I’m not trying to derail the progress of the scene breakdown. I was cleaning a room and got distracted. Maybe this is more appropriate for the Lichtenbergian site since it represents divided attention; I don’t know. It does touch on theatre art, however, so…
I wrote a speculative little thing a while ago in which I tried, yet again, to synthesize two of my interests: performance and psychoanalysis. Yes, I know; I’m pretty predictable, but don’t begin chanting the Te Dium just yet. And no pained sideways glances. Have a look at it and see what you make of it.
I’m not much interested in being asked questions beginning with What did you mean by…. or entertaining editorial observations; as exposition and improvisation, it is what it is. Rather, I think there are occasional passages I’m quite proud of because of the way they articulate some pretty arcane Lacan concepts in everyday language. Also, I want to inspire new thinking on performance issues. To my mind, nothing I’ve offered is shattering original, just another stirring up of the familiar into a slightly unfamiliar brew.
Useful for Coriolanus? Not a bad question. It’s not my agenda in encouraging you to read it, but if it inspires, why not. Too eccentric? We can only hope.
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So vhat doess he vant, louder or zofter?
::going to print it out to read it::
O reason not the need!
Okay, I’ve read it, although I will confess I skimmed over all those sections cast in Lacanian abstractions despite the author’s promise not to use such.
I too am predictable. In all of this musing, even in the section on “Practice,” the only action given to us is the narrator sitting a car and parsing the phrase he uses to express a desire to avoid human contact, quickly devolving into symbolic language, with any hope of the reader for further concrete visualisations of a new process evaporating as we go.
Let me back up and express a curiosity about the “body” being a visual thing. I think I would have to use the Dr. Johnson reference as a rebuttal-an-sich: I would reject the idea of the body “being grounded in the experience of seeing something.” Nay, sir, I reject it—or at least raise an eyebrow at it—feelingly, most sensibly.
I’m more than up for alternative explorations—wink, wink, nudge, nudge— but let’s play a game here. I meet you in mid-August at the studio. We go into the studio, take off our shoes. What’s the first thing you tell me to do? (Note that I’m not asking you what the first thing you say is.)
Your challenge is reasonable. I have put myself in such a room with performers countless times in my imagination. I too find it comes down to how I respond to the specter of Authority, to offering myself as a Master and giving instructions. My resistance to that traditional solution–the proof of the pudding approach–is not meant to frustrate.
The body is not being reduced to only “a visual thing.” I’m trying to use the Lacanian troika of the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real to complicate our understanding of the body as a performing vehicle, expressive entity, something that “does things,” etc.
You say “devolving into symbolic language.” The psychoanalytic wager implies that our bodily experience has always been both constituted and constrained by symbolic processes. To believe that the body is ultimately free of, better than, more than, apart from the actions of the symbolic is an imaginary illusion.
My exploration of the phrase “take too much out of me” was an attempt to model activities that work with the symbolic. Abstract to read, perhaps. But also a stab at indicating what might be done. Remember, my ultimate goal is to have the performer encounter the Real in some new way and then down the road perform something new for the audience. We can’t impose a picture or set of instructions as if we know what the Real looks or sounds like.
I’m tentatively playing with notions. The analyst tries to nudge the subject toward an experience with “symbolic language.” The instructions regarding what to do are kept simple: say whatever comes to mind, no matter how irrelevant or unexpected, try not to pass judgement ahead of time. That’s it. Then you let a picture of the symptom emerge. I’m trying in a similar fashion to create the “symptomatic atmosphere.”
Maybe “What’s the first thing you tell me to do?” is our first artifact, our first piece of symbolic production. How might we proceed? What imaginary fantasy of certainty does it touch upon? What is the Real of the body with respect to this material?
Or we could explore the difference between “say” and “do.” You, as a subject, have offered this as a significant distinction.
To rely on the word of the Master is to risk losing touch with the subject.
And didn’t that little statement sound suspiciously like some utterance from a Master?
Like Linda Ellerbee used to say in her news broadcasts on Nickelodeon: “But you don’t have to take my word for it.” I think that’s what I’m thinking of.
So… let’s roleplay. Everyone, join in.
[scene: the studio]
(Dale enters, removes shoes. He is dressed in sweatpants, t-shirt. He begins to stretch.)
DALE: Ow. (Continues stretching.)
Not the fundamentalism of WHAT IS, but … the fundamentalism of Lacan?
If you’re constantly in a state of anxiety about becoming a “Master,” then how the hell does one ever say ANYTHING?
And why is Lacan, then, not the Master?
I’m serious. Don’t discuss. Roleplay.
DALE: (still stretching) Who all is showing up tonight?
Present.
I stand in humble awe of those Socratics who have not planted some stake somewhere.
Why does my both invoking and questioning the Master signifier piss everybody off? Yes, yes, of course the Master is inescapable; it’s the logical inversion of psychoanalytic suspicion. Which, you will point out, sounds suspiciously like Lacan. Oh, ho, nothing gets by you, does it?
The point is to explore ideas, not demonstrate how we are superior to them by revealing all the paradoxes. The works by authors who have held forth on the paradox of Lacan as Master would fill a bookshelf.
I’m prickly not because you don’t worship along with me, but because we remain with the hall-of -mirrors issues rather than trying on other things.
If Dale is getting ready for a Coriolanus rehearsal, I’m fine. If he’s getting ready for an exploration of the thoughts in my article, I’m very anxious. If I am to be the subject and my uncertainty the first object of scrutiny, that’s intimidating.
