Interactivity In Theatre For work that reconsiders the audience-performer relationship // a place to discuss, argue, and interact…

The First Symposium – Live Blog

The time is 13:20, and the first Interactivity Symposium will begin in a few minutes. My name is Michael Grady-Hall and I'm co-founder of Three's Company, the company presenting the Symposium at the Tristan Bates Theatre.

I will be updating this blog throughout the hour and a half long discussion. As with the next two Symposiums (16th/23rd January), the discussion will be lead and hosted by Karl Rouse.  Karl is senior lecturer in Alternative Theatre and New Performance at CSSD.

Today Karl is joined by Matt Trueman (critic and blogger, Guardian/Time Out), Tassos Stevens and Annette Mees (Coney), Richard Stamp (FringeGuru) and Tom Crawshaw and Yaz Al-Shaater (Three's Company).

The space is set up and all is set.

(What follows is a summary of  what was said, not a verbatim transcript. If I've mis-represented anything, let me know. An audio recording will also be avilable to download shortly.)

13:28

Teas and Coffees have been dished out. The caffine count is high (Mainly in 3cs bodies). The doors will open in 2 mins!

13:34

The snow has meant one large group haven't turned up. Damn the frozen rain. But no worries, it'll be a lovley intimate affair.

13:43

Karl suggest he take the role of Devil's Advocate. Although he is a supporter.

13:44

Tassos asks to define the term interactivity for the discussion. There ar emany different forms of Interactivity in Theatre. Are the audience in it (characters), in the space but not characters (Punch Drunk), not in the space not characters but with the ability to change the piece.

Anette: Responsive is a good word.

Karl: (To Coney) Why interactivity?

Annette: Because it is live. You place the ordinary memeber of the public in an extrodinary situation That's what theatre is about.

13:50

Coney introduce Steve, sat in the audience. Part of Coney.

Q: Should the audience be for warned for interaction?

Steve: Yes, in a book shop I read the blurb on the back to know what it will be like (romance, horror). It only need be a little bit, a clue.

Yaz: Auditorium was partly marketed to a straight theatre audience. The show appears to be a normal farce, taking the audience on a track and then swerving them into interactivity.

Tom: The audience members who didn't know it would be interactive enjoyed it more.

Annette: I hate interactive theatre which forces an audience to join in. We try to tempt you in.

Tassos: It is an agency of engagement. Broadcasting something as interactive invites people to "test" the work.

13:55

Tassos references Computer Games. Audiences can be put into different characters. Princess, Geek, Jock etc (like a playground)

Karl brings in Richard and Matt:

Matt: Ethics, to place a demand on an audience? Responsive is a very interesting term... it's so realative.

Tassos: There is theatre which is not responsive in any way. Re-rehearsal for a massive musical, no matter what happens it's not responding to audience.

Matt: There will always be response in any peice of work, the man that pisses on the stage in A Little Night Music.

Steve: Art. I cannot effect a painting

Karl: I am effected by the painting. I have interacted.

Tom: Any good theatre should be responsive to the audience.

Richard; Why do we need to difine it? The answer to why interactive theatre? The answer is because we can. Going back to Auditorium.  Loved it because elements came as a suprise. Having the sense that I had an opportunity to help and didn't. That's great.

Annette: The fact that you didn't is interesting. I find it exciting to have my choices reflected back at me. Experiment with different me's.

Tassos: Two whys. Can transform an audience buy making them more part of it. You learn more by being an active learner rather than a passive learner. Also because you can!

14:06

Tassos: So exciting I want to shit kittens

Karl: Very interactive. Three's Company, why do you do it?

Yaz: For me it came from the excitment of the possiblities. Love a good story, but I started to get bored with theatre. Imagine if you went to a show and you could change it! The level of activity is small in normal theatre, we can choose when to cough. If there is the potential to change a story, what you leave with is greater.

Karl: How much can a story change?

yaz: Possibly infinatley. Auditorim couldn't beacause of rehersal.

Tassos: I disagree with Infinate. Everything that is possible is maybe not interesting.

Matt: That's what iI'm going to do or that's not. Two choices.

Annette: What happens between point A and B can be very nebulous. But it has to have a point A and B.

Karl: How does an audience learn the rules for A Small Town.

Matt: As an audience we are penned in. We know if we run against the fench we will get out into the real world. Once we are in Coneys world we can go any route between the points untill we get to a big decision. We are fed the rules, almost drip fed. I was aware that the possibilties are not infinate. That is frustrating.

14:16

Tassos: We had to fit in an ordinary theatre time scale. 2 hrs. That limits the possiblities.

Tom: The possiblities are infinate but not unlimited. Within the limits/boundries it is infinate.

Karl: Where do we draw the boundary?

Annette: That's the craft in interactive theatre. You need to set it up carfully

Tassos: An audience sort of have an obligation to respect the creators.

