Jo Caird: Where Theatre & Art Meet
Tuesday
evening found me in the atmospheric surroundings of the Crypt Gallery
at St Pancras Church, watching a piece of theatre called Il
Deserto, which was made in response to the art exhibition
currently running in the space, Navigating in the Dark Part
III, by the Greek artist Kalliopi Lemos.
The show, created
by the Greek theatre director Theodoros Therzopoulos, comprised a
solo performance in Italian of some writings by the 19th-century
writer and philosopher Carlo Michelstaedter. Performed by Italian
actor Paolo Musio, with help from the director himself in Ancient
Greek, Il Deserto was an intense affair that
required unusual efforts of concentration.
But
then, that was very much the intention. According to the programme
notes, “the collaboration focused on an impromptu interaction
between the actor and the artwork – a raw display of emotions and
performance, which involved the direct dialogue with the artwork as a
fellow performer…A new form of artwork is created, which transcends
the ordinary visual response to the traditional display of art”.
The
arrangement of the seating in the midst of the exhibition meant that
instead of having Musio in my eye line, I had one of Lemos’s works,
‘Wooden Boat with Seven People’ directly in front of me. Musio’s
performance, a passionate, Beckettian monologue expressing the
desperation of the place between life and death, therefore became for
me a sort of narration of Lemos’s striking installation. I only wish I had
been able to walk around the space and experience her other pieces in
this way during the performance, rather than being confined to my
seat. This would have enabled greater engagement with the work I
think, which is presumably what the show’s creators were seeking.
Il
Deserto was* a unique combination of visual art and
avant-guard European theatre, but there is plenty of performance
being made in this country that exists in the blurred creative space
between theatre and art. The live art scene is going strong, with
venues such as the Chelsea
Theatre, Stoke Newington International Airport and Edinburgh’s Forest Fringe all presenting
exciting live art-focused programmes.
This
week, in fact, Chelsea is hosting SACRED, a season of live art
performance that the theatre’s team anticipates will attract around
1,000 people to 14 shows from British and international artists.
Formerly an annual event, several SACRED seasons will now run
periodically throughout the year (funding willing), giving live art at the theatre greater momentum and profile.
This
kind of work, which might include spoken word, song, dance and
audience interaction, can offer immensely exciting and satisfying
experiences to theatre audiences, but it also tends to be
challenging, whether in terms of its content or format, particularly
to the uninitiated. In other words, it’s often pretty odd and
therefore isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea (I’d recommend
giving it a go though; you never know until you try).
Fortunately, elements of the live art experience are available in
somewhat more accessible contexts through the work of companies such
as You Me Bum Bum Train (whose latest show, which opens next week,
sold out in under a minute), 1927, Duckie and of course, Punchdrunk.
These companies, while not exactly creating mainstream theatre, at
least offer audiences the relative security of a narrative framework
within which to explore challenging moments of performance. The fact
that these companies are now collaborating with venues including the
National Theatre, the Barbican and the English National Opera just
goes to show how open theatre audiences have become to experiencing
work that is likely to test their boundaries. You never know what will happen when theatre and art meet.
*Navigating
in the Dark Part III is on until 27 November, but the show
has now completed its briefest of runs.
