Nightswimming’s Pure Research - October 22, 23, 24, 2010
Voicing Pain and Suffering -- Report by Lois Brown I decided to write a report on the Pure Research project I was involved in, to complement the formal report that project leader Mary Walsh has submitted as requirement of the project. I made this report because my reason for participating in the project falls outside the experimental/research question, and I found in my previous experience with Pure Research that the report is a valuable part of the research process. In the report below I considered the outcomes of my participation and the value of the research – or, not the research so much as, the research process itself. Editor’s Note: Please read Mary Walsh’s report first for context on Lois’ experience as a participant and performer in the research.
Mary Walsh told me about her intention to apply to Nightswimmimg’s Pure Research program in early 2010. I asked Mary to include me in this application and make me a part of the research process, not because I was specifically interested in the question, know Francis Bacon's work as she does or am even as affected by it. I am, however, affected by Mary and her work, and by the idea that words get in the way of the experience that they are trying to deliver, and that as theatre artists we are most able to explore this issue. I asked to be a part of this research project because I wanted to examine Mary’s approach, to further my own understanding of acting and performance. As an established director and acting teacher myself, there are few opportunities to pursue this kind of professional development and at this challenging level. What follows are some notes from the three workshop days. They are not conclusions or discoveries. They are what I noted down as we progressed through the work. At first I had intended to take notes that would be part of an analysis and development of a thesis or way of unifying and understanding what we did. I found as I went along, however, it wasn’t possible to do that because the work was too involved and demanding to be present and be reflective at the same time. Notes from the research sessions Day 1: We read Joyce’s text aloud multiple times. Sean quoted Shakespeare: “And tomorrow, and tomorrow…” (MacBeth) as an example of the experience being in the cadence and rhythm of the delivery. Mary: What can we do with text to make it serve us better? Sean referred to Pinter: “the language that doesn’t mean anything.”
The epiphanic moment where everything is present the lucky accident, the epiphany… Bacon embraced a chaotic atmosphere – to move the epiphanic accident to happen… Lois: The aural and oral aspect of text and the fact that we work in the present – the living breathing presence of the actor makes the experience of sounds a part of what we use to work/to create. Sean: There is already a story there. Should we tell the story that is already told. The story is already worn-out. We talked about the notion that if you (audience/viewer) weren’t there, you weren’t important – in the theatre, you are implicated in the story by your presence in the theatre. Walsh describing one of the slides: These boxes that we are in – screaming behind glass, we’ve put up ourselves – screaming for help, but no one can help us. Walsh referencing The Dead, “the sky changed about seventy-six fucking times.” Sean: Utterly alone and a part of everybody. The order of the words is important, as they are in a bedtime story. With this in mind, Mary did the paragraph cited above as a young girl trying to read. Why do we need to listen to our stories over and over? Sue: The silence of some, when you have nothing to say. Susan, Sean and I tried to speak the voice of Study After Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X or vocalize and embody the character in the painting. Oh I am. I have. Nobody can see this. It is very hard to be vulnerable in a suit. I am only half. I was smashed in the face. Color my hands so they are the colour of my veins We wondered: In Bacon’s paintings, where are the others? Next we improvised two-handers, using the painting as a revelation of the inside of a relationship. This suit is like a happy memory. This suit is like a photograph that you can wear. Can you see me. I feel like I am disappearing. Have you ever felt so bad that you jumped off a balcony, crawled up the stairs and jumped off the balcony again? The improvisation seemed to focus on “I’m disappearing” vs. “I won’t look at you”. Mary asked us to go for more fragmented language.