JB. It is presumptuous of me to put my ideas forward for consideration, I realize. I’m not trying to seize the reigns and pull everyone off on my own little adventure, however. I really am not trying to pull rank intellectually, here, as if my various “learnings” put me in a privileged place. I offer my enthusiasms because, as much as I am consumed by them, I also need some reality checks, and we have created an atmosphere in which I can safely seek those kinds of conversations. And my interest in performance is not of the solitary, auto, one-person variety; I’m interested in groups experimenting with ideas to make something. So I push what’s in my head as a place to start a collaboration. But I don’t need to be the sole source of new ideas. I don’t want to be.
Dale. I wish I knew what the implementation looked like. I don’t yet. I think I really wanted to find out if my exposition inspired anything in others. If it doesn’t, back to the drawing board.
MARC: Let’s share our favorite vocal warm-ups.
[Yes, I'm attempting to walk my way through whatever ideas you're trying to solidify. If I were in Newnan, I'd suggest doing it for real. Since I'm not, I'm falling back on my AOL chatroom days. Just visualize what we'd do next. Hey... performance with no body? I think we're done here. Only it's all visual. Damn. Anyway, I'm trying to play and help figure this out.]
DALE: That’s why I’d be a terrible acting teacher. I don’t really know any vocal warmups.
MARC: (I’m probably wandering around in the space at this point.) How about how the televangelist does these things with his (usually “his”) voice? There’s a relationship there with authority. There’s this extreme expression which could be attributed to the Holy Spirit that helps to punctuate the command. Command and transport. The power of the female (usually female) voice when it conveys some kind of sexual transport has another kind of authority effect, I think.
I’m pre-occupied with the power of voice in the actor. Not just in the actor…(I sing a bit in my big bass-baritone voice.)
DALE: Does it have to be extreme, this voice thing? I don’t think my voice is extreme, nor any of the things I do with it. But I’m told my voice is intimidating, authorial. Of course, I can do it on purpose, the teacher voice, the librarian voice. But apparently I do it without trying. Is that what we’re trying to analyze?
MARC: Not necessarily extreme, but what of the qualities apart from content? What do you do to make your voice do those things?
How does content play its part?
Since we are on the blogosphere, how do we protect confidentiality? Can you think of a way to talk of who has told you these things about your voice without compromising anyone?
You say “apparently.” Were you unaware of this effect? Are you skeptical of the judgement? Something connected to appearance? A parent?
I don’t want to be alone playing with theory, so two things: 1)The voice is an example of the (a), the unassimilated object, related to the mouth and the ear as rims open to the Other. The object producing effects neither word nor image can contain. 2) We are using a more symbolic method to create imaginary effects. We are writing in an effort to pretend something is taking place. This, in itself, is interesting and could lead to something.
DALE: I say “apparently” because it seems to be in effect even when I’m not trying for it. And everyone says so. So are we going to work on “voice” tonight?
MARC: Here’s JB and there’s chair. Why not use your voice to find and execute a sequence of actions involving yourself, JB and the chair. Don’t pre-plan. Find the material as you engage in vocalizing.
What is vocalizing? Do I prohibit words? Do we run the risk of creating some imaginary language like Brook and Hughes at Persepolis? Voice. Start with what is unscriptable. Or difficult to script. Nuance? By letting the voice lead we are risking departing from custom, normalcy, credibility, the social contract.
MARC: Working with voice also in terms of what does the Other want or expect. Now that it’s all reality television, we are even farther from the impact of voice. It’s the squashed nasal monotone of the average participant we are used to.
Silly observation. We still expect the villain to have something going on with the voice. Voice as object around which circulates an excess of jouissance.
MARC: One more thing, very particular to the actor. Voice as Presence is a typical desired trait. What is that thing that is evoked when a voice is felt to convey Presence. Voice as filler of void. Voice as sense of completion in the hearer.
What does it really mean to be in love with a Voice? Yours or someone else’s?
Remember the commercials years ago for the Columbia School of Broadcasting? It could be really interesting to read through examples from their curriculum, how they imparted professional know-how. Secrets of the trade, that kind of thing.
DALE: Shh. I’m trying to think. None of that has meaning for me. I have to do something with Jeff and the chair, with my voice. (Thinks for a moment.)
Here I am. There is the chair.
There I am. Here is the chair.
I am on the chair.
I am under the chair.
I am the chair.
All of these sentences describe versions of WHAT IS, naturally.
DALE: /vocally, with an edge/ Jeff Bishop, is that gum under your chair?
MARC: (Going through his mind while Dale and “Jeff Bishop” work) He can see the gum under the chair. He knows Jeff Bishop and calls him by name. He is God. He is the voice of God. He is occupying the place of S1. He is the Master.
His observation of JB is also an embodiment of the Gaze, the impossible perspective, the visual object. If Jeff Bishop were paranoid, this is what he would be suffering from.
The discarded gum is another great example of the (a), in this case an oral object, a bit of trash, a secret that must remain hidden. The image of the wad of gum on the underside of the chair is like a visual attempt to represent jouissance.
Jeff Bishop is in the position of the poor hapless subject, named and exposed, having to answer for his desire. Or is his desire a wish to be found out? Or does he want to dodge? Is that his desire? Is there jouissance in experiencing the voice of God? Is this Jeff Bishop’s hallucinated fantasy?
Dale, as teacher, indulges in the fantasy of possessing privileged knowledge. Knowledge that exposes. What, then, does the Master, S1, repress? What is a path for S2? What was the gum before it was discarded?
[As any acting teacher will tell you, "going through your mind" doesn't play. As part of this experiment, I am literally not reading any "thoughts" on the process. I am concentrating on what I see and hear in the room.]
