{"id":1084,"date":"2015-04-26T21:53:54","date_gmt":"2015-04-26T20:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1084"},"modified":"2015-04-26T21:58:25","modified_gmt":"2015-04-26T20:58:25","slug":"almost-invisible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2015\/04\/almost-invisible.html","title":{"rendered":"Almost invisible"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Punchdrunk<\/a><\/p>\n

It has taken me a while to work out why I often have a problem with immersive theatre. In theory, it\u2019s marvellous \u2013 upending the staid conventions of bourgeois propriety, escaping the proscenium\u2019s gilt and plush, the middle class\u2019s guilt and hush. Opening the theatre to the world. Letting the world into the theatre.<\/p>\n

Yep to all that. That\u2019s not my problem. The problem is that, once you let in the world, you also let in me. And I\u2019ve had more than enough of me.<\/p>\n

I was thinking the other day, as I often do, about the lure of invisibility. Most people, offered the hypothetical choice between flying and invisibility, would choose the former (transcendence, speed, exhilaration), and that Team Invisibility is a furtive shambles of ne\u2019er do wells. As Kathryn Schulz<\/a> wrote recently in a New Yorker<\/em> review on the subject, \u2018broadly speaking, there are two reasons for wanting to turn invisible: to get away from something or to get away with something.\u2019 It\u2019s the least reputable superpower.<\/p>\n

Safety of the shadows<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet I\u2019ve always had a craving for invisibility. Released from the shackles of tangible presence, I\u2019m convinced, I\u2019d be able to see how the world works, watch how people behave without the inhibiting effect of my own galumphing self-consciousness. My body, voice, idiot grin \u2013 they all get in the way. Without them, surely, I\u2019d find out how people are supposed to inhabit the world, how this living thing is meant to work.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise, then, that I drifted toward a profession that involves lurking in the darkness, like a phantom in waiting. (I\u2019d make such a good ghost. I wouldn\u2019t haunt, I certainly wouldn\u2019t poltergeist. I\u2019d just linger, slipping under the goosebumps. Too ghoul for school.)<\/p>\n

Except. Being a theatre critic often means forsaking the safety of the shadows. It\u2019s not all about anonymity somewhere in the depths of the circle. Instead, we shamble round disused postal depots, derelict offices and warehouses earmarked for swankpit development. We sidle through especially created environments, or squelch through muddy park and rec ground. It\u2019s often fun, sometimes even life-changing. But it\u2019s a form of theatre that inevitably wrestles with the visibility perplex.<\/p>\n

\"Maze.<\/a>

Maze. Photo: Turner Contemporary<\/p><\/div>\n

Recently, I saw Maze<\/a>,<\/em> an immersive dance piece by choreographer Jasmin Vardimon<\/a> in the seaside town of Margate. The town has seen better days \u2013 though it\u2019s busily reclaiming its cachet \u2013 and Maze<\/em> unwound in the Winter Gardens, a resplendently shabby pleasure palace. The artist Ron Arad<\/a> had created an arresting\u00a0construction in its midst, a labyrinth built of industrial foam: more usually found settling in your sofa, but here an uncanny soft-solid material to squeeze through, bounce against or sink into.<\/p>\n

As an environment, it was beguiling (here’s my review<\/a>). As dance, it was a bit drama club (wannabe sirens and cackling madcaps). And as an experience, it was way too self-conscious. We spectators stumbled through the maze in our socks, politely let one another pass, exchanged tight smiles of complicity. It was hard to feel we were unspooling into primal fears and buried archetypes. And as we left, waltzed out by Vardimon\u2019s engaging dancers, a sense of release into the world was missing \u2013 because we hadn\u2019t left ourselves behind.<\/p>\n

I longed to watch, not to be<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had a similar experience at You Me Bum Bum Train<\/em><\/a> in 2012. This wildly acclaimed creation<\/a> uses cascades of volunteer bodies to create a wild succession of joltingly realistic environments \u2013 orchestra, crime scene, kitchen, salon \u2013 into which you\u2019re briefly hurled. I absolutely adored seeing the conviction and care with each micro-scene was built \u2013 so many people, so many props, such poker-faced detail \u2013 and I squirmed repeatedly at having to be the focus of these scenes. Missing the point, I know, but I longed to watch, not to be. I craved that cloak of invisibility.<\/p>\n

Boys who wear glasses have long chafed at the tight white masks that spectators wear in performances by Punchdrunk<\/a>, Britain\u2019s reigning emperors of immersion. Long plastic triangles, like remnants of some debased commedia, they squeeze the specs no end (though on my second visit to The Drowned World<\/em><\/a>, the elastic had mercifully slackened). But they have a powerful effect \u2013 in sites far bigger than the Margate maze, they allow audiences to wander like ghouls, freed from discretion as the undead surely are.<\/p>\n

Punchdrunk shows may not be perfect, but the experience of watching, and of seeing your fellow watchers, can be immense. In the small-town Americana of Faust<\/em> or The Drowned World<\/em>, blank faces cluster in a doorway to see a marriage crumble, or press round the combatants in a Main Street fracas. The corkscrew dancers seem oblivious, but all around you see the whiteout faces of your fellow voyeurs: it isn\u2019t clear who is haunting whom, which is the phantom. Either way, we\u2019re blessedly invisible \u2013 and able to watch with brutish, unapologetic intensity. If only we could always shove our intrusive selves in the cloakroom.<\/p>\n

Top picture: photo of Lex Leifheit<\/a> at Punchdrunk<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has taken me a while to work out why I often have a problem with immersive theatre. In theory, it\u2019s marvellous \u2013 upending the staid conventions of bourgeois propriety, escaping the proscenium\u2019s gilt and plush, the middle class\u2019s guilt and hush. Opening the theatre to the world. Letting the world into the theatre. Yep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-dance","9":"tag-theatre","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1089,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions\/1089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}