Author Archives: Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com

Bootworks Theatre: 30 Days to Edinburgh

‘A Spaceman, a Cowboy and a Disco-Dancer are going on a journey. A journey undertaken in the spirit of discovery. There’s a gig that they’ve got to get to and they’re the performers. The gig’s 468 miles away and they’ve only their feet to get them there. This will be 30 Days to Edinburgh.’

And they did it! James Baker, Rob Jude Daniels and Andy Roberts – collectively known as Bootworks – walked the whole length of the country to get from Chichester in Sussex to Edinburgh on the very last day of the Fringe, just in time to present the show made en route. In fact, they got here early and had to dawdle for the last day before making their triumphant journey down the Royal Mile singing The Proclaimers’ I Would Walk 500 Miles (inevitably, I suppose).

I’m in seeing another show and sadly miss them arriving at the door of Summerhall at 7pm. By 7.30, they are hanging out in the corridor chatting to mates. I give James (aka Spaceman) a hug – it’s odd hugging a guy in a slinky silver jumpsuit laden down with a giant backpack.

We file into one of Summerhall’s lecture theatre spaces, three mics placed in the stage area, and the Bootworks boys take to the stage, take off their backpacks and begin…

It’s (unsurprisingly) a bit of a ramshackle performance. Notebooks in hand, fluffs on the mic, lots of in-jokes. All-in-all it’s like a cross between stand-up comedy and performance poetry, with a few bits of mildly entertaining physical action chucked in. There’s a very funny failure to erect a tent (some children in the audience are called upon to help). There are jokes aplenty about Spaceman’s dangly bits, clearly outlined in the slinky silver suit, and about his bad poetry. Disco Dancer (Rob) is honest about the fact that he has found it all a bit hard going – he hasn’t had sex in ages, and his feet hurt, really hurt. The Cowboy (Andy) channels the energy of those that have gone before him: Jon Voigt in Midnight Cowboy, and John Wayne in – well, in everything John Wayne has been in, which is a lot of cowboy movies.

We get a whole lot of numbers and lists (meals eaten, animals spotted, towns passed through, pubs visited, constellations gazed at) and a fair few namechecks – Josh and Hannah who phoned them regularly from Edinburgh (there was a mobile number given on cards placed next to the Lego map in the hallway at Summerhall that showed their daily progress with little flags); Mim who called from a train going through Cumbria mid-August, saying she was probably very near them right now, and they were all looking at the same sunset; Winnebago Jeremy and the various nice landladies whose cafes provided them with life-saving All-Day Breakfasts. There’s quite a bit about food, and I particularly like a eulogy to the great British tradition of the Ice Cream van (‘Knobbly Bobbly! Mr Whippy with two flakes!’) There’s a lot about blisters and boots, about moments of friendship and fights, about torches and tents. Andy reads a letter composed en route: ‘Dear Vango, I quite like your sleeping bags, but please could you stop making tents?’

There are some nice moments of rhythm and repetition in the spoken text (the refrain of ‘We could have taken the train/car/plane,’ for example). Some of the observations from the journey and the recalling of encounters along the way are witty and interesting, but rather too many are not particularly inspiring, and there are more than a few dismissive comments about towns encountered along the way – although our lads are always keen to emphasise that ‘the people are nice’.

A criticism that has to be made is that it is all geared towards those in the know: the family and friends who have followed the progress along the way. A posse of international delegates in to see the show are completely bemused. Essentially, this is raw, undigested data, and life takes a lot more mulching down to become meaningful theatre. Compare and contrast to (say) Forced Entertainment’s The Travels, which similarly uses tales of journeying and random encounters across the UK – but which took many years of writing and editing and theatrical crafting to become the great show it is.

Which brings me to say that I feel that the choice to do the show was a mistake. The 30 days on the road was the show – a beautiful, wonderful thing, in a noble tradition of walking-as-art that includes the work of Janet Cardiff, Richard Long, and Wrights & Sites. The interaction with people from afar (by phone call, text, Facebook, or Twitter) was of course an intrinsic part of this. It is a wonderful achievement that is somehow lessened by being reduced to an hour-long hurriedly constructed theatre show. A celebratory welcoming party would perhaps have been enough to close the 30 days.