Quite as it should be. I’m using the advantages of our chosen medium to model or improvise analysis based on what I’ve written. Ultimately, I may not say anything, particularly if I intervene as a performer.
Had to take a moment to tease JB, of course. His sentences are interesting because as sentences they can be experienced in so many ways. Objects. Orders. Statements. Formulas. A universe of meaning. Nonsense. Weapons.
In the words of the legendary Neil Diamond:
I am, I said,
To no one there.
And no one heard at all,
Not even the chair.
Zizek offers that not only does the Other require us to speak. We are also commanded to “Enjoy!” “Enjoy that gum!” “Hours of enjoyment!” I love the commercials out now for a gum that people don’t want to give up. One piece gives eternal satisfaction.
Are JB’s sentences on the blackboard? Is this Dale’s lesson?
Existence is an interview with the Other. You must say something when the microphone is pointed at you: I am under the chair…
Paradox: Words drain jouissance. But we also leak words as a sign of our enjoyment. We are expected to secrete enjoyment in our words.
Repeat after me, Here I am. There is the chair.
Repeat after me, I am the chair.
Also, very different from: I am a chair.
MARC: (Walks on with a mug of something; slurps) Hot. (Blows. Slurps. Goes to Dale.) There’s coffee. (Walks to Jeff Bishop; calmly:) “Jeff Bishop, is that gum under your chair?” (Pause; to Jeff Bishop:) There’s coffee.
Jeff (to Marc): That’s not coffee.
(to Dale): That’s not gum.
I am not Jeff Bishop.
(I peel the not-gum, dip it into the not-coffee, and pop it into my mouth. I chew. I am still the chair.)
DALE: /whingingly/ Jeff Bishop, is that gum under your chair?
In the words of the immortal Hal David:
A chair is just a chair,
Even when no one is sitting there.
Towards a symptomatic atmosphere:
Dale: a dutiful return, with variation
JB: summary closure, tying all the strands together.
Marc: obsessed with word play (gum, mug, not, knot); obsessed with Jeff’s push to closure (wanting to throw coffee in his face)
(I peel the not-gum, dip it into the not-coffee, and pop it into my mouth. I chew. I am still the chair.) But an interesting sentence. A series of descriptions.
MARC: (I put a piece of gum in my mouth. I chew. I offer some to Dale:) Chair?
I am not the chair.
I chew the coffee.
I hold the gum.
I am not the gum.
I gum the chair.
I dip the chair into the gum.
I am the mug of gum.
I pop the coffee gum mug into my chair.
I am still the chair.
I chair the coffee gum.
I mug the chair.
I am not the coffee chair.
I am not the gum chair.
I am the mug chair.
I not the gum.
I gum the not.
Not the gum.
Gum not the mug.
Gum chair mug not.
I am not the mug.
Pop not the gum chair mug.
I mug. I mug. I mug.
I chew the chair and pop the gum.
I pop and chew and mug. Chair.
Chair mug, chair gum, chair chew, chair pop.
Pop chair I mug chew gum coffee I not not I chair chew.
Still the chair. I still the mug. I chew still. I chew still. Still I chew.
Still the chew. The still chew. Chew still. Chew still.
I am that I am.
Sock Chew. This was the proper name of Crawfish. It was Crawfish who descended into the Abyssal Depths, when all was Water, in the beginning. It was Sock Chew, Crawfish, sea-diver, who reached bottom, when all others failed, and scooped up the first bit of Earth. Sock Chew took the dollop back to the surface. Like gum, Sock Chew spread it out over the face of the waters.
Sock Chew fished out and fashioned the Chair.
Here we sit. Here I sit.
I am still the chair.
Yes, Dale. That is gum under the chair. The gum is the chair. I am the chair.
So are you.
DALE: (Lifts chair over head) Is that gum under the chair?
DALE: (puts chair down. takes Marc’s coffee, puts it on the chair.) Is that mug under the chair?
Jeff:
(picks up Marc’s mug from the chair, drinks).
Ahhhhh …
MARC: (attempts to hide under the chair) Good to the last drop.
JEFF: Gum. You know it’s interesting you should say gum, Dale. Shows a lot of gumption. Not that you’d shun gum. Who would? Barn owls prefer oak, I’ve heard. When my hearing aid is working, that is. Not that it ever does. What’s that? What did you say? I take great offense to that. The gumption! But now we’re talking in circles. Have you ever tried talking in rectangles? People get upset when you talk on a public bus, so I stopped doing that years ago. Not enough gumption, some might say. Not that I’d hear them, which I don’t. Can’t hear a blessed thing. Or even a cursed thing. Are you cursing at me? Sorry, can’t hear you, gonna have to speak up. Gum, you say? Gum?
DALE: (makes /buzzer/ sound) The correct answer was “no.”
Mark hands me a rubber chicken. I graciously accept.
MARC: (Suddenly aware of all the crap under the chair; continues sorting; using his voice to explore being a “dollop”) Mug! Say mug. You’re too loud. Quieter. I love it when you croon sweet nothings. Or offer me sweet meats. Or show me your hidden treasures. Not that I’d see them, which I do. Here’s another one. You’re not disgusted? I guess you are. No one could accuse you of mugging with a face like that. But a few days from now, while riding in some private elevator, something may happen to make you wince. Your little love triangle found out. More like a love dodecahedron if I know you. Try to mug your way through that. You have no defenses. You could be mugged at any moment and there’s nothing you could do. Same as it ever was. The blind leading the blind. Bats in caves, screaming out songs of echolocation. Taking a few lessons in elocution. Learning to talk like the muggles, which isn’t a real word, Dale, I might add. It’s a fiction. It has nothing to do with this mug. This is the only mug that’s real. This. Mug.
