When Naturalism becomes, well, a bit too "natural"...

When I read this week's prompt, my first thought was, "Oooo, I can write about the 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast" which allegedly caused a panic that spread across the United States because Orson Welles' oral depiction of a martian attack was just that good. BUT since I wasn’t alive in the ‘30s to experience it, I figured that probably wouldn’t work. So, the better half of my Sunday was spent rummaging through my memory bank for moments that I’ve experienced and could neatly serve as an answer for this week’s prompt. What occasion had I witnessed or experienced that was performed in a way that was “too real” to the point that an intervention of some sort was needed? Rather than one perfect experience, I was reminded of three different occasions/scenarios that may fit well enough.

The first is in reference to a production of Eugéne Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano that a friend of mine was cast in. In case you aren't familiar with the play, Ionesco was inspired to write it as a result of his experience learning English from a primer. As he was reading along in the primer and taking notes, he states, 

“A strange phenomenon took place. I don't know how—the text began imperceptibly to change before my eyes. The very simple, luminously clear statements I had copied so diligently into my notebook, left to themselves, fermented after a while, lost their original identity, expanded and overflowed. The clichés and truisms of the conversation primer, which had once made sense[...] gave way to pseudo-clichés and pseudo-truisms; these disintegrated into wild caricature and parody, and in the end language disintegrated into disjointed fragments of words.” -- E. Ionesco

Yup. Kinda wild. BUT, what you get is a play about two couples (one who lives at the house where the play is set, the other invited for dinner), a maid, and a fireman that fits very well into the theatre of the absurd category. 

But Osi, Naturalism...how in the world is this relevant to Naturalism? Glad you asked. Stay with me. My friend was cast as one of four characters (the two married couples) who, by the end of the play, had worked themselves up into a nonsensical frenzy to the point of screaming “It's not that way, it’s over here!” at each other over and over again. 

Enter the relevance to Naturalism....

What’s SUPPOSED to happen is this: In the midst of their screaming fit, the lights go dark and the couple who originally lived in the house exits the stage. Then when the lights come up, the "invited couple" is seated just as the other couple had been at the top of the show and the play begins again with the "invited couple" speaking the same lines that the other couple had.

What ACTUALLY happened: My friend had lost himself so deeply in the role that when the lights went down and he exited the stage, he continued to run out of the building and into the streets of North Philly (no bueno, especially at night) with a prop knife in his hand (super no bueno, especially at night) screaming, “It's not that way, it’s over here!” and other lines his character says. Needless to say, it wasn't long before he was surrounded by cops and it took the intervention of the director and stage manager to deescalate the situation. Yeah. True story.

Although the play itself doesn't really fit into the naturalistic category (the maid even addresses the audience in a monologue halfway through the play), it was the "encore performance" afterwards by my friend for an audience of pedestrians and police that was almost a bit too naturalistic to sustain life.

This brings me to my second example - a quick reference to the TV Show "What Would You Do?" This is a show that places actors in an everyday setting and allows them to "perform" amidst the unassuming public. The public has no idea that the scenarios are scripted and that their reactions are being filmed. When it gets "too real" the host and cameras come out to clear the air. Here's a clip:

Lastly, I went to see a brilliant production of Langston Hughes' Black Nativity last year. The way Hughes wrote the script leaves a decent amount up to directorial and production choices. In this particular production, the audience was invited onto the stage during Act 1 to "rejoice" with Mary and Joseph over the birth of their baby Jesus. There was lively singing and dancing as the band played the funkiest version of "Joy to the World" you will ever hear. Some audience members who were dancing got caught up and had to be directed back to their seats. This reminded me somewhat of the Underiner article. The audience was invited to participate in an experience which felt very real, but then were asked to become spectators again.

Performativity and Gender Norms

A few days ago I came across some striking images as I was scrolling through social media in an attempt to “clear my mind.” Little did I know, what caught my attention would actually take me back to my readings and ultimately be the subject of my post for this week. Actually it was the title of the article* that caught my attention first:

"Artist Exposes Sexism By Switching Up Gender Roles In Old-School Ads"

Both the photos and the impetus for the photographer’s desire to create the photos intrigued me. The photographer, Eli Rezkallah, had overheard his uncles saying that women are better off in the kitchen doing “their womanly duties.” This struck him as quite odd and antiquated in 2017, and so Rezkallah began imagining a world where the roles were reversed. These photos are what resulted

A few things struck me about these pictures. Although I know that the essence of the stereotypical 1950s all-American household was very sexist at it’s core, these photos captured the sheer lack of respect and value for women as capable and intelligent human beings. These ads portray them more as functional objects rather than human. I also considered the women who participated in these ads and thought, “wow, how crazy that they are promoting this image of the suppressed female.” Then I began to think about how many tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of women were actually “playing that role” on a daily basis. That was their life. This was the “act” they put on, both in public and in private.

Naturally this resonated with me as I read Butler’s article on performativity, precarity and sexual politics. The gender performativity that occurs on account of the gender norms of the 1950s resulted in the “appropriateness” of these ads. To be clear, I do not personally feel these ads are appropriate, but as Butler states “gender norms have everything to do with how and in what way we can appear in public space.” Gender norms at the time made it “ok” to produce these types of chauvinist advertisements – or at least made it seem ok to those who participated in them.

What these photos do is highlight gender performativity and extract the absurdity of gender norms in extreme form. If, as Butler suggests, gender performativity “has everything to do with who counts as a life, who can be read or understood as a living being” then these photos also act to highlight the associated precarity. These damaging and restrictive constructs do not seem to align well with a country that claims “all men are created equal…with certain unalienable rights…Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Then again the document does say “all men” and was written by men who owned human beings as slaves, so there’s that…. But that’s another blog post for another time.

 

*reference article found here: http://www.konbini.com/us/inspiration/sexist-ads-gender-roles-reversed-photos/

Theatre or Performance

I can agree with the assumption written in the post that performance is the big umbrella under which theatre is a subset. I say this because there are many types of performance, as we discovered in Carlson’s “Performance: A critical introduction.” Rather than just coded behavior, there is a display of skills that is necessary theatre but what makes theatre different from sports are the conventions that surround it. At least that is one aspect. The stage, the curtains, playbills, dimming of lights, etc. are all al conventions that let one know that they are about to experience theatre.  One could argue, “Well, what about a concert or opera? Is that theatre? They dim the lights, there are curtains and programs and a stage and such.” What further helps here is chapter two of “Performance Studies: An Introduction” by Schechner. He makes a distinction between performance that is “make-belief” and “make-believe.” “Make-belief” performance is performance of everyday life. He gives the example of the presidency. We all know that the president reads from speeches written for him and carries himself in a way that is expected of a president (well, this is typically the case…). This is not performance with the purpose of making an audience think they are something that they are not. It is simply a presentation based on societal expectations. “Make-Believe” is what theatre is – there is an accepted and clearly distinct difference between the actor and the roles that they play. Those who sit down to watch theatre are not primarily there to see what the actor would say or make up (unless it’s improvisation – but even then there is knowledge that the actors are acting not simply living their lives or performing an athletic skill). They know that the playwright has written a script they are there to see how the plot unfolds.

Of course these lines are blurry and I believe that it’s because theatre is actually telling the truth. And if you are telling the truth, aren’t you not performing? This is why performance art is often separated from theatre because of the nature of not usually assuming a character or a role.