Author Archives: Sophie London

Avatar

About Sophie London

Sophie London is built on Film Theory and Theatre Practice. She has been a theatre technician and some time stage manager for the last decade, working on everything from one woman shows in subterranean sweatboxes to Olivier-winning West End musicals. She always comes back to Fringe and new writing though. Sophie periodically lends her services as a Marketing type to Theatre Royal Stratford East. Find her on Twitter @solosays

Feral Foxy Ladies: I Got Dressed In Front Of My Nephew Today

I Got DressedIt’s a one-woman production, but the performance is all women. In fact Katherine Vince is the prototypical everywoman as she takes on numerous roles in her realisation of Claire Stone’s perceptive play. Interacting with multimedia and striding unabashed through the fourth wall at will, she lays bare the fallacy of conventional standards of female beauty, of the rites, rituals and recriminations we put ourselves through in order to show our faces.

The framing device, of the recorded commentary of a two and a half year old boy observing his aunt getting ready for a day out, really condenses two thoughts that we all know, though we may not often acknowledge them: firstly that the male gaze really does frame our every moment; and secondly that social gender norms and casual sexism are embedded from an alarmingly early age, even in liberal households.

There is a trend among upcoming theatre makers to use projection in everything they produce, often without adding value, or even to the detriment of the piece. This isn’t the case here – video clips of bittersweet comic interludes, an actual acknowledged PowerPoint presentation interrogating the assertions of Marx and Beyoncé, amongst others – all of these components add layers to the thoughtful and honest process of self-awareness that the hour-long show drives towards.

Vince starts onstage as the audience troop in to their seats, asleep under a sheet on a mattress on the floor. As she wakes up to her day, the reveal of her phalanx of products and toiletries, underlying her very physicality, is hilarious and immediately sobering. More arresting still are the figures: the sheer financial outlay of waxing and grooming and preening, in a year, in a lifetime.

Drawing on factual data in this way could be dry, even preachy, but Feral Foxy Ladies avoid this trap with mercurial shifts in tone and frequent injections of humour, from the satirical to the absurd, both physical and in wordplay and wry delivery.

I Got Dressed springs from the same well as any number of other female works about body image and social pressure (Amy Godfrey’s The Biscuit Chronicles immediately comes to mind) yet it has a distinct voice and feels timely – in tune with the rise of feminist hashtags, awareness of the hypocrisy of pricing for gendered products, and Instagram campaigns around going makeup free, or unshaven, or any number of female empowerment ideals that are resurfacing in this not-quite-new millennium.

There is a sincerity of intent here that really lifts the production above the clamour and some striking moments of incisive commentary and capably-directed and executed comedy. To be honest, any show featuring the line “Fuck you, David Cameron” is going to have my vote, but I Got Dressed is far more than political vitriol. From the mouths of babes and sucklings as they say – justifying the time-intensive and pricey process of putting on your face in the morning (and all the rest of yourself too) to a bemused toddler really does bring home quite how absurd we are as a species: it’s a cunningly effective device that opens the door for top-class character work and smart writing. If you’re in Edinburgh this summer, find time for this one.

Seen as work in progress at Camden People’s Theatre in London – then transferring to Zoo in Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015 

My Name Is B

Company B: My Name is B

My Name Is BMore of an installation than a narrative work, or even a collection of set pieces, My Name is B demonstrates the cyclical and entropic artifice of celebrity, and the destructive fallacy of living as a Persona at the expense of Self. The 53-minute performance (we are told the running time repeatedly in the rhythmic opening sequence) draws on both the macabre and compelling story of The Red Shoes and on Freudian theories of identity to take us through the stratified superego, ego, and id of media personality ‘B’ on the eve of her 21st birthday.

The only set and illumination are four fluorescent striplights that line the traverse performance space like a runway, or the fashion catwalk it references, and a live video screen that gives the audience an almost 360° view of proceedings, making the rudimentary basement space of CPT seem all the more stark; equal parts exposed and confining, much like the hospital gowns and red heels the four performers don for most of the experience.