Why was my name spelled with a K?
To churn up a symptomatic atmosphere…
We can interrogate.
We can insinuate.
We can make pronouncements.
Fabricate enigmas.
Precipitate subjectivity.
I am paralyzed under the chair. I’ve turned into a stupid piece of shit.
Our precious wads of gum:
Dale the Teacher
Jeff the Stand-Up Native American Folklorist
Marc the Exception
It’s what we choose to act.
Why?
MARC: (using pair of flip-flops he finds under the chair as snapping mouth) First things first. Dale? First things first. As Sock Chew the Crawfish it is only right I ask for first things first. Tell us.
It’s a friction.
Excuse … a “friktion.”
(mugging)
A brilliant slip.
If calculated, still a brilliant slip.
Mugwump. See, I have an appropriately masculine appreciation of American political history. A “mug” word.
Only gums makes for some mug.
Bare gums make for some mug.
Bare gums. Teeth in mug on table. Teeth in mug for eating.
A HOLDING FORTH ON THE QUESTION “WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU ASK ME TO DO?” DWELLING PRINCIPALLY ON THE FORM AND IMPLIED MEANINGS OF SUCH A QUESTION, PARTICULARLY AS IT PERTAINS TO DOING THEATRE ACTIVITIES IN REHEARSAL WITH THE GOAL OF ARRIVING AT “THE NEW” AND ALL THE RISKING OF PRETENTIOUSNESS AND SELF-INDULGENCE SUCH AN ASPIRATION ENTAILS, FEATURING IN ADDITION AN APT LINK TO MEET SOME OF OUR NUMBER’S APPETITE FOR LINKS IN GENERAL AND WHICH INCLUDES, IRONICALLY ENOUGH, A SET OF INSTRUCTIONS FOR “DOING SOMETHING”
I think maybe take a look at the link first:
http://www.lacunagroup.org/marc/?page_id=58
(yes, only one of my little theatre papers, no fun Flash or Java action, no subtly pansexual cosmologies)
My reluctance to offer things to do is very much rooted in my creative concerns. Every set of instructions comes with a set of wishes, desires, fantasies, that the instructor is also imparting or insinuating. I’m not trying to avoid such things, by no means. I just want that tangled cluster, too, to be part of the working material. What was Peter Brook truly after when he told Helen Mirren to run about the space swinging that staff about like a helicopter blade, and who wouldn’t be after the same thing or at least something similar in such a situation and with Helen Mirren ready to comply? (Please don’t send letters upbraiding me for implying anything un-transcendent or sexist about Peter Brook…or about Helen Mirren…)
We can’t jettison the authority of the Master, but we can play with it creatively.
So what do you want, louder or softer?
Louder. HARDER.
No teeth.
Just gum. Talk about fantasy.
Dale’s response is powerful from a psychoanalytic perspective. It is implacable. It is the deathmask, the visage of the Absolute Master. Eternal. Unswayable. The final answer for us all.
MARC: (Reading the lumps of gum beneath the chair with his fingers, as if they were braille) “Have I a hope or half a chance…”
I’ve found it. We can stop working. More when I get home in a week.
“I have found it.”
The Master has spoken!
I promise you, you’re going to be very excited about this. But not until after we do Coriolanus.
Should I announce Coriolanus in the newspaper? Are we looking for any “outside” blood?
Let’s try to fill it “in-house” first. Let me seriously talk to Laurel about NCTC’s co-hosting the show, i.e., rehearsal space and maybe a performance weekend.
And of course we can always rehearse in my backyard.
That sounds good. They (NCTC) could even keep the money, if we’re gonna charge at the indoor version of the show.
MARC: (Now alone; crawls out from under the chair) “…of maybe even just one dance with you…ooh, ooh…would you just politely–” I think I’ll stand here. Maybe a Fred Astaire thing with the chair as Ginger…Arms. Extension…(continues working)
DALE: (re-entering) Sorry. Had to pee.
Ginger? I liked Mary Ann. And I couldn’t tell if the Professor was supposed to be hot. Hot. And Ginger won’t be hot in the mouth, too.
Must we choose? Why not both?
The Master says: YOU MUST CHOOSE!
I love sword and sorcerer epics where some basso-profundo chieftain gets to say things like that.
An aside on “the history of film acting.” Watch Ginger Rogers in some of the films she did after her stint with Fred in which she honed her comedienne persona. Very “method” in her approach, I think. Before there was such a thing. Forthright, casual, truly sexy, always playing with rhythms slightly outside the classic Hollywood thespian give and take of the time. Please don’t be boring by telling me what a gay observation that was. I defy augury.
Hot in the mouth. I have no idea what that means in the context of our current exchanges. But it’s a great phrase. Just ever so slightly awkward but also honest. It could inform a great deal as we try to get out of our heads and out of our “bodies.”
Ginger hot in the mouth. Duh. Sorry. Try Red Rock for ginger hot in the mouth. Tried it last night mixed with Crown Royal. Not bad. Who’d of thought.
“Don’t be boring” = The Master’s Directive?
I live to bore.
Let’s assume that the bore enters somehow disguised. Bore more and risk revealing.
MARC: Dale, bore Jeff.
DALE: (removes pants) The epistemology of nude performance is fraught with vagueness no matter the angle of study.
(removes t-shirt) Performers refer to the artistic “validity” or “integrity” of scenes requiring them to disrobe, but to those for whom the issue is a moral one, such shibboleths are meaningless. They do not cut the mustard, they do not ring true, they do not sway.
