Download Chan Yuen Ting Monica

Chan Yuen Ting Monica
Research Theoretical text
It is not an arbitrary decision for me to choose Theater as the topic of my research. I had an experience in
experimental theatre before. Then I have been interested in this medium. During my three years in university, I
learned many different media, such as writing, photography, sound and music arrangements, video,
programming, web archive and so on. But I have not had an opportunity to learn more about performance art,
and therefore I take this chance to do a research on Theatre. Besides, I have learned many concepts and
theories from the philosophy and the cultural studies courses, so I would like to bring in some theoretical
issues in researching this medium. Specifically, I wanted to study the “viewing” action, and how it governs the
relation between viewers and performers. I also conducted experiments to demonstrate that the “magical
circle”, which separates viewers from those who are performing, can be experienced in any everyday setting.
This means that theatre can be anywhere, and it all depends on who is watching and whether someone is
watching. In other words, the act of viewing does not necessarily come after the presence of theatre; it
produces theatre.
My experiments included two tasks. In the first task, I executed a performance in a non-theatre space. In the
second task, I focused on the power of the viewing action. I invited a bunch of audience to two locations,
Langham Place and Sai Yeung Choi Street, and asked them to create their own theatre space by making still
shots with a video camera and some writings created on the spot.
In this entire process, I have learned that performance is not only an art form for appreciation. It has numerous
meanings; it can be a critical act to society, a method to learn oneself, or a manner to treat our everyday life.
Theatre as an Art Form/ Critical Act
I know there is a huge topic in front of me, and this topic is also related to many different issues, like the
critical issues about the form of Theatre. When I was doing this research project, I searched information about
Theatre history and theory. Then I found that Theatre is a very complex thing as it has a very long history and
many branches. There are many authoritative argumentations about the origin of Theatre in ancient Greek.
Theatre at that time were very closed to religion:
Greek theatre's origins lie in religion, both in terms of its portrayal of humans' relationship to the
supernatural and in its form. From the dithyrambos, a drunken fertility ritual celebrating the god of
wine and fertility, Dionysus, in the ninth to eighth centuries B.C., annual festivals developed. Written
versions of the dithyramb appeared about 600 B.C. and the need for "safer," less ecstatic
entertainments acceptable to trading partners led to the regularization of Attic rites into what we
recognize as drama, giving rise to the Classic period of Greek theatre in the fifth century B.C.”
(Robert Cohen, 2002)
I believe that the religious theatre in ancient time involved many behaviors and body movements to offer their
devotion to their gods, such as songs and music inserted into a performance. Then in the Classical period,
scripts and stories started to dominate. People performed many different topics in theatre, and many of them
were for religious use. Then, there was a period when people fevered with scripts and dialogue very much, like
in Shakespeare’s period. People enjoyed many things but especially the incisive dialogues. But later, a new trend
of thought appeared and spread. Antonin Artaud was the first to abandon the use of dialogue and created his
theatre with many challenging ideas which worked against the classical theatre, such as creating a non-verbal
Theatre, using Mise en scene intensively and so on to destroy the established institution in Theatre. (Zhu
Jingmei, 1999: 39) Then many and many kinds of avant-garde theatre appeared. They were anti-tradition, antielite art, anti-naturalism, anti-commercialism and anti-formalization. Also, they were very critical on theatre
practice in general; they would subvert the use of classical theatre staging to develop new acting method, and to
challenge the authority of the script. (Cao Xiaorong, 1998: 2)
The complexity of Theater is not only because of its protean history, but also the diversity of Theatre
applications. In ancient times, people used theatre for religious practice, and then people used it to represent
some historical events as well as to narrate their own stories. Later, some innovative people used theatre to
educate and to support political movement. For example, Guerrilla Warfare, October 1967, directed by Richard
Schechner, a Theater director and a Professor of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, took
place at twenty-two locations in New York City by five Anti-Vietnam War performers. (Richard Schechner,
1993: 49) Augusto Boal, who is a theatrical director, developed Theatre of the Oppressed, and used the Theatre
to lobby for social issues. (Augusto Boal, 2001) Erving Goffman, a famous sociologist, used the dramatic
element in Theatre to make his statement about “social life as drama”. (Erving Goffman, 1956: 97)
Although I am not going to research on the social and political aspects on the Theatre, it would be useful for
me to look at the research made by different scholars as background information.
