt only went half way towards this end, because after the initial ‘penthouse scene’, a grotesque cabaret in which the boundaries between performers and audience were excitingly blurred, they began to push the audience down predetermined paths by dividing us into groups that ended up sitting in the static auditorium configuration from which they had tried to deviate in the first place. This was somewhat of a shame since their choice of material, inspired by the work of Cornell Woolrich, “the father of film noir” and used to explore the theme of voyeurism and the city, was distinctly apt for this type of alternative performance structure; it could be spliced, juxtaposed, and rearranged in a montage/pulp fiction manner, which the audience could easily ‘dip’ in and out of.

iv. Darkness and the gaze

Beyond the sensorial use of darkness in Amato Saltone, a great deal of work had gone into exploring its thematic use in line with the ‘film noir’ genre. Specific references were made to the Woolrich-written, Hitchcock-directed ‘Rear Window’, a film that portrays a wheelchair-bound photographer who spies on a neighbouring apartment and becomes convinced that one of the neighbours has committed a murder. Similarly in the performance, the audience observes the shadows of people in windows committing murderous acts; then in another scene actors gaze at the audience through binoculars, and later on the audience, now split into groups, gazes at each other through large living room windows; in the final scene, in the mock cinema auditorium, there are moments when the actors on stage stop and peer at an audience member illuminated by a spotlight. A part from the shadow scene, these are all examples of a type of voyeurism in which the voyeur relies on his/her concealment in a state of darkness.
Although the audience is often being subjected to potentially voyeuristic situations, the power of the gaze is intentionally annulled or restricted from fulfilling the act through the visual clashes mentioned earlier:

ACTOR<>AUDIENCE AUDIENCE<>AUDIENCE

This can be read as a reaction to the long debate on ‘scopophilia’ sparked in 1975 by Laura Mulvey’s famous essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, a feminist critique of patriarchal values in ‘classic’ Hollywood cinema where “pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female’ (Mulvey, 1992. pp27). The audience is finally ‘allowed’ its voyeuristic moment, when a tall black man undresses under a small spotlight and changes into a sailor’s costume. This is perhaps an allusion to how the ‘gaze debate’ opened up in subsequent years to address issues beyond gender such as race, status and power.

Visually ‘maimed’ and debased of power, the audience leaves the Shunt vaults to step back out into the ‘reality’ of a busy London Bridge station. I was immediately drawn to the voice of a woman speaking over the station’s Tannoy system: “To ensure customer safety and security measures, CCTV is in 24 hour operation on these premises”. There was a chilling sense of irony in these words and the feeling that the performance is to a degree, never-ending because somewhere somebody is spectating.

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Footnotes

(4) - Reference to Carl Jung in Chapter XI of Modern Man in Search of a Soul: “…Under the influence of scientific materialism, everything that could not be seen with the eyes or touched with the hands was held in doubt…”

(5) - Cf. The Shunt Website: http://www.shuntevents.freeuk.com/amatoleaderpage.htm

(6) - N.B. The undressing scene was not present in the first performance I saw on Friday 10th November 2005 and had been added subsequently.

References

Billington, Michael, ‘Amato Saltone Review’, The Guardian Newspaper Online Edition, Jan. 26, 2006. Consulted on Feb. 15, 2005. Website address: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ arts/reviews/story/0,,1695224,00.html

Caughie, John, Annette Kuhn & Mandy Merck (Eds.) The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1992)

Jung, Carl, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Trans. W.S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes (London: Ark Paperbacks, 1984)

Mulvey, Laura, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. In Caughie et al. (Eds.), op. cit., pp. 22-34.

Credits

Many thanks to the Shunt General Manager for providing photographic material for this article.

Company: Shunt
Performance: Amato Saltone
Photographer: Alan Williams