(walks up behind Jeff) And for those whose hope is that baring their junk onstage is not some meaningless titillation, what is the nature of that “integrity”? How is the visibility of their pudenda integral to the meaning of their transaction with the audience?
Indeed, can we as audience actually look at anything other than the nude performer’s genitals? (removes boxers, holds them) Or if we look away, can we still see them? Or rather, do we not censor our own retinas and see everything except the performer’s naughty bits? Can we truly see a “nude performer”? Can we witness a “nude performance”?
(stands motionless behind Jeff)
Motionless?
I reach for the saddle and spurs and hand them to Dale.
DALE: Very funny. Seriously, though, if we were performing this, I’m thinking you should wait a moment, then slowly and silently collect my clothes, then stand behind me. Enigmatic? Interesting? Or just me embarrassing myself? (puts on boxers)
I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us for CORIOLANUS. I saw Matthew at Target today and he is very much IN.
This is not really changing the subject. I’m expecting us to approach the material … sideways.
[I don't think this had anything to do with CORIOLANUS, just this other thing I've been reading. Just so everyone can breathe a little easier about the Shakespeare.
]
So what on Earth have you been reading, Dale?
[It's a surprise. If Marc remembers to stop by this weekend to take some stuff home for me, I'll give it to him and he can explicate.]
DALE: (gathering clothes) Try it again? What do you think? Marc, you’ll let us know, won’t you, if we do anything that looks “symptomatic”?
Is Dale poised between two meanings of “bore,” wondering which to enact?
Jeff, where did bore come from?
There’s only one sort of “genital” one can see from the stage if the performer is standing. Complicates epistemology?
The possibility of disrobing returns on many occasions, doesn’t it?
DALE: Can we possibly talk about what I did as performance in the context of whatever it is we’re trying to do here? Boring? Intriguing? Worthless? Repeatable? Good? Bad? Ugly? I just took what I thought was a pretty bold step here and if all we’re going to do is whirl away into textual discourse, it certainly won’t be worth my psyche to try any such again.
[Really, guys, if I had done this for real in the studio—and I wouldn't discount the possibility if I were you—I'd expect some kind of legitimate feedback.]
Okay, all jokes aside.
I’m having a terrible time getting around the fact that we are TYPING IN WORDS rather than performing on a stage. To me, it is in no way equivalent. TALKING about being nude is in no way equivalent to the actual act.
So, to me, what we write on a board can never really be “performance.” It’s just text.
You might then respond, “Well, what about scripts, then? Are those just texts?”
Well … yeah. Until they’re actually performed, they’re just dead texts. Which isn’t to say that we can’t be moved, enlightened, inspired, etc. by what we read. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that it’s clearly not PERFORMANCE.
In other words, I’m not sure that my reaction to Dale’s nude scenario “on the page” would have any relationship at all to my experience of the actual event.
But, playing along, I do think that we don’t really “see” nude performance. We just can’t get past the fact that — “Oh my God! Those people are NUDE!”
Or maybe that’s just me.
And I don’t think of myself as a prude. Just sayin’.
To be sure, what we’re doing here is (supposed to be) a simulacrum of what we would do in the studio if we were able. In fact, I stated that back up at the top. This is not a performance. It is us imagining ourselves in a room and transcribing what we do and say in response to what the other people have transcribed. It is a substitute for not being able to hash this out in a studio for another two weeks.
Part of what I had hoped would happen here is that we leave aside all commentary and discourse and meta-thought and just do. We seem unable to do that, however.
Using my nude thing as an example, if Marc had actually said, “Bore more and risk revealing,” then my sudden flight of fancy would have sprung off that. If we were keeping to the format I had envisioned, then your response would be to what you heard and saw me do, instead of the “literary” response you gave, which if you think about it, would not be possible if we were actually in the studio, since no one has said the word “motionless” at all. It’s something I did, but I didn’t say it.
Likewise, when I ask for feedback on the nude stunt, what I imagine is one of you responding with what you would actually say to me, in the room, right then, as I put my clothes back on or not. Those responses might be, “Geez, Dale, don’t do that! What if someone walks in?” or “Not cool, dude!” or “Okay, I’m seeing where you’re going with this, but you’d need more to drive home your point with an audience, not that you’re going to get that audience around here, however,” or “That was awesome! You’ve got balls to do that. Do it again and let me see how we can play with the ideas.” Or something that would have flowed out of our playing around in the studio.
Perhaps it would be easier just to wait and get together for a solid Wednesday night’s work. I promise to keep my clothes on. Mostly.
I reach for the toolbox, which was hidden under my chair.
I open the toolbox. There is a scraper inside.
I begin scraping off the gum.
JEFF: Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
Jeff pushes the jangly toolbox into the direction of Marc and Dale while he conitues to scrape.
It’s about time someone started using a tool. A sharp one at that.
We contrast talk of a hidden tool with one out in the open being put to use.
Why remove the gum?
I find what we are doing very interesting. And speaking just for me, I’m trying to do in this blog exactly what I’d be doing in the space. Dale, I truly am trying to take my musings on psychoanalysis and performance and put them into something concrete, but be patient. I have no model; I’m discovering as I go.
To me a symptomatic atmosphere consists of these very perplexities we are grappling with and being annoyed by. I am intrigued by your way of taking up “reveal.” I did take it seriously and responded in the way I felt I might respond. You listed all the ways you wished we had responded.
As a teacher, you are scolding somewhat. But that too is interesting. Jeff’s response is interesting. We feel a need to define a few terms. What do we want to see? I’m being patient. We’re trying to move toward the new. It’s happening.
