Unfounded judgement, assumption and condescension.
I've just listened to a talk show on Radio 3, called Night Wave, hosted by Anne McElvoy. In this episode (Wednesday June 30th) Anne interviews Mark Ravenhill and John McGrath.
They discuss the growth of interactive, or pervasive, theatre.
It can be heard here, (from 23 minutes in):
John explains how the NTW launch involves many, many different kinds of theatre including interactive, which is being used for "NTW05: The Beach". Anne quickly begins her condescension (and not just with tone-of-voice) by asking Ravenhill whether he believes it's a bit narcissistic to want the audience in the 'heart of the drama'. Ravenhill immediately agrees and tries to relate what NTW is attempting, to a wider cultural anxiety to be more democratic. He then continues to talk over Anne, suggesting interactive theatre is part of that compunction and compares it to politicians feeling more democratic by 'tweeting' online. Listening to this makes me think he's of the opinion that interactive theatre is a desperate attempt to keep with the times.
Ravenhill continues with, "it's a form of control really. I can't just have you [the audience] sat there, I need to know what's going on in your head". Does he really think this is what interactive theatre is about? Surely it's about creating a unique theatrical experience by involving the audience as much as they feel comfortable with. It provides a fun, engaging, provoking theatrical form of story-telling that is unique and memorable.
Let's look at other forms of audience engagement: Stand-up comedy for the grown-ups and children's story-telling parties for the little ones. Both of these forms of theatre involve the audience. People sit on the front row or at the front tables of a comedy club because they are happy to interact with the comic (or haven't been to a comedy gig before). Children's story-telling parties (which I have led on numerous occasions) involve getting the children to think and participate. Oh no, sorry Mark, I do it because I'm not comfortable performing without knowing how each audience member feels at any given moment.
John reminds us that as theatergoers "If it's exciting and takes you to new and imaginative places that you didn't think you could go to then you're going to follow that work and be excited by what that company does". But according to Ravenhill, being a part of the action doesn't leave the spectator time to have any emotional or philosophical space. I'm not sure I agree. I think getting involved in the action often gives audience members a physical reaction, an emotional reaction and (where applicable) a philosophical reaction. And as John highlights, "can be an enlightening experience". Ravenhill's poor retort (whilst talking over Anne again) is "The danger is it's Disneyland for posh people". 1) You've obviously not been to Prestatyn, Mark and 2) Sorry, WHAT?
Do have a listen and let me know how you feel about this interview. Is Anne playing devil's advocate here or is she firmly siding with Ravenhill? Eerurrgh!
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Richard Croughan on
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Last chance to hear this on iPlayer, today. Check it out before 10pm Weds 7th. Certainly worth a listen! http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00sv7k6
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Permalink Reply by Catherine Paskell on
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Thanks for this, Rich. Really interesting debate - and funny how some things can be written off or opinions formed before anyone's really tried them! Thanks for posting. x
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Permalink Reply by Adam Somerset on
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Richard, hi
I missed the i-player cut-off time by ten minutes, so grateful for your summary of what it was all about.
It has some things in it that are quite common. One is the habit of turning every issue into a stark dichotomy; so it’s either this or that. (It’s a particular characteristic of political journalists, which is a whole separate discussion.)
There is a brilliant writer on cultural difference, Christopher Hampden-Turner, who identifies this as a deep-grained, very English cultural characteristic. He has developed it at length in a great book of his “The Seven Cultures of Capitalism.”
The proliferation of site-specific work, one-on-one theatre etc is obviously just a manifestation of what is by any standard a rich and vibrant period for performance.
Reducing this richness to one versus the other is not just evidence of meagre and rather crude thinking. It makes as much sense as arguing that Britain’s population of six million dogs is somehow superior to its population of cats. They are simply different, with different virtues and deficiencies.