Should the company feel that a theatre show could emerge from the project, then that could be worked on with the sort of rigour and structured process that is needed to create an hour-long theatre piece, and what would emerge would be something of a standard worthy of Bootwork’s wonderful track-record.

But as said, I don’t feel that the theatre show is at all necessary in any case. 30 Days to Edinburgh was an extraordinary performance art project, a beautiful challenge to the Edinburgh bubble – but the art happened before they stepped into that lecture room. Nothing more was needed.

www.bootworkstheatre.co.uk

Tom Marshman: Legs 11

In which Tom Marshman takes us on a journey from Leg Shame to Leg Fame, telling the story of how he survived the pain and trauma of varicose veins, gaining a place in the Pretty Polly Legs 11 final. Along the way, we get an investigation of gender expectations, and liberation from those expectations, in this gentle, poignant and amusing performance piece.

The show is in the solo performance confessional-autobiographical tradition, using spoken text (written by the artist), film, song, and embodied actions. It sits between live art and theatre, perhaps more of a live art piece by most people’s definitions – Tom is himself, not acting a part – but it has a good dramaturgical structure, respecting the need for something presented in a theatre space, with a captive audience, to have the necessary pace and rhythm.

As we arrive in the space we see Tom pottering around, dressed in an old-gold tux and a pair of star-spangled tights. We are welcomed and invited to tie together a colourful selection of tights (sparkly, fishnet, bisque, American tan) to make a line, later used for an on-the-floor tightrope walk. The autobiographical texts are presented in various ways. There’s regular storytelling, as when we learn of Tom’s mother’s job in a supermarket, eschewing the spam and beans to promote brands such as Del Monte fruit cocktail, Martini Rosso, and – yes – Pretty Polly: ‘You’ll never catch a Pretty Polly girl in trousers!’ There’s a different kind of performance mode in the poetic ‘And when my legs were five… seven… eleven…’ sequence in which we get a quick run-through of Tom’s childhood and adolescence with moments of shame, embarrassment, self-awareness and emerging personal identity exposed and honoured (his legs running away from home aged five, red vanity case in hand; his legs having their trousers stolen at a party aged fifteen, resulting in a trip home in his Dad’s car with legs cocooned caterpillar-like in a sleeping bag). There’s ironic film clips (Busby Berkeley choreographed legs, and – inevitably – vintage Pretty Polly ads) and there are songs sung (these a little shaky it has to be said).

The adult legs have a tale to tell of pain and medicalisation and recovery, and we get the varicose veins story told with plastic drinking straws wedged down into Tom’s tights (the straws a nice shade of turquoise plastic, fitting in well with the red-and-turquoise theme throughout).

And so to the central story: when Pretty Polly announced that they needed a new pair of legs to represent them, Tom thought ‘I have a new pair of legs!’ and thus began his quest. We are now entering something resembling reality TV territory as we learn of the contest, the shortlist (the only man amongst a bevy of lovely-legged girls) and the outcome of the final – a tale told with suitably dramatic pauses and film interludes interspersed throughout. real6.ch Audience members get invited up for some Martini Rosso, drunk through straws (yes, those straws – still attached to Tom) and somewhere along the way, there’s a very nice section where the audience’s dancing legs are filmed and the film is played back to us.

Tom seems a little shy and unsure of himself at times, but this just adds to his charm. A very enjoyable little show, cleverly constructed, and as soft and velvety a fit as a pair of Pretty Polly 15 deniers. And actually, with a serious message hidden under the glossy sheen: we are all lovely, we can all be lovely – just believe, be brave, and be yourself.

www.tommarshman.com

Teatro Sineglossa: Remember Me

Inspired by an aria from Purcell’s Baroque opera Dido and Aeneas (‘Remember me, but ah, forget my fate.’), Sineglossa’s short filmic theatre show (just 20 minutes in duration) is less a story than a visual and aural poem exploring how the desire to love absolutely can become a form of narcissism, the one who desires and the one who is desired merging into one entity… Or perhaps it can be read as a lament – the dead lover living on in the body of the one who remains behind.

Scenography is everything in this piece – all done with lights and mirrors, you could say. We are sat in tiered seats facing a sheet of glass, so all we can see is our own reflection – a group of people staring ahead in expectation. We are then plunged into total blackout. (The performance space is Summerhall’s specially-adapted Black Shed venue, used only for the two Grotowski-inspired shows here, this and Teatr Zar’s Total Theatre Award winning Caesarean Section: Essays on Suicide, both of which require complete blackout.)

From the darkness we see glimmers of light and we make out a figure looking at us from behind the glass, as recorded applause plays. It’s a female figure, dressed in a smart cocktail dress, high heels and a hat. She raises her hand and steps towards us as the applause crescendos, then there is a moment of blackout and we next see her to the rear of the space, hatless, confined by what seems to be a triangular formation of glass walls. The figure becomes more elusive, almost ghostlike. An electronic soundtrack starts up, small bleeps sounding almost like digital cicada, then a male voice begins to hum. The woman stands by a table lamp that is giving off a bright but blurred light, a beacon in the darkness that seems to be shining right through her body. She bends over and removes her shoes and possibly her underwear. The man is seemingly behind her. She wrings her hands, agitated, then almost signs the sounds heard (‘Re-mem-ber me…’) in a kind of eurythmic hand-dance. She turns and stares into what might be a mirror, and through the glass darkly a male figure appears. The lights are very low and it is hard to distinguish what happens next, but what appears to happen is that both figures, naked, merge together then vacillate between the two states, male and female, momentarily separating out in the blink of the eye, then merging again, the pace of the ‘frames’ increasing to a frenzy.

The figures fade away before our eyes and we are left once again facing a sheet of glass, watching ourselves applaud. We can imagine this as a circular piece, with the female figure in the cocktail dress once again emerging from the applause – but this doesn’t happen, other than in our imaginations.

Afterwards, it is hard to recall just what we have actually seen and what we have imagined – the piece plays cleverly with that tug between memory and imagination, and is of course also playing very knowingly with our perceptions, challenging us to differentiate between the real and the illusory. The ‘morphing’ effect is obviously a version of the classic stage magic illusion called Pepper’s Ghost, used here to great effect.

I go back the next day to see the show again, hoping for a little more insight – I’m just as entranced, but none the wiser. Sometimes that’s how it has to be.

www.sineglossa.eu

Total Theatre Awards – 2012 Winners Announced

The winners of the Total Theatre Awards 2012 were announced at a ceremony at the Hunt and Darton Cafe on Thursday 23 August.

Six shows were awarded across three categories:

Emerging Companies/Artists:

XXXO (Belgium)
Charlotte De Bruyne & Nathalie Marie Verbeke, Supported by Ontroerend Goed & Richard Jordan, in association with Pleasance (Pleasance Courtyard)

Physical / Visual Theatre:

Caesarean Section – Essays on Suicide (Poland)
Teatr Zar (Summerhall)

(remor) (Spain)
Res de Res (C Nova)

Innovation, Experimentation & Playing with Form:

All That is Wrong (Belgium)
Ontroerend Goed, Laika, Richard Jordan Productions, Drum Theatre Plymouth (Traverse)

Bullet Catch (Scotland)
Arches presents Rob Drummond (Traverse)

Doctor Brown – Befrdfgth (England)
Soho Theatre and the Mason Sisters @ PBJ (Underbelly Cowgate)

A special award for a significant contribution to ‘total theatre’ went to:

Helen Lannaghan and Joseph Seelig, co-directors of the London International Mime Festival

Congratulations to all the winners, and to all the shortlisted artists and companies of the Total Theatre Awards 2012!

Being There: Say Something

A three-way reflection on h2dance’s Say Something

Say Something, a production by contemporary dance company h2dance, takes a close look at the nature of freedom of expression through dance and music. Ushered into the performance you walk into an intimidatingly empty and open room. No seats mean that the audience meander around the centre of the space, not knowing where to stand or even focus attention. ‘Testing, one, two,’ rings out from microphones placed around the edges of the room, while a stage at one end of the space draws the audience in as artists calmly set up their equipment and instruments. A nervous tension builds in the room as the audience set down bags and stand, waiting.

The performance that then begins blurs the lines between performers, participants and audience. From the beginning you are unsure of who is who, looking suspiciously for the most confident people around you, waiting for them to burst out of the crowd. A person grabs a roaming mic and welcomes everyone, and here the rules of the performance are first laid out. The audience can do or say anything they like at any time. The microphones have been left out especially so that the audience can use them to speak out and react to the performance.

When the performance begins in earnest the performers emerge from amongst the audience, weaving between them, with the movement built around a choral soundscape by composer Sylvia Hallett. It starts very simply, like a vocal warm-up, building into intricate harmonies. Using both the dancers and a group of volunteer participants, the choral compositions are beautiful and act as a way not only to give the production a cohesive style and mood but to give the audience a mechanism for easy participation: it’s hard to resist joining in with these choral melodies.

The performance pauses at points to encourage the audience to respond and give feedback, and through the dance and choral sections the performance cleverly draws you into participating: the dancers promenade around and through the audience, guiding them into formations and specific areas in the space. They bring the audience together as one group, whilst challenging them to say something, join in and be more than simply passive observers.

The multi-level participation is brilliantly handled; by involving the audience and integrating the participants fully, Say Something opens up the possibilities of what a performance can become if the audience give it as much direction as do the performers. Verging on a social experiment – and with different outcomes to each show as each audience responds differently to every performance – Say Something can be a challenge to the audience or a desperate appeal for substance and depth in a fickle and unquestioning world. It’s easier to be a follower all the time than to disrupt and risk changing things. ‘Say something’ becomes a question or challenge to the audience throughout the performance. If you don’t speak up when you are asked to do so can you speak up when you really need to? A unique experience in itself, the point of the performance is what it leaves you with: the question of what it means to be free to speak up and say – something.

Richard Lavery, reviewing for Total Theatre

I rush into the Dissecting Room with just fifteen minutes to go before ‘doors’. I’ve been to see another show at Summerhall that has just ended, so I’m late. I arrive into controlled chaos: Square Peg (the company whose circus show Rimeshares our space) are clambering over their rig, pulling down ropes. Say Something’s composer Sylvia is tuning her electric guitar. Dancers are limbering up on the concrete floor. Ouch. I’ve missed the voice warm-up so Sylvia suggests I go off into a corner and warm up myself. Choreographer Heidi rushes over to tell me that a few crucial changes have been made to the show – no time to rehearse me in, I’ll be fine. It’ll be all right on the night. Soundman Max is trying to sort out some problems with the mics due to their having been used for a club night held in this space yesterday. Yep, usual Fringe stuff, even at forward-thinking venues like Summerhall. It’s 7pm, the sound problems aren’t solved, but the show must go on.

We, the company performers and volunteer extra ‘secret performers’, join the line outside and enter with the audience. We all mooch around the room, or lean against the walls, watching the sun streaming in the windows. Everyone’s clocking everyone else. Jasmin takes the mic and does the intro, explaining that the audience are free to do as they will over the next hour, pointing out the mics that can be used for comment or commentary. On a set cue, we start to hum, a kind of secret hum. The sound builds and one by one we step out from the crowd, weave through the audience and walk across the room, to become a choir. At the moment we are all gathered, we turn and face the audience, bend over, rise, take a loud deep breath, and burst into song – it’s a gorgeous moment.

We are in four voice groups – soprano, alto, tenor, bass – and each group has a leader. The piece plays with flocking and grouping within the space, weaving in and around the audience. We sing, we walk, we sing, we run, we sing, we crawl, we sing, we roll… On some cues we follow our group leader; at other points we have a sequence of sound and movement motifs that we use to make our own patterns through the space. At given points we move the audience into different shapes and groupings. We circle them, bathe them in sound showers, hug them, gently herd them round the space. Later in the piece, things turn nasty and we screech and squawk and march and form military lines that drive the audience across the room and kettle them in corners.

There is an intention in the piece to investigate conformity and individuality. One performer, Anne Gaelle, emerges as the non-conformist of our group, and there is sometimes a similar rebel or two in the audience group. The piece shifts in mood and our relationship to the audience shifts accordingly. On this particular night, the audience is a respectable number of people, but not massive, and it’s a pretty young and relatively shy crowd – they seem remarkably easy to sculpt! Some nights earlier in the run have been rather more feisty. We’ve had plenty of rebels and refuseniks – less so tonight.

Despite the changes in choreography and the fact that there are choir members in the piece that I haven’t yet met (adding another interesting layer to the ‘who’s who’ start to the piece!), I take strength from the fact that the performer/audience ration is higher tonight than on last week’s shows, and I particularly enjoy this performance. The choir feels strong and united tonight.

Taking part in Say Something was sold to me as a fun and relaxing thing to do at the Fringe, singing with a community choir. As it turned out, it was fun, but hardly relaxing – running round to meet rehearsal and show commitments in between reviewing – and something of a busman’s holiday as I’d given up paid work with my own company (Ragroof Theatre) in order to give myself exclusively to Total Theatre for the month of August! Nevertheless, it was a great experience – and lovely to see how other people making ‘immersive theatre’ handle the challenges!

Dorothy Max Prior, volunteer performer and choir member, Say Something

As Say Something works with volunteer community singers alongside professional dancers, the last half hour before the show is always very stressful. The constellation of singers is constantly changing, meaning certain sections need to be repositioned and rehearsed in a very short amount of time. Adding to that stress the show tonight started slightly late due to technical problems. We didn’t want the audience to wait around for too long so we decided to go ahead with the show and sort out the problems during the performance. This luckily worked out and added a nice touch to the introduction.

The audience, consisting of mostly young people, entered the hall with slight hesitation, not quite knowing where to place themselves, working out whether to stand in the middle or hover round the edges of the space. When the performers started to reveal themselves nervousness developed amongst the audience as they became aware of their role within this show. Quite quickly the group merged, responding as expected of them, mostly obedient to the instructions given.

When performing the work we are constantly trying to guess the audience and predict their reactions. One woman decided to participate, dancing with us almost from the start. The confusion and individual reaction amongst the audience wondering ‘is she one of us or one of them?’ is interesting to observe. In most shows the audience members distance themselves from anyone who stands out as different and doesn’t conform to the unspoken rules that are quickly established in the space. Even though everyone has been encouraged to take part and express themselves freely during the show this opportunity is used by few.

The audience seemed joyfully uneasy about the work as sounds were thrown at them from different directions. ‘What do you want to tell me,’ one man asked while we were shaking the audiences hands and giving out hugs. ‘I really wanted to join in, but I feel too shy,’ was the response of a woman during the interview section. Another woman said as she giggled away in a nervous manner: ‘I just want to laugh’. When the show progressed into the middle sections, what we call the ‘rock song’, the majority of the audience seemed at ease and exited about joining in the dancing and singing along. There is however always someone on the outside of the group and I’m always wondering if they like that role, are bored, or if they just want to watch Anne Gaelle who reveals the truth that she works for h2dance.

Overall there was a good amount of interaction with the audience during this show. As the performers gave instructions and manipulated the audience mostly with success, all the planned elements of the performance came together. From our perspective this makes for a successful show. Possibly confused, hopefully touched, and with a range of thoughts on their minds, people seemed jolly as they left the hall.

Heidi Rustgaard, choreographer for Say Something and co-artistic director of h2dance

h2 dance‘s Say Something is performed 7-26 August 2012 at Summerhall as part of Edinburgh Fringe and under the Escalator East to Edinburgh banner. The performance written about here took place 15 August 2012.