Over the past few weeks, I have been developing a solo performance that originated from a given stimulus from my lecturer:

A chair is down stage right.  Lit from the side.  A voice is heard.  What does the voice say?

At first I think I took the task too literally and so I was considering voices that followed the tone of the piece that had been set up, that for me felt very cold, dark and eerie.  However, in wandering down this route, I was able to create the opening to this sequence.  I started off with fragmented questions, only using the beginnings of such questions, for example ‘Can you, Will you’.  I imagined these to be recorded and played off stage as it is just the voice that is initially heard.

Presence.  Absence.

This sequence would gradually build in tension and pace so that when it reached the completion of a question, the final word that is heard is ‘truth’.  My aim in creating this piece was to keep the meaning very ambiguous so that when the figure of the voice appeared, she would be the “outer manifestation” (Carroll, 1979, 56) of her inner thoughts and feelings (as spoken about in an earlier blog), something that the audience would not at first recognise until this entrance.

“That the represented body has a language and that this language of the body, like other semantic systems, is unstable” (Warr, 2000, 13)

 Upon her entrance, the figure would remain in the dark until the appropriate time within the monologue to sit down.  Throughout this tiny speech, almost set around the style and structure of an interview, shifts within the tone of the monologue would be the performer’s cue to slightly alter her position, whether it is a click of the finger or a crossing of the leg.

This monologue would then ‘cut’ – in that a recorded voice would shout this much like a director would do on a film set, bringing into play the theme of acting/performance/theatre/being interviewed, tying them all together -into an atmosphere that placed her as the centre of attention, of what she has just been commenting on.  This would differ from that atmosphere previously established as she would directly address the audience at this point, as if she is now the host, the interviewer.

The performance reaches its climax when a camera flash starts and she is forced into the spotlight once again.  This time what she says are answers to those questions proposed earlier in the performance.

The “‘here and now’ is imbricated with phenomena of memory and anticipation” (Giannachi et al, 2012, 7)

This time, she is in fear; she feels exposed and has lost the calm composure gained at the beginning of the performance.

“The ‘private’ is the ‘public’ and the artists body is always and never ours to keep” (Warr, 2000, 43)

It might be nice to use some of this material I have experimented with in this exercise in my final 10 min solo performance piece.

References:

Carroll, N. (1979) Amy Taubin: The Solo Self. The Drama Review, 23 (1) 51-58.

Giannachi, G., Kaye, N. and Shanks, M. (2012) Archaeologies of Presence. London and New York: Routledge.

Warr, T. (2000) The Artist’s Body. London: Phaidon Press.