Experimenting with the senses is something that is hugely inciting for any performer or director. Theatre tends to be a visual medium, whether it’s a physical piece with elements of dance and using the body to create art, or the West End where it’s often the spectacle of the grand stage that attracts audiences. This is also combined with the aural sense, from the music in a piece, to a single voice from centre stage entering into a monologue.
In class we formed a small group and took an element, or theme from the Grandstand as inspiration for a short performance. We created a piece that insisted on one of these major senses being removed or reduced and fused this with the theme of war. Making the room dark, with very limited visibility, we played audio of a sewing machine, Vera Lynn and Judy Garland singing war-time songs and a very faint sound of bombing. Simultaneously, we sprayed perfume on ‘love notes’ and kissed them with red lipstick on, before putting them in front of one of the audience members. We wanted to experiment with how the other senses would be heightened or warped because sight was limited.
The feedback from the audience suggested that the audio of the sewing machine sounded heavy and mechanical and when juxtaposed with the uplifting war-time song and the smell of vanilla from the perfume it created a stirring and effective contrast. When the lights were turned back on, the audience then saw the generically feminine kiss, in red lipstick. It meant there was a focus on the women in war. We discussed how the war, in many respects, gave women a sense of importance as they contributed to help there country, in the same light as the men fighting on the front line.
Rotozaza’s Etiquette is an example of using the aural sense to create a piece that challenges the participants/audience to trust in an unfamiliar voice, and transfer the voice into actions: ‘Etiquette exposes human communication at both its rawest and most delicate and explores the difficulty of turning our thoughts into words we can trust.’ ((Rotozaza (2007) Etiquette/Rotozaza’s Micro/Autoteatro Work, Online: http://www.rotozaza.co.uk/etiquette2.html [accessed 23 February 2013])) Rotozaza communicates the lack of confidence we have to act on our own thoughts. Etiquette allows for the participants to be directed by what feels like our own inner thoughts. Journalist, Jason Zinoman for The New York Times, also highlights the ‘way around the problem of pesky performers by giving the audience something else to look at: themselves.’ ((Zinoman, Jason (2007) ‘A Two Character Play Starring Both Members of the Audience’, The New York Times, Online: http://theater.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/theater/08frin.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1361744832-aav9iGUW/96EAQVDQ40abA [accessed 23 February 2013])) Rotozaza’s work is arguably so thought provoking because the audience is in the performance- they make the performance. Generally, the best way to learn from something is to experience it for oneself.
In our piece we wanted the audience members to sit around the room, with no order or centre focus, as there was nothing to see visually. With the audience all around and between us, we hoped that the experience would surround them, so that they felt within the performance, in the same light as Etiquette. It would be interesting to experiment with the sound recordings playing on headphones and wearing a blindfold. Or, to make it a one-to-one experience, an audience member could just be in the room, in the dark by themself. Rotozaza suggests there is a ‘resulting thrill of disowning responsibility in a performance situation.’ ((Rotozaza (2007) Etiquette/Rotozaza’s Micro/Autoteatro Work, Online: http://www.rotozaza.co.uk/etiquette2.html [accessed 23 February 2013])) Therefore, the use of headphones, for example, would allow the audience to trust the sound and be coerced into whatever or wherever the performance wants to take them.