Antenna Theater’s High School (2006). For the first installment of the DEVICE podcast, exploring innovative and experimental use of sound in live theatrical performance, we present an extended excerpt from the audio of  Antenna Theater’s performance piece High School, performed in 2006 at Berkeley High in Berkeley, CA — an updated version of their 1981 performance at Tamalpais High, their first foray into walkman-based performance. 

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[The third installment of Sarah Ruhl's garland of essays. See the "essays" category on the left for previous posts.]

7. Hungry Ghosts, Gardens, and Doing Plays in New York

The ideal audience is either wise or innocent; the know-it-alls are not the ideal audience. This makes New York a tricky place for a new play. Another thing that makes New York tricky is the hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts in Buddhist thought can never fill themselves up. It is not: we will put up the play for 4 weeks and see who comes. It is: what of the reviews? Will it extend? Will it move? Will it run forever? Feed me! Says the hungry ghost. And if a play were to run forever, could it properly be called theater anymore? Instead it would be an ossified strange thing, dangling half-way between live theater, a parade, and an amusement park ride. Think of the longest running plays…what happens to them…what do they become….restaurants and plays should not be open for longer than the half-life of a chef, because they are about living consumable items.

I was talking to a group of theater donors in a city other than New York and they spoke at length about their gardens. Where the bamboo grew. Where not to plant bamboo, and where to plant it. This particular theater audience seemed to come to the theater to have fun. I thought: oh my, they get what they need from their gardens at home in their gardens. And they get other pleasures from the theater. In New York because we do not most of us have gardens, we come to the theater for what we might properly get from our gardens. And because you cannot get exactly from theater what you can get from a garden, we come to the theater anxious, vengeful, cranky, and with blood on our teeth. In a perfect world the virtues of theater are similar to those of cultivating a garden—something living, something patient, something always growing. