Afternoon:
8°c
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
, Absurd exercise in snooping
By
Nicholas de Jongh
3 Apr 2008
This is a barrier-breaking, out-of-this-world, Experimental theatre Review. It is designed as critic-to-reader, auditory/sensual, mind-expanding criticism that drags you through a sludge-stream of Reviewers’ Consciousness. My intention is to respond in kind to the aggressively dull and pretentious Contains Violence. The show is an experience, which the Lyric’s once sane and talented artistic director, David Farr, or David Farr-Outt as he would now be best known, calls “the latest step ... to take theatre in new directions, upwards, outwards, skywards.” I fear he is serious.
It is a cool, wintry April evening on the Lyric’s open-air terrace, which is equipped with tiers of seats. I find my critics’ sensibility in receipt of a Heavy Boredom Warning. We are equipped with huge earphones, which we are told can be switched to BBC radio, and snoopers’ binoculars. We are expected to turn on and tune in, gazing across at the illuminated office-block windows across the square, as if we had become Hitch-cockian voyeurs.
The evening’s “creator” is David Rosenberg, from the experimental Shunt collective. A programme note lets slip the hint that he may force feed our voyeuristic tendencies with violence to the point of a man being beaten to death by a woman.
For the next 50 minutes little happens. Slowly. The movements of the four, mainly silent characters range from the aimless to mildly meaningful song and dance. Brief monologues, dialogues and the odd telephone call range from the absurd and ponderous to the glumly inconsequential. No comic notes intrude. My notebook becomes a scrawl of anguish. “Why doesn’t she hurry up and kill him? ... Is that siren-screaming police car headed our way to liberate us?” “There’s an interesting progra mme on Radio 4,” my companion whispers.
We gaze at a girl in a spotted dress playing with pink balloons and wandering around her office. At last she lets obscenely rip on the phone. A man, who strips to his pants, can be seen sitting at his computer. “Peer into the life of others, slip between cracks of the law,” Rosenberg wants us to know. “You are in his head.” When finally Contains Violence flairs into those threatening expletives, life and death, not to mention a gender twist, no reason for violence or murder is disclosed. Rosenberg has worked “with inter-active multi-sensory performances for fifteen years.” Perhaps he and the interactives should carry on in private.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (7)
Went to see this last night. Hopes high. Hopes dashed. Tragically, half the audience was a school party (probably GCSE Drama, I'd guess). Well, that's dozens of young people who *could* have been excited and stimulated by some avant garde theatre going away thinking it's all a pile of irrelevant tosh. Overheard the odd comment in the toilet, afterwards - one bloke couldn't believe he'd missed "The Apprentice" for such a boring, pointless evening. Another one had retuned his radio to Talk Sport and just waited for the end. I doubt whether these people will bother with the theatrical option, next time it's offered - they'll just stay at home and watch TV instead. Great shame, that.
- Huw, Brentford, UK, 24/04/2008 08:41
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Shunt and their types are appalling and receive masses of taxpayers money. It's so pretentious. This kind of drivel makes me so angry. These people are given hundreds of thousands of taxpayers pounds cos they are considered accessible and avant-garde.
- Textman, London, 09/04/2008 00:23
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What an amazing idea! and what a terrible show! utterly disappointing and pretentious. I don't see what artists putting themselves on the line has to do with the review, some art is bad, and this is just plain dull and leads nowhere.
Contains Nothing.
- Ben, Islington, 05/04/2008 01:13
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Well, yes, it was slow. But the sound engineering kept me interested for a lot longer than 5 minutes. The range of sound quality available -- from hyper-real to fuzzy -- was used in interesting ways. And the venue, with an invisible space between the audience and the performance area, made some interesting visual trickery possible as well.
To me, what was missing was density. I would have liked much more activity that was not directly related to the plot. Some extras engaged in random office activities would have added enormously to the visual interest. I found myself watching some sort of adult education class taking place in the upstairs room of the pub across King Street, and imagining that it might be part of the show. In short, I don't think Rosenberg learned the crucial lesson of Rear Window -- that something interesting should be happening in every window, even if a murder is only happening in one. That would have been much truer to the complexity of urban life.
- Alan, London, 04/04/2008 11:55
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I'm in agreement. Hugely disappointed. Love site specific theatre and loved Tropicana and the stuff Punchdrunk does (and did anyone see the Australian play in Stratford Station a few months ago?). Why did they go to such amazing lengths with great sound equipment and concept and use of buildings and then muff it up with such a pretentious script (was it a script). Surely audiences are now geared up for experiencing 'theatre' differently (wearing masks, being observed ourselves, sitting in public, blah blah)...we don't need to be hyped up, we just writers to remember that good drama is actually the point, not just the clever clever.
Ah well. It did remind me what rubbish pubs there are in Hammersmith.
- Chloe, London, 04/04/2008 10:14
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I think Nick de Jongh needs to get out more often. He might start by going down to Shunt under London Bridge and see artist's putting it on the line rather than going for the safe option. If you can't put up with the cold well I don't think you are trying to hard, I know you are used to the best seat in the house, all warm and safe. It doesn't matter anyway as the run is a sell out.
It's very good show.
Open your mind.
- Simon , London, London, 03/04/2008 16:56
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I have to say I actually agree with Nicholas de Jongh for once. This promised so much but delivered, well, nothing. After 5 mins, the novelty of sitting outside on a cold night with headphones and binoculars wore off and you were left with dire dialogue, no discernible plot - or at least that you could follow, and wondering what on earth it was all about. Voyeurism and a comment on the inane modern office life, or just the result of someone's grossly enlarged ego mixed with technology.
- Claire, London, 03/04/2008 14:24
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