I rummage around in the toolbox. Clank clank clink.
I pull out a ham sandwich. I take a quick whiff, then stick it in my mouth.
I continue to scrape the gum. It begins to come off.
I open up the bread and place the gum nearly on my sandwich. I continue eating.
In-between bites, I continue to scrape.
Jeff (to Marc and Dale): Sandwich?
DALE: No, thanks. What kind is it?
(puts pants and t-shirt back on, sits and watches Jeff rummage.)
MARC: I was six or seven. That summer a man started building a house across the street. After the foundation was laid and the frame was up, I would walk across the street and wander through the skeleton of rectangular spaces while the man continued to work. Once I remember he was eating lunch. He had a tin of sardines. I sat and watched him open the can with a key, pour out the oil, and eat the sardines with saltines. If I pay close enough attention, I remember thinking, if I am still and diligent in my watching, if I am earnest, he will offer me some. And he did, finally. It’s bizarre to think back on it now. Who eats sardines anymore? Do people eat sardines? Wasn’t it strange that he offered me sardines? That I willed him into offering just by watching? Little slimy fishes.
JEFF: (to Dale) You wouldn’t like it.
I stop scraping. I put aside my tool.
I look at Marc.
I reach into my tool box and rummage around.
I pull out a can of sardines.
I toss them to Marc.
I close the tool box.
I go back to scraping the gum from the chair.
One thing nice about the way we’re going about this is that we can continually review what has been said or done and begin to make charts or maps that will then provide a blueprint for making a piece.
The psychoanalytic wager is that in addition to our “performing,” interacting, creating, questioning, is another scene, another stage. Each of us acts with our own other scene in play. It is a scene beyond our conscious control and behaves out of reach of our desire to deploy or regulate. Where it is, we are not.
The scene is individual and subjective at first. As we explore, we offer bits and pieces of meaning which perhaps touch upon this Other scene (all bits of meaning do, even if only remotely or through covering or complication). Our gaffs and goofs and stalling can, of course, touch upon that scene more directly. Those, too, are part of the mix.
Each of us offers our own meanings as well as responds to the meanings of others as we play and explore. The idea of a symptomatic atmosphere is that we begin to share constellations of meaning around the bits we share. We begin, perhaps, to implicate one another in our other scenes. What might this mean?
To an extent, all we have to go on are these bits we generate. But we can only begin to speculate about the unconscious stuff by reviewing and then pushing forward with possible manipulations based on our reviews. Ultimately, I believe we are trying to create a performance event that somehow draws the audience into our same shared shadowy atmosphere. And we can be led to making some really interesting choices and decisions based on our dwelling with these shared meanings.
Let me try to give an example of how to play with meanings and find new connections.
Dale attempts to demonstrate his frightening, authoritarian voice and speaks to Jeff as if Jeff is a student. As an authority, Dale offers that he can see what is hidden, or at least sense the presence of what might be hidden. The gum under the chair. This notion of being able to see what’s hidden gets worked through in another way later when Dale, in response to my deployment of “risk revealing,” explores the vicissitudes of becoming naked in front of the audience. Did my use of “reveal” pick up on the notion of “seeing what is hidden?” My motive was to nudge Jeff toward unpacking more in connection with his “dare to be boring” comment. It inadvertently activated Dale’s interest in what it means to reveal and conceal and to know it has taken place. Perhaps. This is just a proposal of linkages. I have left out a great deal of complexity just to give a quick illustration. Everything we add to the mix unfolds numerous possibilities. The sardines memory was triggered by the appearance of gum under the chair and the “gross” idea of eating it in a sandwich. But I also use that story because I believe it says something about my nature, about a certain kind of passivity. I earlier alluded to a “paralysis.” It also touches upon the notion of people sharing something “disgusting.” And how I fancy myself as someone more inclined to both offer and receive something disgusting. The ambiguity of Jeff’s scraping comes into play here. Is he harvesting? Cleansing? Aggressively cutting into the proceedings? Is he exploring the notion that he can somehow remove the hidden secret that Dale, as Master, could perceive?
Our choices also touch upon the drives, those things “beyond the body” in a psychoanalytic sense. Think of the ways we have engaged the eyes, the mouth, the ear. Jeff’s choice to act silently with his toolbox is interesting. It can be interpreted as a strong instance of anal aggression. The drives are in play; they too are a part of our shadowy scenes.
A long digression. But I was very excited while cutting the grass the other day and I went into a revery concerning how even with the small network of ideas we’ve begun to explore, we could make some fun playing choices. A play? A performance event? Something very concrete in terms of presence and action, but something that triggers an unsettling mystery.
The mug was a pure imaginary reflection of the letters of gum. I tried to play with this further when I made a speech that covered the same territory as Jeff’s riff on gum but backwards, and “inverting” his choice of meanings.
MARC: I find sardines to be quite hot in the mouth. (pockets the can) I’ll save these for later.
Last little thought, I promise. I’m trying to crack something open for us, I think.
Why do I dwell on “meanings,” maps, charts, links, words, linguistic nuance, even when what we are about in performance is actions?
The Lacanian turn in psychoanalysis was to assert that this activity on the Other stage obeyed not the laws of “biology” but language. It’s a bold, non-intuitive claim, and one that is hard to “prove” without giving, also, a taste of the psychoanalytic experience as a referent. That’s very difficult.
