Give Me Your Love (Ridiculusmus): Audience Distraction
Like famous writers, philosophers, painters (any creator in fact), the audience of said creations do not receive them in isolation. We all enter the performance coming from different lives, different places, and different days; in Give Me Your Love I felt especially conscious of my role as an audience member. On the day of the performance I felt nervous: I knew that whilst the performance was taking place, on the other side of London the play I had written with Bronwen was being pitched to Queen Mary Theatre Company through a video pitch we had recorded earlier that day. So obviously, I was nervous because I wanted the pitch to go well, I wanted it to get a good reception, but I had no control over that because I was an hour away watching a performance for Reading Theatre.
On entering Battersea Arts Centre, it struck me how interesting the presentation of the building was - it's an old town hall, and it shows it. In renovation, Battersea Arts Centre has not so much tried to change the space but to transform it, meaning that the buildings' dual-status as town hall and theatre co-exist rather than one replacing the other. The whole building has a feel of reinvention and repurposing to it - the theatre for example is an old council chamber, and the sign above the door reads as such. It is interesting that although it is obviously not used as a council chamber anymore, the old sign remains as an acknowledgement of the buildings' history. The aesthetic of the building blends the new and old, in a consciously makeshift style recently popular for edgy fringe venues (old rugs, chalk boards, fairy lights - I would describe it as 'very Shoreditch').
Whilst in the show, I felt very conscious that I was meant to have an emotional reaction to what was happening in front of me, but I couldn't help but tune out. I think this distraction stemmed from the sparsity of the production – this was of course an artistic choice and representative of the themes of loneliness and isolation presented, but it became easy to zone out, for example when I realized that the box wouldn’t be coming off of Zach’s head I more or less accepted it and thought no more about it, when I kind of knew I should probably question it more. The show felt like it was trying to provoke me into something, but I never felt inclined to do so because I was too busy worrying about my own problems – I do of course realise that I was a very lazy audience member.
I kept getting distracted by the smallest things – here’s an extract from my notes:
‘these walls could probably do with a paint, or maybe it’s an artistic choice…I don’t really like the main man’s trainer, I wonder if they’re the actor’s normal clothes or if he got them especially, I hate those kinds of trainers…oh I’m very cold (this appeared three times in my notes, the theatre was very chilly)…I wonder how the pitch is going, I’m very cold.’
So what have I taken from this performance? Reasonably little. But it did make me very aware that what you take from theatre is up to you. Had I seen it on a different day, in a different situation, I think I may have taken a lot more from the performance. But it wasn’t, and what I take away are memories of the cold, and a weird nervous buzzing at the top of my head.
