Andy Lavender - Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement

First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2016 Andy Lavender

The right of Andy Lavender to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Lavender, Andy, author.
Title: Performance in the twenty-first century : theatres of engagement /
Andy Lavender.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015042640 | ISBN 9780415592338 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780415592352 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780203128176 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Performing arts History 21st century.
Classification: LCC PN1584 .L38 2016 | DDC 790.209/05 dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042640

ISBN: 978-0-415-59233-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-59235-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-12817-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo and Gill Sans
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK

Cover image : Feast of Dawn, Hotel Medea , presented by Zecora Ura Theatre Network. Persis-Jade Maravala (Medea) and Thelma Sharma (the Nurse) await the audience for a communal breakfast. Photo: Ludovic des Cognets.

Authors note : The scene that this image depicts is staged at dawn Hotel Medea is durational, and runs from midnight to daybreak (the production is discussed in detail in ). This is an invitation to eat together, for the audience has breakfast with the company at the end of the show. So the image awaits completion by its (immersed) spectators who have also been participants in the drama, and will now engage in an extra-theatrical way. The Medea story ends with the sharing of food, a different sort of ritual, from those that it customarily presents. The photo features two actors who have been playing the characters of Medea and her Nurse, although at breakfast they are (sort of) out of character, post-show. This image is from the London run of the production, by the River Thames you can see the O2 Arena on the Greenwich peninsula in the background. The dawn breakfast, in this iteration, took place outside, further enhancing the sense of event and theatre-in-the-world. I like the images frontality, which is not untypical of the performance discussed in the book people looking out, directly engaging you with their gaze. The photo is more broadly appropriate as a cover image for Performance in the Twenty-First Century . Everything about it is liminal, both actual and pretending. It draws us in, and invites our involvement in its staging of an encounter.

I am grateful to the organizers of the following events and symposia, who invited me to give presentations that have subsequently found their way into this book, one way or another: Spring Academy Symposium on Dries Verhoeven, part of the Spring Festival , Stadsschouwburg Utrecht, Holland, 30 May 2015; Media, Politics, Performance: The Role of Intermedial Theatre in the Public Sphere , symposium as part of the Fast Forward Festival , Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, 4 May 2014; Journeys Across Media conference The Body and the Digital , University of Reading, 19 April 2013; Cultural Exchanges Festival , De Montfort University, Leicester, 28 February 2013; and The Scenographer in the Rehearsal Room , Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) Scenography Working Group Interim event, Rose Bruford College, London, 17 April 2012.

A version of was published as Viewing and acting (and points in between): the trouble with spectating after Rancire, Contemporary Theatre Review , 22:3, 2012, 307326.

A number of my visits to events and productions discussed in this book were supported by the Research Offices of the University of Surrey and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. My thanks to colleagues for this assistance.

Im especially grateful to Talia Rodgers, Theatre & Performance Studies publisher at Routledge until just prior to publication of this book. I owe much to Talias belief, patience and always sage advice, and I couldnt have had a more supportive editor. My thanks, too, to colleagues at Routledge, Taylor & Francis and Florence Production for their work on the project.

Pursuing new theatre and performance can sometimes be a lonely task. Some of the pieces that I write about (and others that I chose not to) I attended with friends and colleagues, and Im most grateful for personable companionship along the way. Not least I am grateful to colleagues in the Intermediality in Theatre and Performance working group of the International Federation of Theatre Research for discussions around some of the ideas in this book. My thanks to Marvin Carlson for sharing his unpublished conference paper; and to Noah, Bridget and Robin Keam for their permission to recount aspects of a trip to Dickens World. Thanks too to Annie Wharmby for showing me round Hong Kong Disneyland. I am grateful to my parents for their continuing support. This book is dedicated to three people who have suffered stoically while I worked on in the British Library or the loft room. Im especially grateful to them for their forbearance and support, and for growing up/older with aplomb in spite of my inattention.

The publishers wish to thank the following for permission to publish work in full or extracts:

dreamthinkspeak, excerpts from programme notes by Tristan Sharps.

Jim Stephenson, images of dreamthinkspeaks Before I Sleep .

Derren Brown, excerpts from programme notes for Svengali .

BBC Sport, excerpt from Tom Fordyces blog, 2011.

Judith Butler, transcription by A. Lavender of speech made at Occupy Wall Street.

Luke Garai Taylor, still from video of Judith Butler speaking at Occupy Wall Street.

Dries Verhoeven, excerpts from No Mans Land .

Stavros Petropolous, images of Dries Verhoevens No Mans Land.

Jorg Baumann, images of Rimini Protokolls Situation Rooms .

Barbara Braun, image of Rimini Protokolls Annual Shareholders Meeting .

Blast Theory, image from presentation at InterCommunication Centre, Tokyo, 2005.

Brinkhoff & Mgenburg, images of Punchdrunks The Drowned Man .

Robert Day, image of Ontroerend Goeds Audience .

Peter Combs, images of Dog & Ponys The Twins Would Like to Say .

Pixelated Revolution by Rabih Mrou, 2012, courtesy the artist.

Rabih Mrou. Riding on a Cloud . 2013. Performed at The Museum of Modern Art, April 21, 2015, in Projects 101: Rabih Mrou. 2015 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

Ludovic des Cognets, images of Hotel Medea .