What I would say is this. What do symbol systems allow us to do? Very simply, they allow us to PUT THINGS INTO PLAY. And because of the nature of such systems, some of the play is autonomous. We have conscious influence, but the system also runs on its own, employing an integral system of movement, transformation, “energy” (Freud had no other way to think about it at the time). Let’s use the old fashioned term libido just because it is very evocative and has a useful condensing aspect. Our libidos rely on symbolic operations to…function. It is not purely “cellular” or “instinctive.” In fact, to the extent that we can acknowledge the workings or vicissitudes of a libido, we are acknowledging something that is defined by the reality of symbolic activity, of things PUT INTO PLAY.
So when we explore, and then review and re-express, we are using “meanings” to portray the very simple truth of our drives and desires AT PLAY. We are attempting to discern some of those hidden, autonomous, symbolic exchanges that allow us (as libido, if you will) to be.
Obviously, I am not talking about the propositions of medical science, but neither am I poo-pooing them. I am not talking about a more traditional “psychological” approach, but I don’t dismiss that either. But I digress at this point.
Marc said poo-poo.
I stops scraping.
I rummage around in the tool box. I find find a roll of duct tape.
I pull off a strip of it and approach Marc.
I place the duct tape firmly over his mouth.
I put aside the tool box, pick up my scraping tool, and go back to scraping the gum from the chair.
I begun to hum a tune. It’s faintly familiar to Marc and Dale.
MARC: (Thinking: “It’s for my own good.” Looks gratefully and adoringly at Jeff the way a dog would)
This one might resonate. We can take up any fragment of our work as if it were a dream specimen. That’s what I did with some of Jeff’s activity. I began interpreting bits of it as if it were my own dream, letting it provoke associations, memories, etc.
I know Jeff has a certain interest in dreams and possible Jungian and Campbellian interpretive strategies. Could be inspiring.
MARC: (in an effort to resist introducing more props, begins manipulating himself as if the tune provokes thinking of himself as a set of Lincoln Logs)
DALE picks up the tune.
JEFF: (continues scraping; voice also scrapes) Two things.
First. Scrape is fight. Playground fight. Boys getting into it. Punch him in the mouth. Can’t punch him. Trying to be a good boy. What an asshole. Gonna scrape his mouth off.
Second. Scrape. Snape. Snape. Severus Snape. Dale’s second self. I’m Dale’s second. We’re on the same side. Sever us. Cut ourselves off. Don’t want to play his way.
Jeff continues to hum.
I put aside the scraper. I open the tool box. Take another bite of my sandwich as a I rummage around.
I pull out a knife.
MARC: (approaches JEFF; tries to lick his face; prevented by tape)
DALE: (grabbing Jeff’s wrist) There’s a formula here that might be useful. GUM=WORDS We could use that as a secret source of ideas when we start to build our piece.
JEFF (to Dale): If you don’t mind, I would like to spread this gum onto my sandwich.
(noting Dale’s still-firm grip on his knife-bearing hand).
Please.
I circle the chair a few times, then sit and wait.
If I live, I think I might take the tape off my mouth and stick it under the chair.
JEFF: My arm, please.
DALE: I’m still thinking. And feeling your arm. Be still. And know.
JEFF: But … I’m … HUNGRY!
MARC: Another time, I remember standing by a vending machine. I was four or five, but I could have been older. It still feels the same. It could have been yesterday. I stood close to the vending machine and focused my thoughts, my will, onto some item inside. Something. I knew that if I did this, sooner or later some kind grown-up would come by, see me locked onto the machine, and offer to buy me whatever I was staring at. And unfortunately for me, I guess, in the long run, it worked.
noting Dale’s still-firm grip on his knife-bearing hand
I’m still thinking. And feeling your arm. Be still. And know.
We could easily turn this into a psycho-physical exercise in which Jeff and Dale explore all the possible permutations, real and ironic, of this image.
Which ones or what approach might break away from the imaginary capture of the idea? How do we take this moment and investigate as if we don’t know what a body is (or what a wounded body would be…or we challenge the assumptions of the image, the “drama” of it)?
I promise concrete suggestions. I just wanted to throw the idea out there.
A lecturer on myth and anthropology is unpacking the tales of Sock-Chew. Slides included.
The lecturer is possessed by…enigmatic longings.
The chewing of gum. The placing under the chair. By? Perhaps an object of the longing?
A workman arrives with his toolbox. Much. rummaging and scraping. Much eating. Students watch with longing.
Motif of mouth versus anus. Status of the gum in question. Status of words in question.
Suggestions? Elaborations? Other “themes?” Other…nourishments? Gum as substitute? Placeholder? For what? Lecturer’s true preoccupation?
Another piece of the puzzle.
I suggest we chew on this one a bit before yea or nay.
Each audience member will find a stick of gum in his or her chair with note: more chewing satisfaction.
During performance, perhaps connected with gum under chair idea, we collect wads of gum from those in the audience who chose to chew. (Memory of MF collecting gum from students before the entered the gym for prom. Held out her hand.)
In connection with the Sock-Chew mythos, a small totem or fetish object is sculpted from the pieces of chewed gum and used in some way. A ceremony? What is the lecturer up to?
What if at some point the performers confess to collecting the gum and fabricating a ceremony to enact a rite which is part of some earnest system of neo-pagan beliefs, in an effort to exercise their will upon the audience? Shades of the Wicker Man or Genet’s The Blacks, but certainly implicates the audience. The rite is disguised throughout the performance and is the “real” agenda.
Or is it? Performers offer to lead a prayer in a gesture of goodwill.
Gum as avenue for communion? Intimacy?
Gum being given up versus gum being hidden versus gum being swallowed versus…shared, stretched among two or more. Strands consumed incrementally like a single string of spaghetti. Mouths reaching the point of junction.
