Theatre
and the Utopian State
The Polka theatre located somewhere now
completely unknown to me in the den of London was the first experience I had of
theatre of its magic and vision which captivated me from the beginning. The productions that I firmly remember
were of The Snow Queen and Charlotte’s Web though I am sure that there must
have been others that my parents and grandparents took me to as a treat of some
sort deserved or not for which I was deeply thankful then and much later on. These were not pantos and contained
little of the campness that characterise such productions but were stories
driven from popular children’s stories performed in the manner of a canonical
piece of drama and with the same seriousness as with a holy rite. Watching the actors moves about in the
midst of scenery and lighting I discovered that the imagination could become an
external communal experience and not the solitary occupation that I had known
it to be. Knowing that part of the
ability of a human being was the ability to be able to express the longings and
fantasies to others delighted me with such profound satisfaction I have since
delibriately tried to re-expeience the pleasures of the box that held within it
rich dynamics that explored the wonder of the world and the complexities of
relationship govening life as understood by the magicians who practiced the
art.
The director of the National Theatre in England, Richard Eyre, writes in
his memoir that in politics the quest for utopia has been plauged by disasters
and needless tragedies, it is only in theatre that the possibility of utopia
can be achieved and even then it is but a fleeting achievement as it ends when
the season is over. The image of
an old man taking comfort in his stories in the poetry of W.B.Yeats suggests
that the perfect aspects of living are only known in the imagined and whatever
beliefs we harbour however unfounded is the reality that nourishes the mind and
helps continue it in the routine struggles and grinding emptiness experienced
in the worker who must know that they are more than their appetites and
addictions.
In the development of time I had cultivated a taste for the drama of
Philip Ridley whose adult nature was far from the respectivley more
approachable than the shows I had witnessed in the Polka Theatre. My interest in him stemmed from reading
his books at the start of secondary school which were aimed for children and
young adults that involved brutal fable-like characters in often apocolyptic or
run down settings and enjoyed building tension through repetition of certain
phrases with a worship of youth and beauty that gave one chills of recognition
given that I would have happily die rather than grow old. Surprised by learning that he had wrote
plays I eagerly read them being shocked at it’s violence, moved by it’s
tenderness and happy that a what now had become an old favourite author was
still writing for me. An example
of such violent tenderness would be to summise The Fastest Clock In The
Universe, the first play of Ridleys that I had ever seen on tiny stage above a
pub in Clifton which is part of Bristol, which is about the delusions people
construct and those who help them stay deluded because of the invested nature
of relationships. Cougar Glass is
having a birthday party and he has invited Foxtrot Darling, who he has tricked
into friendship at a hospital involving a made up sibling with a fatal disease,
to celebrate and has plans to make the night memorable in suspect and
suggestable ways. Captain Tock is
Cougar’s lacky and tragically faithful friend who helps him arrange the party
though is disproving in his intentions with Foxtrot. When the guest arrives Cougar is upset to learn that he has
brought a female friend called Sherbet Gravel who is in addition to drawing out
every detail of her perfect wedding, as it is later revealed, bearing the child
of Foxtrot. Upon this knowledge
Courgar’s anger rises and assults Sherbet with punches to her stomach until he
tires. Fustrated and hurt by this
Captain Tock says that the fastest clock in the universe is love.
While in London I hear about the production of a new play by Ridley
performing in the Soho theatre so I quickly booked a seat and travelled by way
of underground trains get there in time.
Piranha Heights was as I had expected from the playwright that had
brothers, extreme characters and claustrophobic scenarios and yet I could not
help noticing a visble political dimension that was previously in the
background which was concerned with religous identity. There was a post show talk with the
actors that Ridley was supposed to take part in if he had not been busy with
the making of his new film. At
times I feel this was a lucky escape as what could I have possibly say to a man
who has influenced the shape of my reading for so long that would be concise
and also adequate enough so that I would not remember him for an akward moment
where I was flustering with him flat out ignoring my heartfelt gratitute. Other times I sorely wished he had been
there.
In the bar of the theatre I sat in my tribly and trenchcoat amongst the
actors I had just watched pretending to be the thing that they were not and
enjoyed the genial atmosphere that easily comes after a show like a relif from
some terrible experience that had not befallen them this time thinking that it
seemed to be the greastest company of people I had known to be with. Ever since then I have got to know more
actors while becoming an actor myself and they have never lost interest to my
eyes.
Utopias, I have written in my own drama, are considered with one type of
personality in mind but this in not exactly true in theatre for unlike novels
or poetry there are more than one mind at work in the creation of their version
of a utopia and in this way it is often a successful balancing of equals with
their various skills and talents.
Theatre can ecompass a large number of dedicated individuals for the
sake of what is a nowhere place that is in our dreams out in public. A collective delusion put on by people
who help us in our delusion due to the invested nature of our relationship.
With the discovery of distant stars, a possibility impractical until
recently, and distant history coming up from the layers of ground like, as
Ibsen puts it, corpses in the cargo, maybe this is how we can help to treat
each other equally or to push it further should be the reason why we help each
other to give meaning and significance to existence. It is uncomprehendingly amazing that there is a thing and
that that thing should be able to briefly glimpse itself and know that it is a
thing and yet that is our enviable position and though we may not be able to
gain the capabilties to leave the Earth’s atmosphere or go back in time to the
prehistoric age we can know about what it is like to be in space from others
who have been and we can sketch from fossiles ideas of early life so that it
can be explored in the consciousness of the theatre that seeks to answer the
deep caverns of the heart’s mysteries for as long as it can be experienced.
I walk down the Penglais hill with flowers in my hand to the Aard Goch
theatre to talk to the actors who will be performing in the short one-act play
I had written that took the form of a debate between a writer and a critic who
are trying to persuade the auidence that their opinion is the correct one while
descending into domestic squabble.
Igor and Liz were perfect for their roles by being suitably casted
because of their similarities to their respective characters and I had watched
them over the month and a half developing themselves into their personas and
ingraining the dialogue into themselves.
On the night I watched from the technical box behind the auidence
something that I had thought as an idea being taken on by other people who put
in things of their own separate from my influence and displayed as a type of
entertainment and believed that I was both in the stage I was seeing as well as
in the minds of those who saw what I had imagined. It was delirous.
After the final show we hit the Cambrian where the top floor was booked
and enjoyed the relief that came from the feeling I now realised was the
feeling of creating utopia for an evening and letting go of its responsibility.
There is a Philip Ridley play being performed this week nearby, The
Pitchfork Disney, and I have already booked my ticket. I will go as a worshiper of this
natural magic and travel to a place I know but have never visited and watch
absorbed as I am taken back to my secondary school and back to the Polka
Theatre where the fascination of the stage and of its perfected world returns
to my life once again.
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