I have had pleasure in the company of both, but both a dog’s bite and a cat’s scratch have drawn blood, more than once. Likewise I have been at times bored to tears by banal and limp proscenium theatre and wished I could get out of the place. But then at another time I have seen a gifted director whom I admired using all those gifts on a devised piece. All his gifts had to work hard to cover over the fact he had no writer to work with, or from.
The only criterion must be the one you quote
"If it's exciting and takes you to new and imaginative places that you didn't think you could go to then you're going to follow that work and be excited by what that company does". Right.
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Mark Ravenhill was on Newsnight Friday night. (23rd) He’s an engaging and lucid presence and you can see why he’s popular with media people who need a talking head.
(The conversation itself was futile, being a piece of transparent puffery for an upcoming BBC programme. Deep shame on the producer for peddling advertising as a “news” item.)
It’s probably not fair to critique too much what was a spontaneous piece of radio chat. But a couple of things don’t ring right.
“Being a part of the action doesn't leave the spectator time to have any emotional or philosophical space.” It’s the nature of us that we can never exactly know the mind of another. A lot of work has been done on the neurology of attention but nobody really knows what is going on in the head of an observer or a member of an audience.
There are cult theorists who make assertions and wrap it up in language that sounds authoritative. But assertions are assertions, and not knowledge, (including this one); their views can be respected but need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Secondly, non-traditional theatre is not a composite. Stumbling alone down a dark tunnel and being confronted with a TV screen showing violent scenes is one experience- that was in Aberystwyth. Walking at not great speed around Barmouth, asking questions of performers or fellow audience members is entirely another; sweeping them under one umbrella to fit a composite theory doesn’t work.
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Permalink Reply by Matthew Austin on
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Mark Ravenhill is really annoying me at the moment. I can't even be bothered to respond to the points in that programme. He's revealing himself to be very behind the times. It's like he's living in the 1980s. Wish he'd take his polemic somewhere else. He's just written a very frustrating piece on arts funding for the guardian here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/25/arts-funding-cu...
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Donnelly on
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All forms of theatre involve the audience; no audience, no theatre. Ravenhill seems very conservative in his outlook on theatre and art, which is typical of the BBC's arts criticism output. I think the people the BBC use have good eyes but they often look at the wrong things.
Case in point. Bryony Kimmings is a performer who is curently performing her one woman show Sex Idiot in The Den in the Zoo Roxy, Edinburgh. The show follows the journey she took upon finding out she had an STD and traced back her relationships, and we explore them with her in the safety of the Theatre. Sex Idiot is at time times funny, tender and manic, and Bryony succefully plays with different forms of theatre to create a rich and entertaining show. She includes song and dance, she speaks candidly and honestly to the audience to the point where we feel at ease with her.
Sex idiot was featured on the BBC Review show. This was how it was introduced; 'Sex Idiot culminates with a woman wearing the pubic hair of her audience as a moustache every night, ['ew noise'] don't listen, don't look!'
If you watch the segment on the BBC Iplayer you can see the studio audience reaction to this idea; giggling, nervousness, unease. Perfectly understandable! If someone sprang the idea on me I would react the same way. Only Bryony did not spring any idea on anyone; within the context of the show it was part of an ongoing narrative and was one of the sections that I personally felt was less 'outrageous'.
But TV needs something visual to play with. Cellotape + Pubes + Young Woman's Lip = Story.
Bryony also danced through the audience in a near-see through lace dress and told us all, in rhyming couplets, how once drunk she had an insatiable appetite for men and gyrated through a mating dance of her own design (would this footage have got passed the BBC's standards and practices?). Her show focused on the topics of love, fidelity and the expectations society has on the female gender, all of which are literally thousands of times more interesting and culturally relevant than some curly hairs on some sticky-back-plastic.
It is a sad state of affairs when a publicly funded organisation like the BBC misrepresents what a member of the British public is trying to communicate with the rest of the world.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00td4rh/The_Review_Show_The_R...
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