No Conceit

There really is nothing quite like performing.

This is something I had the opportunity to rediscover just last month. I’d written and directed a solo show that was slated to be performed at Theater IN ASYLUM’s The Others Project, and I was definitely excited about the piece. The form and content of the script were both new for me, and I was itching to see how the piece would translate from the page to performance. It was a solo performance – a play with a significant amount of sound design and overlapping text and voice over interacting with one another in a way that I thought could end up being quite fascinating. The rehearsal process had been a bit cramped, but still I was feeling confident.

That confidence vanished, however, on the day before the performance. That day, while I was working a day shift at my restaurant, I received some relatively heart-stopping news. I had no actor. For reasons beyond the scope of this post, my actor had unfortunately had to bow out of the performance – and now there was nobody to play the part. A solo performance without the performer can sometimes be a bit tricky.

Despite this, I was determined that the piece still be performed, and by the end of that work shift I’d decided that I would just have to act in the piece myself. I was fortunate that I’d written the play myself, as the task of memorizing a twenty minute performance the night beforehand, while still daunting, didn’t seem quite as impossible as it might have otherwise.

That evening came and went with hours that dwindled far too quickly for my liking. I’d managed to almost get a solid hold on the text, but the incorporated text and voiced over sound design were still an issue. I don’t remember how late it was that I finally slept or how early it was I woke from a fitful night of worrying. I do remember that morning recording my voice on my computer and having it sound a bit hollower than I’m accustomed to – something I attributed to a severe lack of sleep. Despite everything, though, by the time I made it to the upstairs space at New York Theatre Workshop where the piece was to be performed I felt as prepared as I could be.

That is, until I stepped in room to go on.

It’s easy to forget what it’s like to be in front of an audience. It had been more than a year and a half since I’d last performed in a show and more than that since I’d had to do any serious form of acting.

It was an intimate space to say the least. The chair from which I performed most of the piece sat mere feet away from the first row of audience members. The seats were just about all filled, and with the thrust configuration of the rows I felt surrounded on all sides.

Then the music started, and I had to perform.

Again, I’d be hard pressed to recount and one specific moment from the performance, there’s no one moment I remember in great detail beyond the one or two seconds of forgotten lines saved by a little circuitous speaking until I could make my way back to something I remembered…

The thing I do remember, though, is the feeling I got as I started speaking that only intensified as the show went forward. It was this feeling – hard to describe, but this is the best I’ve got – this feeling of such simple sympathy or empathy (that might be the word). And by that I mean I felt like I was just talking to another person. The piece already called for making direct contact with the audience, no pretending like they weren’t there, and as we went forward together, the spectators and I (both unsure sometimes about what would be coming next) I remembered what it is I love about theatre.

We talk a lot in the theatre about the closeness between audience and spectator – often in discussions about what makes theatre relevant in a world saturated by television and film. Most of the time it’s nothing more than lip service, because while yes, obviously theatre is a live event, it is much more common to see theatres and plays working in spite of this fact rather than embracing the closeness. The proscenium itself seems an effort to ignore the theatricality of theatre – we watch through a rectangle at a performance happening in essentially one dimension.

This night, though, I realized something that I feel may be essential, at least to the way I want to make theatre personally. I realized (or, as I’ve said before, perhaps simply remembered) that the closeness inherent in theatre, the liveliness – it is more than just a fact of theatre – it is THE fact of theatre. The most important thing. And this thought itself is not revolutionary by any stretch. But what it means for me, at least at this point, is something very specific.

I want to embrace theatre that never forgets that it is theatre. I want to create performances that never forget the part an audience plays in making the performance whole. That performance at The Others Project – that’s what I want. I want that closeness. It may be frightening and it may be challenging and it may be outside of just about everybody’s comfort zone, but that’s what I want. Maybe it lies in solo performances that are spoken just to an audience, maybe it comes from shows like Three Pianos (which was at New York Theatre Workshop) where there’s a show, but there’s also a blatant awareness and inclusion of the audience. The thing I’m relatively sure of is that it doesn’t involve traditional use of proscenium theatres and lighting that fully closes off the audience from the performers.


Hence the title of this post and blog: I want a theatre without conceit. 

Once again, I don’t think this is revolutionary in the theatre world. Not at all. But it is revolutionary for me. And I suppose I have my forced performing experience to thank for it.

NOTE: You may have noticed that the name of this blog has changed. This is to reflect my new purpose with the blog as well as to have a title that actually means something, as opposed to just a fancy word! Thanks for reading.

~Greg