Nature of my research
After having all these images about Theatre, I decided to do a playful research project on Theatre with diversity
in method. Besides documenting the books I have read and the plays I have watched, I used a web-site to
record the full research process and to collect video documentations of my experiments. Also, I put some texts
I wrote on the web to report and explain my experiments. I also used the materials I got from the experiments
to do some small art works related to my findings, and I hope these can open up the scope of my research.
Besides the web, I also have an installation work as part of my response in this project. But I think the center
of my research is the experiments themselves. Therefore, I planned two different tasks for experimentation. I
think the process of planning, executing and evaluating the experiments are the most important. So I used
video and written reports, which I think are the best way to document the project.
Through this project, I hope I can challenge the existing form of theatre, or at least I can respond to it. Besides,
I want to do something that is reflexive of the position of Actor and Audience.
I focused on the basic nature of Theatre, the magic circle. Actors are within the circle, and audience outside.
Theatre has an essential action, “viewing”, that is a person is watching another person in a certain place and
time. When someone is watching, the magic circle appears and it forms the basic setting for a theatre to occur.
An influential theatre director, Peter Brooks, had made a statement about theatre using the idea of “The Empty
Space”: “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst
someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.” (Peter Brooks,
1990: 11) So, one of the two tasks I created was to explore the magic circle and to study the position of actors
and audiences in Theater space when the magic circle is unclear.
Magic Circle and the non-Theatre Space Performance
I do not believe that theatre should only be performed in the building or architecture called “Theatre”, so in
this task, I made some performances outside a normal theatre space in order to test the possibility of this kind
non-theatre space performance. Also, I want to test the response from the audiences and actors, and I have an
assumption before the task, that is, actors are controlling, active and attention-getting.
In this task, the magic circle is very important. Magic circle is a term I learn in the course Game and Play
Studies (SM 2259). In an essay by Hector Rodriguez, there is a quote from a Dutch historian, Johan Huizinga,
about community formation and the Magic Circle:
“According to Huizinga, the consciousness of play as a separate and self-contained sphere is often
reinforced by the pervasive tendency to enclose the players within a spatiotemporal frame, the socalled "magic circle", which isolates their game from the more serious tasks of daily living.”
(Rodriguez, 2006)
Although the “Magic Circle” is a key word in game-playing, I think playing game and performing are similar in
many aspects as they also require boundaries to separate performing/playing from the ordinary life. So, in my
project I used “Magic Circle” to indicate an Actor’s space of performance and an Audience’s object of intense
viewing.
As I executed my task in one of the underpasses in Tsim Sha Tsui, where many people passed by in each
minute, I made actors noticeable with their use of old-fashioned dialogues, which people these days will not use.
Therefore, the magic circle should be easily noticeable. Besides, actors were scattered in the tunnel, so when
they mingled with the people there, the magic circle became unstable and blurry.
I let actors mingled with the crowd in the tunnel, but I did not make a boundary for a stage and I did not
restrict the actors’ path. There was no other way out in a tunnel, and people had to walk through the tunnel
from one side to another side as I aimed at forcing audiences to pass through the magic circle. I saw that
audiences intervened the actors’ action. Some of them tried to interrupt and did something to draw actors’
attention. For example, a person walked and ran around the actors even though he knew there was an act. But
overall, very few audiences stopped and watched the performance, so it was rare for the actors to receive
responses from audiences.
After this task, my discovery is the reverse of my initial assumption. Actors were not so controlling and
audiences responded negatively. When actors were performing in the tunnel, the passers-by rarely stopped, they
usually just walked away. Many of them did gaze for a few seconds to figure out what was happening here, and
they always pretended there was nothing happened. In Between Theatre and Anthropology, the author talks
about the identity of the performer through the deer dance of the Arizona Yaqui.
“I wondered if the figure I saw was a man and a deer simultaneously……whether putting on the deer
mask made the man ‘not a man’ and ‘not a deer’ but somewhere in between……At the moments
when the dancer is ‘not himself’ and ‘not not himself,’ his own identity, and that of the deer, is
locatable only in the liminal areas of ‘characterization,’ ‘representation,’ ‘imitation,’ transportation,’
and ‘transformation’. ” (Richard Schechner, c1985: 4)
It seems the identity of a performer is always ambiguous. In my task, actors showed uncertainty about his/her
identities too. When I was talking to my actors after the performance, one of them told me that she felt her
identity was changing and became unstable; it seemed that her identity was formed by herself and the
Audiences. She was the character when she was acting, but, in the performance place where everything was so
living, she tends to adapt another role inside her character, which paid attention to the things around her and
responded to them. For the Audiences passed-by, they did not treat the “Actors” as actor and they interrupted
and talked to the actors.
