With my performance, I want to make the audience unsure of how true my facts are. I’m considering using real stories, real lies, but changing the names, perhaps to humorous celebrity names, or just using initials.
I think it will be more interesting for an audience to watch if they feel there’s something to decipher, or learn. After all, we are all interested in gossip, in discovering other people’s lies and secrets.
Why We Lie- Dorothy Rowe
A psychological exploration of why we lie, and the effects it can have. Suggests that we lie to protect ourselves, that society tells us to be one way so we lie to agree with the concept of society we are given. We lie so as not to upset someone, so we do not have to deal with them being upset. Essentially, we lie because we are selfish.
Hard Love- Ellen Wittlenger
“It’s a lie, you know, to pretend that nothing is important to you. It’s hiding. Believe me, I know because I hid for a long time. But now I won’t do it anymore. The truth is bioluminescent. I don’t lie, and I don’t waste time on people who do.”
In the story, the girl Marisol claims to never lie, and makes John promise to never lie to her. Of course, the first thing he says to her is a lie about her name, and so one lie becomes many. How difficult is it to not lie about anything? Even if we tell the truth to a question we are asked, what other little lies do we tell during the day?
The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.
There must have been moments even that Gatsby doubted….
Nick claims he is honest, yet he tells lie after lie. Jordan is a perpetual liar. Daisy lies first to her husband, and then to Gatsby. Gatsby is shrouded in lies. All these lies, webs of deceit, and it is all okay because everyone lies.
A problem I need to address within the creation of my performance is that of boring the audience.
Spalding Gray may be able to get away with speaking for an hour and a half whilst retaining the audience’s interest, but can I?
I am aware that my subject matter may keep my audience interested, especially as if I am speaking of secrets and lies from university my audience will be very aware of my subject. However, that doesn’t change the fact that some people find it difficult to listen to one person talk for 12 minutes.
I need to think about the possibility of other things happening on stage, behind stage, the use of music, screens voiceovers, or movement to create and interesting and invigorating performance.
Today’s task- planning a performance.
- LPAC theatre- fronts seats away, back seats up. Empty stage.
- Lights are up as the audience file in, there are spots focused on some of the seats, but this is not clear with the rest of the lights on.
- As the audience come in, there is the sound of whispering played, at such a level that the audience are unaware of it- it blends in with their discussion.
- Once the audience are in the lights start to fade, making the spotlights clear on the audience. At the same time, the noise of the whispering has got louder and louder and louder, but still no clear voice/wording is audible, just murmured whispering.
- There is a spotlight in the centre of the stage, with just enough theatrical haze to ensure the tunnel of the light can be seen, but not so much the stage is misty.
- The whispering becomes louder and louder, to the point that it’s almost uncomfortable to hear. As this happens the performer, who has been sitting in the audience, stands up and walks towards the spotlight. She steps into it, turning to face the audience, and whispers quietly with the recording. The words are inaudible, not real words. Slowly she builds the volume, becoming louder and louder, changing rhythm with the recording. Her volume reaches a climax, and at the loudest point the lights go to black. The only sound is the quiet whispering from before.
- Spotlights start to relight on the audience one by one, as , after a pause, she begins to recite latin names for flowers. With each flower, a light flicks on, or off, seemingly randomly.
- As she gets louder, the whispering fades to just one inaudible voice, and the reciting of flowers. The names are staccato, emotionless, with pauses of a 5 seconds between each one. As she recites the flowers, she starts to sway, and so begins a dance similar to Pina Bausch’s Cafe Muller- she moves around the stage, reciting the names quicker to give her a form of beat, stopping as the lights flick on and off in front of her- she never moves through a light.
- As the dance becomes more violent, the whisper becomes audible- it is a list of the names of the members of the audience. This voice becomes louder as the dance slows, and the performer loses volume.
- When the voiceover finally names the performer, she falls to the floor and every spotlight used in the performance comes on- giving an almost pillared effect to the room (due to hazing) and then slow fade to darkness.
- When the lights are returned to normal for the audience to leave, the performer has gone, but flower petals have descended from the ceiling to cover the flower. They are still fluttering down as the audience leave.
Italics are Helen Dyer’s ideas.