Fetish is consumed? Sacrificed? Expelled? Used as igniter of arousal?
(Breaking character)
I’m totally enthralled by posts 105-107. Some exciting opportunities for exploration here. I’m in love with Marc’s brain.
(Getting back into character)
JEFF begins stomping his foot. It’s rhythmic, aggressive, oppressive.
Sorry. Have to put one more down before I lose it.
The lecturer, motived by a strange mixture of fascination and disgust and by an interest in connecting with the student, interrogates the student about the nature of gum chewing, its physical mechanics, its pleasures, the decision to remove and dispose of it, etc. In phenomenological detail. The audience watches this exchange either chewing their own gum or having chosen not to chew, some having thought they might “save it for later,” some not chewers, etc. Lecturer starts out trying to humiliate the student and prove gum chewing is a sign of second-rate intellect, but the exchange goes in unexpected directions lecturer cannot control. Lecturer has already placed a call for something to be done about all the gum under the chairs, hence the arrival of “the scraper.”
MARC chants phrases to accompany the ancient rite known as The Knife Dance:
Unfortunately it is always tempting to gain familiar satisfaction by identifying with the kid who gets passed over during rounds of playground drafts.
But I won’t go there. I still have a great many challenges ahead of me as I try to translate my ideas into acts. I will continue to push the plow.
…and then someone asks, Why do you say “push?” Aren’t plows pulled?
…and either I can assume the position of the Subject (slashed S) and begin to question my “goof,” generating possible signifying connections, or other performers can simply begin to unfold more possible questions, playing the Other meanings lurkings about.
Why are you trying to “push” us around with your arcane concepts?
You really don’t have any “pull.”
“Plow” who?
Plow evokes pillow, my earliest sexual companion.
Let me quickly take stock. The most significant thing I can say at this point is I’ve let myself go astray from my original drive to undertake this work through my preferred theoretical avenues. It’s funny I’ve become the word guy because my most pressing desire is to explore what in the theatre might be seen as unspcriptable. My trauma, my delirium, my ghost, my fatality, they all involve my experiences working in a fashion in which what is unspeakable in the spoken is what takes the focus, in which enigmatic events unfold and ask to be newly assimilated. It’s pretty much my wordless mystical core. It’s a set of sentinel events.
I’m attempting to formulate strategies for negotiating through such unspeakable intensities, and I have eschewed conventional psycho-physical performance languages revolving around “the body” in an effort to find new things.
Hard to do in a blog. Not impossible, though. My approach involved focusing on the activity we were engaged in: we were all imagining events and choosing words to describe those events. What might be enigmatic and unscriptable in that? In our attempts to write? To get at it, I couldn’t stay within the scenario we were describing. In the absence of intensities playing out in a physical space, I explored possible intensities lurking in our writing. And I used the same “psychoanalytic methods” I was interested in employing in work in an actual space.
Problem is, I couldn’t successfully transmit my ways of strategizing and “interpreting.” I began to stand in a corner and try to talk my way out. Still not practical enough. I need to offer more than a mindset.
There. I think others may see my stretches of being “rational” as endpoints and, therefore, not in service of fruitful creativity. But they’re certainly not meant to be endpoints. Back to my memories of the unspeakable. I must hold that in view. The mystical vision.
Plus, who’s comfortable discussing country matters non-anonymously on a blog.
Time for another installment in our series “Psychoanalysis and You.” Arcane or seemingly hermetic concepts made simple and understandable.
Lacan’s Petit Object (a).
I am throwing Logan his frisbee as usual. I sail the disk over a wide strip of ground in the backyard and he makes the snatch with sublime acrobatic grace. It is a transcendent process, a formula from the mathematics of nature writ down in a series perfect acts.
Ike is feeling better now that he’s on pain medication. He has the energy this morning to descend the stairs from the porch into the backyard and sniff out a place to perch and poop. I stop throwing for a moment to watch. We have been encouraged to monitor his pooping. A soft pudding is extruded. Not great, but no spewing. It holds its shape and coils into a neat pile that glows brownish-green in the morning sunshine. Ike serenely moves on in search of tasty weeds to chew.
The process of frisbee throwing is now complicated. Logan will run anywhere to make his catch. He certainly wouldn’t put on the brakes to avoid stepping in a pile of Ike’s poop. I don’t want him stepping into it and trailing residue all over the porch, so I have to throw to an area of the backyard where he will not run that risk. Every time I prepare to throw, I locate the pile, its color making it easy to see in the yard, and I launch the disk. I have to factor in the pile before each throw. The pile controls certain aspects of this activity that were free and open-ended (from my point of view) before. One could even say that the pile is now the only real thing in view and that I ignore it at my peril.
Such is the place of the (a) in the subject’s unconscious. It is the thing around which all movement is negotiated and orchestrated. It, once lodged into place, is never not not taken into account. It’s effect as a noxious bodily remainder is significant. An actual encounter with it would be unacceptable, but its existence is influential and holds a place perpetually in perceptions and the shaping of intentions.
This is very basic stuff. Carry on.
Pilobolous
the poop
Thank you. As you show, traditional Science sutures over the place of the (a): it is dung, a harmless item of study like anything else.
The Stevens poem is apt. And reminds me of Lacan’s meditation on the jar as sublime in his seminar on the ethics of psychoanalysis.
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[...] This is a post from this past June in which I tried to beg some lacunagroup members to read recent psychoanalytic musings and respond. The comments take some interesting turns. For a bit we turn the forum into an online performance laboratory. The results? I’m not going to judge. This was written by marc. Posted on Monday, November 3, 2008, at 9:26 am. Filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback. [...]
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