Company B are well balanced, a visually appealing mix of physical types, each with their own brand of embodied bathos and humour. The piece felt a little out of place in this venue: CPT is generally home to strong narratives and conversation-through-performance and My Name Is B felt like it would be far better suited to a gallery or festival, where onlookers could pass through and keep returning. Being seated throughout the intense process of B’s decline was a confrontational choice, forcing us to question our own role as observers and consumers of the media circus that extinguishes so many public lights. I felt I would better appreciate it if I had been drawn back to it, passing through every circle of descent, or if there had been the option to walk away – making the conflict of staying so much more fraught, the observer so much more complicit. As a parade of the objects of scopophilia My Name Is B has some heft, but situated somewhere more appropriate, responding to a site, presented to an audience less constrained and conventional than those seated in a theatre, it could be far more resonant.

Thomas Martin and Pat Ashe, Beta Public

Thomas Martin and Pat Ashe: Beta Public

Thomas Martin and Pat Ashe, Beta Public

Beta Public was a two-pronged thrust at exposing the underbelly of what computer games could mean in the world of theatre. The evening began below stairs with a loosely curated exhibition of video games on various devices, with creators hovering by, and culminated in a short programme of demonstrations and discourse on what gaming could offer to contemporary theatre and vice versa. The focus was on simple single and two-player games with all participants in the same place, rather than on online multiplayer shoot-em-ups or more advanced game worlds.

A number of variously abstract and offbeat low-tech computer games arrayed around the (overly) darkened basement of Camden People’s Theatre, without identification or instruction, were left for the punters to wander warily amongst. Some, such as Ervax For 2 and Icefishing V, I was reliably informed by my gamer companion, had far superior competitors already on the market and in the oblique space they were distractions more than attractions. Icefishing V takes the player through a very abstract virtual landscape where each perspective generates a sound and each action taken by the player affects those sounds. It is more about the journey than the destination, listening to what you create and playing with the interaction between virtual environment and soundscape, but this can be frustrating to anyone used to playing narrative games with a clear objective to achieve, and baffling to musicians who could reasonably expect to have far more control over the order and arrangement of sounds they are creating. For me (meeting neither of these descriptions) there just wasn’t enough to hold my attention – the visuals were too rudimentary and the sounds too conceptual to make either satisfying. From a programming perspective it was an achievement, but unfortunately it fell down in delivering player experience.

Similarly, Ervax For 2 allowed players to create ‘compositions’ by flying their avatars through space and ‘catching’ notes and rests. The speed of play and clumsiness of the controls, however, meant that each player simply had to grab what they could without planning the final effect. The final round pitted each composition against each other as you had to protect what you had fashioned whilst trying to ‘silence’ your opponent by shooting laser rays or somesuch into their composition/ship. It made for a diverting few minutes, but my companion put his finger on the shortfall when he said that he’d had too little control over his composition to care about defending it. The level of player investment in what they are achieving is really what was overlooked in the interests of pursuing an artistic ideal in many of the offerings at Beta Public.

The satirical and pleasingly lo-fi Art Game did not fall into that trap however. Played on an ordinary PC, with basic keyboard controls, the participants were invited to play very simple versions of classic and cult arcade games Computer Space (an insider’s nod to gaming aficionados I’m told), Snake and Tetris. The process offered some meta-commentary by using the end frame (the point at which, traditionally, the player has ‘lost’ the game) to create modern art installations – subverting the purpose of the games by emphasising the space and arrangement of pixels, rather than the concepts they represent. The faux-cerebral critiques of the gallery visitors within the game provide another layer of wit, yet conversely lend genuine value to each creation for the player – the reward being a comment that allows us to laugh at the fallacy of ascribing value to some arbitrary shapes but not to others. A very satisfying addition to the evening, though the performative element is really only for the players themselves, not for an audience.

One of the pleasures of gaming conventions, for example, is the opportunity to observe masters at work, and after some spirited if chaotic attempts at playing A Bastard, in which players jump around on a life-sized QWERTY keyboard to direct and shoot their onscreen figures (projected onto the wall) I found it far more entertaining to watch two accomplished players chase each other both around the screen via avatars, and around the board, deliberately stepping in each other’s way to thwart winning manoeuvres. This very literal demonstration of Gaming As Performance could easily integrate into performance festivals and interactive spaces.