Karl: Do you intervene?

Annette: Ideally no. But if my actor was slapped yes I would.

Matt: What about Internal? I was torn apart in public. Comes back to the blurb on the back of the book , Internal didn't tell me and used us. The shows imorality lies here.

Tassos: I agree it was imoral. It never gave us the chance to truly consent.

14:30

Annette: In my work you are you in an extrodinary situation. I co-author with my audience. You must care for your audience. You have to make sure that at some point it will be ok.

Matt: The first ever interactive piece I saw was Scissor Happy. You voted for the ending with a button. Fake interactivity. Why make interactive work. It is a varification of liveness.

Annette: You do sometimes have to fake interactivity.

Tassos: If it feels meaningfull, it is better. In 'Aa matter of life and death' at national. The toss of the coin which gives two endings didn't mean anything to me.

Annette: The audience have to know about it, otherwise it is not meaningfull.

Matt: The element of risk is what makes live art fantastic.

Richard: matt's 3.4, is like a micro-cosum of what we have been talking about. Always wonder about the interval in 3.4, did anyone ever do anything. How experienced the audinence is changes the work. Extreme behaviour is more likley to happen in this work.

Karl: What's the future of this work.

Richard: I have concerns. what we have seen has an impact on the audience because of it's unfamiliarity. Some of the gimmicks I have seen over the past few years are [getting old].  The more you rely on doing what the audience don't expect, you lessen what you can do. Worried things will have to get more and more extreme. The good future we could move towards, is to build a more conventianal. Polished, Character and using the audience. The interactivity becomes a tool. If we can get to that point there will be a new-ish part of theatre.

Karl: Bill Gates "comfortable with the technology you are born into". Students are working much earlier on these works. Final thoughts?

Tassos: The form that it takes resonates with what it is about. We have a fluidity of form, it must be about what is best for what you arr trying to explore. You have to think about the experience of the audience.  The experince starts when the first hear about it, it only ends when they stop thinking about it. How do we make work that will get all the audience members not just the interactive "hard core".

Annette: It's all very imergant. Should one set out to make Interactive Theatre? Probably not. I have set out to make ethical theatre, this is the best way. Some stories should just be stories.

Matt: The Factory, why do I want to see Hamlet improvised?

Tassos: It's not really interactive. What's really exciting is the actors. Live divising is not interactive, but it has much of the same qualities. The pot-hole risk.

Tom: The future of interactive theatre is in the area Richard was talking about. Within the structure and geograohy pf a theatre. You still have the story/structure of Hamlet, but with the elements of game play Coney has.

Karl: My expeirence and excitiment is when something happens to me. That's why I'm pleased these dsicussions are happening.

Bekki Coward: Let's take a break and move into an open space discussion.

14:57

The group has headed off to get coffee, and I'm going to stop typing. Back soon

Karl: Thankyou to our guests.

Annette: I will suggest a topic. How do you review this sort of work. Do you have to see it three times.

Richard: If you give me three press tickets. No... as I mature i think becomes easier. Because it is still inovative it's possible to say if you want a new experience go to this.

Matt: I review very subjectivley. The only way to review 'A small town', was to track my course through. You can see through people who are tossing things out as a gimmick.

Yaz: Before we decide if we want an open space discussion, or as one group. What topics do we want to talk about?

Q.How do you write about/review it?

Q. Define Interactivity.

Q. Relationship between interactivity and stories.

Q. What do you hate about Interactivity.

Q. What happens afterwards, linger in the real world... should it?

Q. Audiences, how do you think about different audiences?

Q. Audience Persona.

Q. Framing, the actors role.

Ben talks about Mac's performance pre-talk.

Ben: This guy just kept on talking to me. It was strange as he told me so much, I'd only just met him.

Natalie: Did it make you uncomfortable?

Ben: No because our relationship didn't change, his stance remind as it was when he asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. I didn't feel uncomfortable.

Matt: Is that a piece of interactive theatre if you don't know it is theatre?

Richard: If you do that in Edinburgh, you'll get people saying "you are so an actor!"

Yaz: Ok lets start. How do you write about it/review it?

Richard: I have to say I have not asked myself that question before. It is my personal opinion.

Matt: What is it trying to to? How well does it do that? Should it be done? How did it make you feel? Many critics miss this last question. Younger critics who are more versed in more experimental work can work in a more feeling led way i.e. Lynn Gardener How does it change you? Did it challenge me to act in a certain way? Bad interactive work, you just shrug your shoulder and say... "so?"

Aud: What is your role as a reviewer? What is your responsibility?

Richard: The reviewers primary responsibility is to the audience. If the actors get something from it, great. I don't want to go down the path of damning reviews. I try not give away suprises, but that is difficult.