DAY 2: We looked at Joyce’s text again. You have to surrender to the text. You can stop the words with counterpoint, but they seem to overtake you. The rhythm of the sentence structure is important to the experience. Father got no nature. I believe, Father got no nature. She having a bit of a problem with her beauty. What do you need two fucking eyes for anyway. We talked about the meaning of the List of Lights, the Fishermen’s Broadcast, and the Shipping News to us as the sounds, since the information is not relevant to our lives, because we are not fishing or shipping to anyone. Sean recited TS Eliot’s Sweeney Agnonistes. He only understands who he is by killing people. Lois and Sean did an improv where Sean was submissive. We discussed the comfort in not having to make a decision and losing your sense of self to another person. The transcendence and the horror. The figures on Day 2 suggested monologues of loneliness. Sounds – not to figure out where we are going, but where we are. Three Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion Repetition, refracted language. I want. Can’t hear. The vultures. I want the vultures. Locked in bathroom. I want. Can’t hear, I want. I demand. The triptych is high pitched and scary. To feel safe. Day 3: Referencing Sweeney: If you’re dead, I’m dead. An actor changes his space as he moves through it. Details of the improv: use image, sense, music of the text. Text is twisted, turned, repeated. Suffering is a reconciliation – takes us out of our position of judgement.
We began to improvise from Figures at the Base of the Crucifixtion. I am gonna fall over. Hey where’s everybody gone? I am lost forever. I’ll look forever and I will never find anything but this. Mary talked about humble servitude, justice, and benediction. The ground was made of fallen comrades. Use the words to force the feeling. How much context is needed create or compel the audience to this point or the actor to this point? Conclusions and outcomes: As with her comedic work, Mary is unafraid to explore, maybe even attracted to, the most horrific corners of human existence. She moves easily between the horror and sublime in human experience. As a leader her focus was intense and committedRather like Bacon, she both pursued and embodied the process of improvising the degradation, oppression, depression, brutality and perversion in his works. I had expected to uncover a step-by-step process that led to an embodiment of the character’s self that could be analyzed, separated into step one, step two and so forth. What I discovered instead was that her process was much more an emotional and intellectual embodiment and passion at every instance. And if there was in any sense a step-by-step technique, it was a consistent returning to the stepping off point to drill even deeper into a psychological embodiment of a character. She restricted us to the sources. Sean often strayed to other material, but he is very exterior in this performative orientation, (while, note of interest, Mary is both exterior and interior. And also note of interest, Sean found this process very intense – I think because of its focus on the interior.) Mary used accents and vocal sounds to bring her acting and improvisation to a story-teller state. She used an ability that she said was exemplified by her mother or Ray Guy, well-known and gifted Newfoundland satirist, to rivet the listener to the story regardless of the worth of the story itself (to explain what she meant.) She described this story-teller state as pre-literate. To identify and analyze a technical process wherein one tries to capture a pre-literate state is difficult.. If I can articulate Mary’s acting process, I would say I am defining what is “embodiment as a preparation, a process and an end.” For example, Mary returned improvisations to the same topic and same painting many times, each time seeking to further penetrate or be penetrated by the words or sounds (Joyce,) or the images (Bacon.) The material and performer are the same thing, or are always in an act of becoming the same thing. I have gained some understanding of an approach that will be of benefit to my teaching of acting training and perhaps to directing. As well, I found the workshop inspirational to my writing, but I was so dedicated to embracing the process and trusted Mary completely that I have no sense of
how far we got with achieving her aim. (I have known Mary Walsh since I was 16, so it not that I support giving over to a process easily, but in this case I have a lifetime of trust.) Here is what philosophies or truths this research work did return me to: The power of sound. The sense of truth and energy in the sounds of the words, as much as the meaning. I was working on a short play about trauma - in this case rape, and returned to this exploration of sounds as way to get to the brutality of the experience I was writing about. The power of imagery to allow the actor to embrace the essential emotional or psychological state of the character The play between psychological and spiritual states in the action of the character.
Lois Brown is a seventh generation Newfoundlander. She graduated from the University of Alberta in 1977 and returned to St. John’s, where she has maintained a cross-disciplinary practice. Shortlisted for the Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize 2004, she received The Victor Martyn LynchStaunton Award for Achievement by an Outstanding mid-career Canadian Theatre Artist from The Canada Council and was recognized for her contribution to the arts in Newfoundland and Labrador with an Artist Achievement Award the following year. In 2011, Lois will be working at Playwrights Workshop Montreal with Artistic Director, Emma Tiblado.
For more information about Nightswimming: www.nightswimmingtheatre.com Pure Research is conducted in association with the University of Toronto Graduate Centre for Study of Drama: http://www.graddrama.utoronto.ca/