Firstly, what did I have to do?  Well I had to come up with a performance or preinitiation to demonstrate an aspect of one of the subjects we had learnt over the course of the term.  I wanted to do something different, I didn’t really want to do a presentation as I thought a performance would be more fun and interesting.  I decided that I would do something with the post-modern and work without, or with a little script and focus on sound to create atmosphere.  I thought this would be easy as I would only have to make some sounds and then tell a story.  I then decided that it should be the audience’s story, and they would decide what happens, where they go and what they do, I would facilitate it and make the story biased on their decisions.  This turned out to be a lot more work than simply writing a script or story to tell.

The focus went away from the sound and became instead about creating a world for the audience to explore.  There was no way I could script for everything that the audience could do as it was not option based.  This meant that a lot of it had to be improvised, in fact for the feeteen minute performance, which I may have over run, the only script I had was this:

 

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.  Tonight we are going on an adventure.  What happens is up to you.  I will guide you through but you have to tell be what you want to do.  You are playing a group of knights in a fantasy world.  I’ll give you a setting and then it’s entity up to you where, what, why and how you do it.  Are there any question?

‘Answer any question.

Start music.  (lighting queue)  You’ll know it’s about to start as I will go round to my laptop.

Welcome brave knights to Lestria. The hilly Kingdom to the west, in the land of Concordia. At war now for many years with the other kingdoms in their struggle for power, wealth and supremacy.
The king has called you off the front lines as a band of his most loyal and trustworthy men to investigate the mystery on goings in the Town of Grimshaw. A town sunk in a valley with hills on all sides. It is up to you to find out why the town has been out of contact for so long and regain their support for the war.
When you arrive in the centre of Grimshaw the sun has already set and the market is closed. The only signs of life on this cold, dark and windy night are in the tavern to your left.
The town seems perfectly normal but the night seems unnaturally dark. What magic is at play? What danger will you face? What evil lurks in the darkness?
Will you save the town and help your king? Will you simply fritter away your time and return empty handed or will the dark power around Grimshaw drag you in and never release you? This is your chance. This is your glory. This is you up story. So… What would you like to do?

The performance.

Final line:  Hopefully you’ll have greater fortune next time. (Lighting queue)’

 

As you can see, I have the explanation of the ‘rules’ or what is expected of the audience.  This is quite similar to how Tim Crouch interacts with his audience, ‘Crouch’s approach challenges the widespread assumption that ‘drama’ belongs to a literary theatrical tradition’.  The only scripted part of the performance the intro introduction that sets the scene for the audience.  The rest is up to them.  I gave the world a lot of thought and had serval scenarios thought-out and what characters they could meet and how they would interact.

Overall I think that it worked.  The audience seemed to enjoy it and it demonstrated how the script is not important for this performance.  It was all about thinking on your feet and knowing the world that you plunged the audience into.

 

 

 

Bottoms Stephen, ‘Authorizing the Audience: The conceptual drama of Tim Crouch’ (2009) Taylor & Francis Ltd.  Accessed on: 25/12/2014