Matt: I come from a different place. I feel a responsibility to my self. I don't feel I am writing for an organization. With 'a small town...' a found myself writing for Coney. It was for an audience who knew something about it. As I'm writing for myself I do write panning reviews. That's not to do down the artist, but to be honest. In terms of giving away the suprise, I see that as fine. I am part of the theatre world, an  ambassador, you have to be able to dive in. You have to be able to disect it. But if it's going to destroy the piece I try not to.

Aud: Do artists feel constricted by being in a box?

Richard: Coney is about games. Three's Company are about Theatre. I don't think we create the labels, the performers have I think.

Yaz: Labels are for Marketing.

Annette: Labels are dangerous for creaters. We make very different work to people we are labeld with.

Richard: Labels are necassary.  But saying it's to do with Marketing puts a bad soin on it.

Matt: It's not about labels it's about threads.

Tom: It seems there is a gap in language.

Yaz: Let's talk about deffinition. Three steps to Interactivity. Art can effect an audience. Audience effect the art. Audienec effect the art Back and Forth.

Matt: What happens with crap interactivity?

Yaz: It's still Interactivity, but it's crap.

Annette: A word I use is co-authorship. For something to be Interactive it must be co-authored by the audience that night. When I am replaced by say Matt, and the outcome is exactly the same, that to me is not really interactive.

Aud: A distinction I have heard is. Interactive: Play with it but don't cause it to change. Participasory: What Annette discribed (co-authord).

Annette: Not quite.

Matt: I would use the terms the other way round. You can participate in a workshop (a lesson) with changing it,  but an interactive workshop must be co-authord.

Yaz: We should create some new words.

Steve:  Choose your own adventure. Fake interactivity. If you are interacting with a performer it has the possiblity to be truly interactive.

Yaz: A form of interactive theatre that fascinates me is work where you can interact with both the characters AND the story.

Richard: We have to be carefull not to get so obsessed with labels. We must think about the audiences experience.

Annette: We have to be really carefull of using these words, people have such different responses to them.

Aud2: In dance (my practise) doesn't have to be linear. We look at Jazz Structure.

Annette: We also talk alot about Jazz Structure.

Aud: Could an audience repeat A small town?

Annette: Many people did come back to go through a different experience.

Aud: The idea of form relates to this. Having a label means an audience can go for armed to get the most out of the experience.

Matt: I feel every piece of art should come from the idea of form. As Richard said we have to have companies who justify the form. And the form has to justify it's content.

Annette: It has to be justified by the story.

Matt: Within the company, you ought to have your own private terms.

Richard: I'd like to talk about "the contract". What are actors alowed to do the audience. But more importantly what are the audience alowed to do to the actors. We must find a way to comunicate to the audienec what we expect from them.

Matt: If you set your piece in a kitchen, the fridge must work. What are the obvious things the audience are going to do. What may they do that isn't obvious?

Richard: In the Hotel, I wanted to go through a door marked No Entry, and was stopped by the actors. I thought part of the idea was about getting through the door. Were the actors cursing me in the bar after?

Annette: No, they will have loved you.

Matt: So what's wrong with going through the door and finding backstage? You just know your weren't meant to.

Yaz: You are responsible for everything the audience do in your space.

Matt: It is afterwards that is important, there must be space for the audience to reference what happend, what they did.

Annette: The tail space (what Matt is saying) can be directly after or personal, but it is just as much part of the work.

Richard: It is possible to provoke bad behaviour. I am conserned about this, if it was a science there would be heavy controls. What some of the things we are talking about sounds more like pschological test.

Annette: An un-ethical theatre maker is a very scary thing.

Aud2: I can see un-ethical theatre makers being created because of the pressure artists are under to gain audiences.

Matt: There has always been a certian type of artist who push boundaries. The media make that cynical. Consistancy of the frame is what the artist works on

Annette: Richard is asking if the work should be regulated. you can't really start making interactive theatre laws. I don't know how you fix that.

Yaz: I think we must move on as the final session will be about Responsibility. Lets talk about different audiences.

Annette: We went out to get different audiences, because it made it better.

Matt: To make it better for you? It sounds like pschological testing.

Annette: We didn't look at it that cynically. The more diverse you group is the more intersting.

Yaz:  The audience which most appreciated Auditorium, were non-theatre audiences (schools/stand-up).

Aud: Nobody's mentiond Politics. Does anybody care about that sort of thing?

SILENCE

Richard: I think that's a no.

Annette: I'm driven by people, so I am driven by politics. I want to sensatise people to things I think are important.

Aud2: I'm still trying to find the form. I want to think about the next generation of audiences.

Matt: It should be an investigation in collaboration.

Aud: Even that was political (collaboration).

Annette: We experiment with how Coney can exist beyond a traditional theatre company. Can it be more distributed. Steve is as Coney as I am.

Yaz: Please stay for Interplay. thank you.

Right Folks that's the first Symposium over. See you next week.

Cheers Mike