From receiving a letter from a stranger to being kidnapped, what you take away from a performance can be much more than a programme
A couple of weeks ago, a letter addressed to me dropped through my letterbox. I stared at the creamy envelope for a couple of minutes, slightly perplexed. The writing was clearly mine. When I opened the envelope, however, I remembered: inside was a letter containing a really good piece of advice that I'd written to myself over a year ago at the 2010 Battersea Arts Centre One-on-One festival, as part of research and development for a project by Search Party called Growing Old With You.
Taking its starting point from the observation by poet Sue Hubbard (whose poem Eurydice I'm delighted to see has been restored to the underpass from London's Waterloo station to the IMAX) that "age to those who have not quite reached it yet, is another country", Growing Old With You is a durational project which will last the rest of the company's and its audience/participants lives. It documents lived experience in real time through a series of ongoing encounters and five-yearly performances. It is, in effect, a piece of performance that will last a lifetime. Some of those taking part may forget that they are even taking part ? just as I forgot the letter I'd written to myself.
You might say that the idea of being trapped watching a performance that never ends would be like an appalling real-life version of Sartre's Huis Clos. But while Search Party's piece may be unusual in its attempt to produce a performance that will only end when the last participant has died, it is not unique in its urge to create work that extends out beyond the walls of the theatre into our real lives, and which has the potential to catch us by surprise.
It used to be the case that going to the theatre meant arriving at 7.30pm and leaving around 10.15pm with only your memory of the performance and a programme. In a great deal of theatre that is still the case; but now the experience often extends out beyond the performance itself. When I look out into my garden at this time of year, I can see the blooming narcissi that came from the potted bulbs handed out during a BAC Scratch performance a couple of years back, and I'm transported back to the show; a thimble on my desk comes from Kirsty Harris's one-on-one performance, Neverhome (it represents a Peter Pan-style kiss). Every time I see it, it makes me smile and relive the experience. Each time I look at the exquisite slice of oak on my bookcase I'm not only taken back to Barnaby Stone's A Little Piece of a Beautiful Thing, but also back 700 years to when this tree once grew as part of a forest. Having something more than a programme to take home from the show has very often been part of the Kneehigh experience also. Coney have been clever about using email and even the telephone so that it begins at the moment you buy your tickets and can still be part of your life some weeks later. In Bristol this week, as part of Mayfest, Proto-Type Theater is creating a piece of theatre called Fortnight, developed through Theatre Sandbox, in which the participants will receive secret invites to real space events and mysterious communications, and will take place over two weeks rather than a couple of hours.
More extremely, some years ago Blast Theory caused a stir when they invited people to enter a lottery in which the prize was being kidnapped. The time lag between the signing-up and the actual event meant the victims had forgotten they had entered in the first place.
Of course these kind of interventions can cause trouble, as the fellow journalist who went to see Ontrooerend Goed's Internal discovered when he had to explain to his wife over breakfast some days later why he was receiving a letter from a strange woman. I know of several people who have still not plucked up the courage to view the memento mori everyone is given at the end of the same company's A Game of You, which is at the Norfolk and Norwich festival next week. But taking away a bit of the show with you or engaging with a project over more than just a couple of hours can be both transporting and transformative. I haven't yet acted on the piece of advice I wrote to myself a year ago, but I know that I will ? and that I'll have Search Party to thank for the reminder.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2011/may/02/theatre-shows-that-haunt-us
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