Culture | The Guardian: Can you answer these questions? How are you? What did you have for breakfast? Do you have a good memory? Did you share your bed with anyone last night? Are you comfortable talking about money? What’s the best age to be? Do you pray? Have you ever had a part of your body removed? Are you rich? Do your friends think you are rich?
3 comments:
This show sounds absolutely beautiful. I wonder what the final question is, the one that explains the title of the show. The sentence that stood out to me was “a humanist experiment that works hard to expose the best parts of us.” The questions are designed to reveal something about the participants. After reading the article, my initial thought was that the show is about getting to know the participants as humans, a people, in a way we can never know characters in typical theatre. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, the point of the show being people as opposed to a story. But now I begin to question whether that’s the point of the show at all, because if it is then it’s impossible. Twelve hours, as long as that is, is not enough to get to know a person. I have known people for years and don’t feel like I truly know them. That’s part of the beauty of people, I think: there’s always more to know.
This was certainly an eye catching headline. Like the author I initially balked a little at the idea of a 12 hour long performance, but this actually seems like a really incredible piece. It is reminiscent of a more abstracted version of the Moth Radio Hour, which also has regular people telling stories from their own lives, but in a more conventional radio format. (The Moth was also the source material for a really interesting Gallant Lab study on semantic mapping!) What really made this piece click for me was the more interactive segments—where the participants give out baked goods, cook pasta, arrange flowers, and more. I imagine that being a part of a performance like this, whether as an audience member or a participant, would be a really transformative experience. This is sort of reflected in the fact that everyone is onstage together despite the venue of a traditional proscenium theater (kind of like the Chosky Black Box setup during Playground). I hope I can one day experience a work of theatre that is as unique and experimental as 12 Last Songs.
Theatre has this unique ability to articulate life in no other way. I think that this performance touches on that. Ordinary people with normal jobs just exist on stage engaging in questions to tell us that they are more than the plaster covered jeans. Or the business suit. The Perth Festival is truly a beautifully imagined show and would be an ideal way to spend a Sunday or Saturday engaging with people who are just doing life. One of the things I love about NYC is the cluster of people and with everything happening all at once to look around we witness life and people experiencing it. What this show does is ask the questions we ask ourselves then we get the answer; truly sounds like a beautiful show and theatrical experience. I wonder if we will see more adaptations of this type of performance? Does our society have the attention span for a show that is 12 hours long?
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