I’m sitting in the front row of a small Tokyo theatre. The stage is only partially lit but I can see the contours of a children’s playground; there’s a see-saw, a climbing frame and sand reaching into the darkness of the auditorium under our feet. The benches are filling up quickly now and the show will begin in a few minutes time. My body feels compressed by the weight of those beside me; someone’s knee just pinned my lower back; I’m trying to view the culprit, but I’m stuck, hemmed in wall-to-wall with complete strangers, and in this moment I feel like the most complete of strangers. Me, a student, a theatre goer, a Westerner, a foreigner. For a while I toy with the curiosity of this feeling but the thought vanishes when against all odds, a tall man squeezes himself into the row letting off a chain of gasps down the line. Audiences must suffer for art just as much as the artist.
I rationalise the situation as part of the urban paradox: We flock like sheep through city landscapes; tens of thousands congregating in commercial centres, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Leicester Square, Times Square, Châtelet les Halles etc. We go there out of curioisty for one another, to satisfy our need for communion with fellow human beings, but once there we’re desperate to uphold and protect our individuality. In the city, space is a luxury. We really only have ourselves, our bodies, our ‘personal/inner space’ to call our own. We become our tiny islands in a sea of concrete and glass. John Donne once wrote “No man is an island, entire of itself every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main […]”, but in this king of cities, and right here now on this stiff wooden theatre bench I disagree.
The stage is plunged into darkness. After a long pause, a marching band plays a sonorous melody that clears the air and brings soft light to the space. Into the light spring two girls in ivory wedding gowns, they chase each other across the stage, tripping and tumbling in the sand. I watch this ‘innocent’ child’s play perplexed by their appearance: girls in spirit but women in form. I recall an old conversation with a university professor who used the word ‘shoujyo’ (少女) to describe an isolated trend among young Japanese women. Perhaps these women are performing ‘shoujyo’. The litteral translation is ‘little girl’ or ‘maiden’ but that conveys only half the meaning, the Japanese cultural connotation is steeped in immoral sexual overtones.
The child’s play continues but it is not long before a third girl enters the playground. She is the turning point, the intruder, and the girls are fighting now, clawing and ripping at their ivory gowns. I notice a heightened sense of concentration from the audience around me, almost as if this is what they had been waiting for. One theory explaining the ‘shoujyo’ phenomenon particular to young Japanese women, is the desire and expression of an alternative female existence; one that opposes patriarchal rules.
This display of equivocal erotica descends further into the grotesque. More bodies join the romp; dressed in silky lingerie and high heels, they contort in the sand like couples in a drunken tango; two of them are writhing at my feet, launching the occasional droplet of sweat or fake blood into the audience. The dance has taken a violent turn and I have forgotten myself and the cramped wooden seats. The walls between my neighbours have dissolved and we are watching and breathing as one. Our collective eye is rapt by this abomination on stage, our collective lung is pumping pure frenzy into the room.
The frenzy finally ends and the marching band’s sweet melody returns; my senses regain composure and I am aware once again of the human body press squeezing me tight. I look left and right but the reaction is calm, the energy is drained. In that short-lived moment I realise we had become human again - not strangers or foreigners - but every bit as perverse as the young women on stage.
* From the essay Meditation XVII by John Donne (1572-1631)
The dilemma of sitting in a communal space to view a human body enacting a piece of theatre with absolutely no sense of responsibility/interest/interaction with and to those around you(minus the agitated aggression usually formed by unendorsed contact) plagues the theatre. Why can’t more occur in that communal space? Can we actually feel an obligation to those around us in the dark? What is needed to ease that sense of lonliness?
Easy. Interaction/Participation/Inter-participatory action with those around and those presenting. Not simply an assisting role, but a creating role. The work should be co-formed by the outside bodies and the idea makers on the inside. Give the audience a chance. A chance to make/create/live in the work makes for different experiences unique to every individual every time. Individual experiences shared throughout the anonymous mass, uniting them with the material and with each other. Give the audience what they want, stimulation - activity - control, then you have an audience who will come back.
Brian. Excellent comment. I agree with the premise of participatory theatre and I would argue that even though the majority of audiences that go to the theatre are not performers or practioners themselves, they go because of the desire to witness their own humanity before them. In the ‘traditional’ proscenium theatre, the relationship between audience and actors is one of projected desire from the former to the latter. Participatory theatre brings both into dialogue, and breaks the ‘gaze’ we have heard so much about. In that sense it is not far off the likes of Boal’s work, though granted the context and aspirations are different. I’d love to hear more of your views on the effect of particpatory theatre in practice. Thanks for stopping by.