An insight into violence

By Zena Alkayat, Metro 18.03.08

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Staging a production in a real office block while the audience peers through the window with binoculars doesn't come without its complications. 'The people who work in the office keep changing my set. Moving desks, adding desks, they've even put up a wall,' says writer/director David Rosenberg, who, as founder of cult theatre collective Shunt, is used to working uninterrupted in the company's vaults under London Bridge station.

It's a complication he'll have to put up with given that his new play, Contains Violence, sees the actors performing in the office space. The audience, meanwhile, will be opposite the office block on the terrace of Hammersmith's Lyric Theatre, equipped with binoculars to view the action and headphones to listen to the characters' live dialogue and a pre-recorded score.

All that can be seen on this grey afternoon, however, are reflections of clouds on the window.

It's bracingly windy and the industrial-sized headphones Rosenberg has put on my head are slipping off. 'The play will be on in the evenings, so it'll be dark and you'll be able to see into the lit windows easier,' he assures. 'And once the play starts people will be too gripped to have time to think about discomfort.'

With shades of Hitchcock in the suspenseful set-up, it's an ambitious plan but one that complements Rosenberg's preoccupation with forcing audiences out of their comfort zone.

With Shunt, which he set up in 1998, he's put on productions in places as diverse as the Oxo Tower's Museum Of The Unknown and under the railway arches at Bethnal Green.

Amato Saltone is one show that particularly springs to mind. Performed at the company's current home, it turned theatrical convention on its head by treating the audience as voyeuristic guests at a sadistic swingers party.

Contains Violence is 39-year-old Rosenberg's debut solo effort and he's moved away from the haphazard writing style of Shunt to create a more personal, focused play. What remains, however, is the idea of utilising alternative spaces and the need to challenge the audience. By assigning us the role of voyeurs, Rosenberg attempts to question the boundaries between harmless people-watching and perversity.

The actors can be seen through two of the office block's windows. But the director can't control who appears at the rest of the windows that the audience can see into. 'I know the cleaners will be around in the evenings. I'm not sure what else could happen,' he admits. 'But I think it's so incredible that those random scenes might upstage my own action.'

Quite cryptically he won't divulge what this action is, though he says the plot has more of an understandable narrative than any of his previous work - however, it will be just as provocative. 'We walk around the city and we're continually surrounded by peepholes into a multitude of stories. But whatever we imagine to be going on as we look around will almost certainly be wrong and that's the interesting point,' he says. 'I want to push people into thinking about what motivated them to interpret the scenes in the way they have.'

One influence Rosenberg cites is the increasingly graphic nature of the media: 'Our thirst for intrigue, violence and pornography is fascinating and is just an extension of the way so much is presented to us through TV and papers. Our view of the world has become very pornographic.'

As he turns up the volume on the headphones to give me a taste of the show's soundtrack, reality becomes harder to decipher. Noises both familiar and otherwise, combined with music and a sort of narrated dialogue, create layers of sound.

Coupled with the surroundings, it's disorientating - and alongside the play, it should be as powerful as a film soundtrack in manipulating the audience's reactions.

For a production so intricately developed, it's a surprise to hear the play came about almost by accident while he was pitching a 'ludicrously unfeasible' project to the Lyric's artistic director David Farr on the theatre's terrace. 'I was watching David's eyes glaze over as he listened to my idea,' he says, 'and behind him were these office windows. I thought, "a ha", and turned to him and said: "I have another idea".'

For some, this work may seem more concerned with style and spectacle than substance, and surprisingly Rosenberg doesn't entirely disagree. 'I think quite often that's a genuine criticism of both Shunt's work and other people's work,' he remarks. 'In some respects that's OK because we're presenting something else. You can read Kafka for depth if you want but we're presenting something people respond to in less of an intellectual way and more of an instinctive, tactile, emotional way.'

Contains Violence previews from tomorrow, opens Apr 2 until Apr 26, Lyric Hammersmith, King Street W6, Mar - Mon to Sat 8pm, Apr - Mon to Sat 8.30pm, Mar £9, Apr £15. Tel: 0871 221 1722. www.lyric.co.uk Tube: Hammersmith

 

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