So, Magic circle is the stage, and individuals in the same Magic circle are actors. And the spectators who can
figure out the Magic circle and “look at” it intentionally are Audience.
“Viewing” Action and Audience
I would say audience is responsible to the action “viewing”, and actor is the subject for audience to view. By
the action of viewing, magic circle formed within the actors. This action is very simple and neutral, but through
this, I can find out something essential about Audience. That is, Audiences will have expectation and they are
detached in Theatre, as they are outside the magic circle and they are viewing the actions which are inside the
magic circle.
I think Audiences expected to see what they were expecting. Although they did not know all the details in the
play, they might knew some fragments which they were going to see. As audience was the one to choose the
program they like, for example, a person brought a ticket to watch a historical play, and he would not expect to
see a modern-dressing actor on the stage. And sometimes they may have an expected plot and flow for the play,
if it is a historical event or a well-know novel. In an adventure play, there were unpredictable events happen,
but audiences were also expected to be surprise by guessing the ending. So, the audiences in Theatre were
consciously practicing the viewing action with expectation.
This viewing action is detached, as audiences will see the performance is detached from what they usually see in
their normal everyday life. Audiences will think the performers’ actions are just imitating what is in the real life,
and not treating them as a real thing happened in front of their eyes. So, when watching a Theatre, audiences
usually need to make their mind separated from the “real world” and then applied another mind-working
system which are not restricted from everyday life. Besides, they can get away from their normal social
institution that they are usually applying to, and they also do not need to take responsibility for what they have
seen. It is so natural for them to believe what happen in the theatre, but at the same time, they know that the
things happen there will not affect anything in their “real world”, so they will not be panic for their own safety
even when they saw a world disaster in the theatre.
It seems that in most of the mainstream Theatre experiences, Audiences need to go through a set of ritual
before and after they practice the viewing action. This set of ritual divided the real life and the dramatic act in
magic circle very clearly. First, people need to check for a suitable program, and then they will buy the ticket for
the selected program. At a certain time and place, different people who do not know one another will gather
and be ready to become Audience. Before that, they need to adjust their mental setting which can allow them
to be detached from their “real world”, so that they will not mix up the things on stage and in their “real
world”. Then they wait for the lights black out and the red curtain goes up. They are not expected to see
ordinary people on the stage, they need actors who were well dressed and who covered their face with make-up.
When the viewing action is finished, Audiences need to give applause to the Actors, and then people have to
adjust their mind back to “normal” and go back to their “real world”.
Experimenting with “Viewing”
Is that really necessary for people to “view” in this way? In order to experiment the “viewing” action of
Audience, I executed another task. I still focused on the Non-theatre space in this task, but Actor was absent
and Audience will be the one to tell where the theatre is.
I brought a group of audiences to two sites, Langham Place and Sai Yeung Choi Street. In the task, Audiences
first seat together and start to “view”, their viewing experiences were limited by me, as I chose the area to seat.
Then they start to write in anyway, at least they are jotting down what they have seen. They may use their pen
to mark down all the characteristics and actions of the people they were looking at and name them as their
actors. Then, they need to make some still shots in any place they like to represent the stage for their actors.
Also in the Sai Yeung Choi Street, they need to shot and write for “viewing”. Audiences need to walk along the
street when they write, and they would not walk together and they can follow someone to be their actors.
The reason for me to choose Langham Place is its theatre-like architecture, so I execute the task in weekday
morning when there are less people, so Audiences can “view” differently from what they have usually seen.
Also, in the morning at Sai Yeung Choi Street, there are not that many people, as the shops and stores there are
not yet opened. As I said before, peoples tend to “view” under a set of ceremony, which clearly divided
performance from “real life”. So I bring Audiences to a place in a particular time when it is not representing the
place. Then it may have a similar effect on the “ceremony”, and audiences can find their Theatre freely in the
site. For example, many people’s image of Mong Kok is a very busy place full of people, and they really
experience Mong Kok like this when they are there. Besides, I let the Audiences indicate the magic circle, which
they are viewing at, by writing and video shooting. Maybe these also are the “Ceremony” to make the
Audiences aware of themselves and their “viewing” actions.