After an hour of unfocused playing, with much emphasis on the ‘sound’ and ‘virtual environment’ and less thought invested in the ‘game’ aspect the audience were corralled into CPT’s main studio space for Beta Public’s formal presentation. It began with an initially promising but ultimately gauche attempt to splice abstract video gameplay and spoken word. A novice was called up from the crowd to play fan-favourite soundscape creation game PROTEUS, while curating artist Pat Ashe read a pre-prepared narration. In the hands of a practiced improviser, or with more engaging prose, this could easily have been a very pleasing little interactive performance, however it fell short of the intention, with only momentary congruity between the gameplay projected on the back wall and the recitation. Exiting the game before (I have on good authority) its transcendent climax also robbed the performance of potential narrative completion.

Thomas Martin followed this up with a brief lecture on the performative nature of video gaming, illustrating his talk with YouTube clips and briefly mentioning the value of live interactive games like Cello Fortress. He touched upon the idea of ‘gaming as performance’ with YouTube videos of exemplary play gaining millions of hits, some examples showing off the gamer’s prowess even at the expense of actually winning the game. There was a lot of food for thought here but none of the ideas were explored thoroughly enough for the audience, who all appeared au fait with either gaming or performance already. Should this event spawn others, however, there are fascinating ideas to be explored which could contribute an exciting new aspect to interactive and multimedia theatre. A very good turnout suggests there is definitely an interest in this new thread of performance discourse.

The evening finished with a frenetic and hilarious live demonstration of Spaceteam a ‘cooperative’ multiplayer touchscreen game in which players have to direct each other, via the medium of SF technobabble, to perform demonstrative tasks on their respective devices in order to keep their ship travelling through hazardous outer space. The four participants dressed the part and added commentary on their playing experience so, even though we were unable to see what they were seeing, the picture was painted so vividly that it was as entertaining as playing the game ourselves. It might not work as more than a brief aside amongst more weighty contributions, but it was a fittingly engaging high note to end an evening which promises – with a little more thought, particularly to the audience experience – to generate a challenging new voice in the experimental theatre discussion.

Stillpoint: Three Attempts I Love

Stillpoint: The Art of Catastrophe / Steal Compass, Drive North, Disappear… / The Growing Room

Stillpoint: Three Attempts I Love

Fringe First winner Rachel Blackman draws her three Stillpoint Theatre solo pieces together for the first time at the low-key CPT; striped over the week, then all in a day. Saturday’s performances begin with The Art of Catastrophe, an autobiographical slideshow by photographer Helen. As with all of Blackman’s work, there is a laudable honesty to each story, even from characters who are intrinsically dishonest. It is as though, even though they lie to everyone around them and even to themselves, the intimate medium of black box theatre draws the truth from them despite themselves.

Helen’s tale is the perfect example. Here is a woman, late in life, reflecting on her mistakes, on the moment she realised that the life she was living was not her own, and sharing that revelation with a room full of strangers. She makes no attempt to make herself sympathetic, to spin events in her favour, and we like her all the more for that. There is a conspiratorial camaraderie of flawed people. The comic, yet grotesque, characters and caricatures that surround this protagonist do serve to make her seem more sane; they lend her compassion whilst raising an indulgent laugh from the audience.

The realistic scenes are interspersed with the trademark Stillpoint rhythmic interludes. A motif of drowning brackets moments of coldness and spite from Helen so we know that this is not a woman lashing out deliberately, but in blind, internal panic.

The deceptively simple lighting design allows Blackman to make great use of the empty space and she toys with the fourth wall so that we know when we are being spoken to and when we are looking through a lens into the past. The empty rectangle of light cast on the back wall is so much more effective as Helen’s slideshow than even real photographs might be; an imagined self-portrait writ large. There is something unexpectedly satisfying in this story of a whole life (in every sense), told from outside, where a woman finds her fulfilment without her man, without money and corporate success and children and middle-class social immersion.

