Death of Imagination

Since my last post I have been rattling my brain trying to conjure up an idea that would inspire like my Pulp idea but have come up with nothing.

So with this in mind I decided just to write. Write anything. A page, a paragraph, even just a line to inspire something out of me. I came up with something, not necessarily inspirational but at least it was something. It was probably the result of me thinking that my imagination and inspiration had died with my last idea but death has been on my mind recently.

Death interests me a lot, not because I’m sadistic or psychopathic but because death is what makes us alive. Obviously not just us but animals, plants and whatever was on that plate under my bed for 6 months. As a result it ended in these monologues:

The PRAGMATIST

It is funny how cynics and modern philosophers think that we have become enslaved to technology. It is funny how analogue is seen as beauty, how people find the sound of static and purgatory erotic. As we now live in a digital age, an age of off and on, they say we are now less human. The truth is life is off and on. There is no in between. There is an on button when your mum takes the seed of your father and then there is an off switch that takes your last breath. Humans have not become digitalised. We have always been enslaved by the on and off of life. It’s just now the world is too.

When you are alive you are on. You have the power running through you, the power of life. You function, you perform tasks, just because a computer, a machine, a fucking spatula can do the same thing, twice as well, twice as fast, does not mean our bodies were not once able to do it, or that they now can’t. When you are a sleep you are alive, you are functioning. You feel. You breathe. The programmes and systems in your mind that make you “human” are still crunching and grinding away to give the visuals to your closed eyes.

When you are in a coma you are still alive. You are still functioning, you still have ability. Your machine is still ticking it is just in sleep mode. Not to recharge, no, but to repair. When you are on life support the off and on is now a visual and you now have no control of whether it will be pushed. When you have cancer… when you have this disease riddling your body clogging up your system like a virus taking over destroying everything, you may be hindered, you may be a shell of yourself you may not be able to do the tasks or function as the machine that you were turned on to do, but you are on, you are alive. This is not a dream.

The HUMAN

They say in life only two things are for certain Taxes and Death. Now to me these are not great things but they are the two things that control my life. I pay taxes with every penny I spend. It may not be income tax, council tax, or any tax worthwhile, but VAT is everywhere like a propaganda campaign. But then what you going to do? Occupy Wall Street or Oxford Street like those dumb hippies did? Nah, of course not because London and New York are the two fucking coldest places in the world.

The fear of death controls me just the same. The constant fear that I’ll be hit by something, that I’ll eat something that will root around inside me or something. But also the fear of others dying. Not in front of me because that I could possibly control, but people dying away from me. Out of my reach. The phone call or text that signals the end of someone’s life. Yeah, that’s what I fear.

The CHILD

Err yeah. Yeah, yeah I learnt that quite young.

Err it was my dog.

No it was not my dog, it was the bird that was trying to take my dog’s bone. It was called Sam.

My dog, not the bird. The bird was already dead so I couldn’t name it.

My dad ran outside and said eww Sam you dirty c…, but I didn’t know the last word he said so I don’t remember it OK? So I thought that Sam had done a big poo. Poos are funny so I go and look. But it was not a poo. It was the bird. The bird was laying asleep. But it was not asleep but I didn’t know.

Dad showed me this mangled shredded torn up carcass that had flies chewing its flesh and defecating on each other to make a mosaic of disease and rot. But he had not seen this before picking it up and as I screamed he was made aware and threw it and Sam jump like a gazelle clearing the attack of a lion and caught it in his mouth ad swallowed it like a skittle.

That was the first time I found out what it was. The second was at his funeral. Not Sam’s. Not the bird cos you can’t have a funeral for something with no name or no body. It was my dad’s.

The idea was to present different people’s response to death. How they felt about it and its inevitability. I wanted to channel different viewpoints, different stages of life and their reflection on death. This will not necessarily form my final performance but it at least proves my imagination is not dead. Yet.

Where to Now?

Following pitching my idea to the class I have now been thrown into a dilemma.
The visuals I proposed and my idea of intertwining script and lyrics seemed to cause the most interest and would really help with transitions. My pitfall appeared to be linking the songs of Pulp together to make a story compelling enough for this module. Furthermore, the aspects I included from Pulp Fiction seemed to come across as redundant and distracting. I believe if given copious amounts of time, my idea would work and the desired charm of the piece could be pulled off but at this stage in the module I think I need to reassess.

