What am I thinking?

Audience:

I think there’s very little theatre made in these parts (Gloucestershire) that stands up and says:  You’re here, we’re here, in 2011, in this contemporary culture, in this very room, and what we’re going to do is explore an idea that’s relevant to all of us.  Yes, you’re going to be part of this – and it probably won’t be easy.  It won’t be a relaxing ride for you, because we’ll be asking something of you too and we’ll be asking for it directly: not as characters who speak to the audience, but as ourselves.

Don’t forget this moment of your life.  I know you can’t hold on to all of them, but grab this one, breathe it and know you are alive.  Hold on to the pictures you see through your eyes, the feelings, the sensations.  Boredom is valid.  Amusement is valid.  So are anger and frustration that this moment isn’t quite what you hoped it might be.  We understand all that.

To celebrate being alive we might do a silly dance, we might listen to sounds, we might play a game, we might lie.

All we want from you is to play the game with us – to take the mental step from where you are to where we are: to join in the game of being here and now. You might well refuse that invitation, which is ok, but you’ll lose the game, and the game will carry on without you.

Performers:

You probably need to do less than you think (apart from learning lines - sorry).  Let them see the spaces in between… just be there.  I mean, here.  Perhaps it’s a bit scary?  Perhaps it feels a bit empty or purposeless?  But the best way to demonstrate being here now is actually to be here now, to lead in the game. Like, hide n seek or sleeping lions.  You’ve played the being present game so often that you know all the tactics.  You know you can’t lose.

We all came from different places.  There are tectonic shifting lines between us, and the audience will see that.  That’s fitting, I think, for the most imperfect of all arts: theatre.

This is an experiment.  This is a laboratory.  It’s not supposed to be an object that’s finished and highly-polished and complete (and dead).  It’s still breathing.

Ok, we do cheat.  We cheat with blocked moves and rehearsed lines, but that in itself is part of the game.  What fun is a game without a bit of mischievous cheating?

For Myself:

I could say it came to me in a dream. I could say it’s my passion. I could say this is the piece I’ve always wanted to make and let me tell you why.  But it’s not.  That’s why I love it.  Because I sat down to write it and what came out was a game, inspired by all the improvisations and unconscious improvisations of a frustrating few days of devising.  It celebrates imperfection.  It celebrates being here now.

Speaking to an arts administrator last night, she said ‘Ah you could do this scheme that [another arts administrator]'s setting up, we could bend the rules and count you as an emerging artist.’  I hurried off to rehearsal thinking, ‘but I am an emerging artist – and that’s what I will always be.  Once the emerging has happened, it’s over.’