I think there are many places for people to “watch”, and there are many actors around us in everyday life. I
have read an article by Erving Goffman in which he thinks acting, or performing, is an artifice to present
oneself:
"I have been using the term "performance" to refer to all the activity of an individual which occurs during a
period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence
on the observers……Front, then, is the expressive equipment of a standard kind intentionally or unwittingly
employed by the individual during his performance.” (Erving Goffman, 1956: 97)
This makes me think: if everyone is presenting himself as if he or she is someone else, then everyone is an actor.
Therefore, I can find Theatre anywhere. Also, some psychologists said a baby is learning to act in her first year.
So, I do not think the actors on the stage in Theatre are the only group of people who knows how to act. We
are acting as different characters at different situation and in front of different people. For example, in the
morning on MTR, a person is sitting, and then an old lady comes with a heavy bag and she stands in front of
that person, she is showing her desire for a seat. Then she acts like she is tired, and needs a seat as she cannot
stand very well when the MTR is moving. But that person does not want to give a seat, so he returns with
acting and pretends he is sleeping and pays no attention to that old lady. As there are many potential “viewing”
opportunities in the everyday life, why do people still need ceremonial “viewing”? Why do they need to
highlight the “Act” in Theatre?
Conclusion
In my research project, I have reflected upon some key questions about Theatre, such as, “Where is Theatre?”,
“Where is the stage?”, “Who is the Actor?”, and most importantly, “Who are the Audience?” I have carried out
two tasks experimenting and attempting to answer those questions. Although the result of my research could
not give perfect answers to the questions I raised, I think I have produced additional views to the authoritative
Theatre definitions.
Richard Schechner and Erving Goffman have both focused on the “performer” in their research. Although
Richard Schechner has discussed Audience in “intensity of performance”, he spends most of his words on
performers in performance as he thinks performers lead a performance’s intensity. Audiences were also
essential in showing responses and assisting the building up to the climax. Erving Goffman concerns about an
individual’s representation of self and dramatization of one’s work in everyday life, and he discusses in great
details how an individual performs his or her “front” to others. As there are many performances provided by
individuals in everyday life, it seems Theatre can be anywhere. While executing my first task, I studied the
“Magic Circle” with my focus on actors’ performance, and so I reply on the actual presence of performers. In
the second task, I took out the actors and studied the “viewing” actions of the Audience only. Audience’s
creation of drama and their actors through framing (with a video camera) raised new questions about the
meanings of “viewing” actions in everyday life.
Why do people need a place or a ceremony like Theatre to represent the experience of “viewing” which we can
normally perceive in everyday life? Would it be for aesthetic value? Or are human beings so satisfied with
performing? I think I cannot answer the question here, as it is more important for this research project to
convey my concern about Theatre and to start a conversation with this medium.
Bibliography
Boal, Augusto (2001), Hamlet and the baker's son: my life in theatre and politics. New York: Routledge. London.
Brook, Peter (1990), The Deadly Theater. In The Empty Space, Chapter 1, Penguin Books. London.
Cao, Xiaorong, (1998), Avant Grant Theatre. In Experimental theatre, Chapter 1, Yang zhi wen hua shi ye gu fen you xian
gong si, Taibei shi.
Cohen, Robert (2002), The Greeks. In Theatre, Part 2, Charter 3, University of California, Irvine. (http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0767430069/student_view0/part2/chapter3/)
Goffman, Erving (1956), Social Life as Drama. In The Goffman Reader, Part III, Chapter 9, Malden: Blackwell, 1997. Mass.
Pp. 95-107.
Rodriguez, Hector (2006), The Playful and the Serious: An approximation to Huizinga's Homo Ludens. In Game Studies:
the international journal of computer game research, volume 6, issue 1, December 2006.
(http://gamestudies.org/0601/articles/rodriges#d)
Schechner, Richard (c1985), Points of Contact between Anthropological and Theatrical Thought. In Between Theatre and
Anthropology, Chapter 1, University of Pennsylvania Press. Philadelphia. Pp. 3-26.
Schechner, Richard (1993), The Street is the Stage. In The future of ritual: writings on culture and performance, New York:
Routledge. London.
Zhu, Jingmei, (1999), The Artaudian theatre of images, Yang zhi wen hua shi ye gu fen you xian gong si, Taibei shi.