As music has always been something I wanted to include in my final performance I think I will have to figure out a different way of including it. One approach is to strip things back to just writing a story and then applying songs that will fit the themes and direction of it whilst it is written. The story needs to be as compelling and charming as the use of songs. Another way might be to take the story of one song and find a way of extending it to last 10 minutes. I could potentially interject verses from a single song into the story similar to what I had planned for the several Pulp songs. It would then have a stronger flow as it would be from the same song. In addition to this I could change the style of music to reflect the emotional state of the story throughout.

My options are still open, and there is still time.

How Should I Start My Show?

I want my show to begin with a big statement. This will be done via lights and sound bursting in together. But the issue came in how I should do this. Because I want to use a few audience members I have been exploring ideas of selection, first randomly and then by myself.

The idea I had was to use a seating plan of the performance and mark off four random seats which would represent the four random audience members that will be used in my performance. I would project the image of the seating plan on the back wall of the performance area so the audience could see.

Simultaneously, a spotlight would flick onto the audience member corresponding to the shotgun marked seat on the seating plan, accompanied by the sound of the shotgun;

I would then proceed to take the audience members who were lit and place them one in each spotlight.

This would include the audience in the performing destroying a barrier at the beginning in a similar way to Tim Crouch. Eventually as the play developed each audience member will be used as a prop. Hopefully awkwardness will drift in and out as the selected member becomes conscious they are on view even if the focus is not on them. Also starting at a high energy will engage the audience from early on, which I believe in such a short piece is vital.

The problem with this idea is that if the piece was not sold out and the necessary chairs were vacant, there would immediately be an awkward flow to the show.

As a sold out show cannot be guaranteed, I now need to find alternatives to ensure I have an impact at the start to my show.

Practitioners That Will Influence My Performance

As the research period of the performance is drawing to a close I think it is time to take note of which practitioners/performances that have inspired me and how they will influence my final performance and production process.

Eric Bogosian – When producing his monologues, Bogosian records himself talking in a sub-conscious state. Then he writes down what he thinks is interesting and repeats until eventually turns it into a script. This technique will be very useful for me as it will allow any ideas that I have not been able to formulate into words to be produced through whatever character I am channeling during the improvisation. Although it is written down and then regurgitated in the actual performance, I feel this way of devising a script is far more organic than sitting down at a computer trying to make a point with each line.

To take this technique further, I am playing with the idea of improvising the monologues I do in the actual performance. I will use Bogosian’s technique to discover what points I need to make in each section and then make sure I hit these marks when I improvise freely during the performance.

Chris Goode – In The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley, Goode tells a story of self discovery. He created a warm and comfortable atmosphere and told a tale with a nice ending. I want to tell a story. I want the audience to recognise, and maybe in some way associate with, what emotions I am going through as the character/s, but also as a performer.

I want the audience to be part of it, in a similar way to how Tim Crouch suspends the distinction between the audience and the performer. The audience will be part of mine throughout without having to directly do anything. Even if they are not directly involved with being on stage they will constantly be thinking “I’m glad that is not me” but not in a weird Marina Abramovich way, but more of a not being part of the action kind of way.

Tim Crouch with an oblivious actor on stage with a script and instructions in front of him.

In Dog Years I’m Dead – I want to encapsulate the same sense of charm in my performance as in this show. Despite being on my own, hopefully relationships with characters, and the audience, will still be able to be shown. Also, the performance used props throughout to represent certain things. I do not want my performance to be too prop heavy but if I do use any I want them to be versatile representing different things throughout.

In Dog Years I’m Dead

On a recent trip to Dublin I was lucky enough to stumble on this little gem. Bewley’s Cafe on Grafton Street has a small theatre on the top floor which accommodates an audience of 50. In Dog Years I’m Dead is a beautiful two hander which tells the story of two friends of a friend coming together at a party in whimsical costumes. Although the story was nice and charming, it was the structure and the elements used that interested me the most.

The play spanned 50 minutes and used the two character’s friend’s birthday party as two bookends to the story. Throughout the narrative the scenes were accented by various different eighties songs which relate loosely to the scene ahead. This is an idea I am expecting to play with. Doing these songs acoustically added to the charm, which is something I want to create.