Steal Compass, Drive North, Disappear… fitted so well into the space of Brighton’s Nightingale Theatre when I saw it first in 2010 that I was curious whether it would travel well, but Blackman inhabits CPT like it has always been home. She begins with an exaggeratedly dramatic flourish, putting on Martin Sharon (and his jacket) with apt pomp and ceremony, before wearing him around the floor like a bejewelled codpiece.

Despite this cocksure beginning however, the Martin of 2012 is a more subtle beast than in previous incarnations; in between the absurdist abandon of the dance sequences which belie precise choreography and timing, he has become more conflicted and, surprisingly, more caring for the women he utilises and fails to appreciate.

One of the most powerful lines in this triptych comes from Martin’s biographer Soraiya: ‘I also am true,’ she says, and, although fictional, she confronts us with many truths. In a beautifully evocative turn of phrase she tells us that Martin’s story has ‘fallen on her’ to tell and that fragments of truth from Martin’s self-important stories land on her. This imagery of a life story like ash or snow, drifting down and settling on unsuspecting listeners, is the perfect metaphor for the way this trilogy comes together. With gentle humour and pathos Soraiya is the true heart of Drive North, but both she and Martin in the end turn and confront the fear they have been fleeing.

Yet again Blackman’s protagonist finds some peace, some respite from themselves, outside of their defining relationship. Although coming from the other side of infidelity, the common themes here are of the confines of matrimony, of male betrayal, of eventual redemption through finding oneself alone. This is a natural companion piece to The Art of Catastrophe and it seems the story is: we’re better off apart.

Again Blackman uses physical theatre to great effect; she embodies each character, however minor, with practiced ease and adds mimed flourishes with a knowing glint in her eye.

Finally comes The Growing Room, the story of fragile Andrea and her damaged teenage daughter Clio. There is a difference in tone to this piece. The characters are not the authors of their own unhappiness in the way that the previous two were and the wry narration, straight out of the fourth wall, is far closer to the real life commentary we offer on those we know, love and despair of, more like an anecdote of one’s own embarrassment you might recount to a close friend, and that invites immediate affection. I felt I was encouraged to identify with Andrea, rather than just observe her; there is an undeniable element of female solidarity in the story of two women from adjacent but vastly disparate generations.

Perhaps it was just that her daughter’s distress was so close to home, but I felt myself rooting for Andrea to find the answers we all know aren’t there, rather than passively waiting to see what became of her. Unwitting love interest to mother and daughter, the easygoing Antipodean Nick tells Andrea what she, and perhaps some of the audience too, need to hear: ‘You can’t save her’. Even with their flaws and misdeeds posted up in lights, all of the inhabitants of The Growing Room are so easily likeable and this makes the piece a pleasing conclusion to the triptych. Blackman’s second-person address embeds us in the piece, makes it our story too, makes Andrea’s past into our personal history.

A wonderfully comic and empathetic sequence of unarticulated self-exasperation sums up a hard to describe feeling so precisely that everyone laughed in recognition, even as the scene turned on a sixpence to become heartbreaking. Blackman really excelled herself here, laying out a mother’s desperation to heal and protect her child and the conflict of a woman wanting some love for herself too.

Each of these works is well worth seeing in its own right, but as an internally curated collection they are greater than the sum of their parts. It is only against the selfishness of Martin, the coldness of Helen, that Andrea’s self-sacrifice is visible. Blackman’s engagement and co-option of her audience becomes more notable in its contrast to the more passive viewing of Catastrophe and Drive North. Each piece percolates through the next, flavouring each consecutive situation and lending the viewer a greater susceptibility to the thematic undercurrent.

The altogether sweeter and more hopeful, conspiratorial narratives of The Growing Room have a more convincing pull coming in on the tails of the bittersweet parables of finding completeness alone that precede it. All together the triptych forms a satisfying and complimentary theatrical repast. It seems fitting that at the last love seems to be winning the day; after all we are optimists at heart.

stillpointtheatre.co.uk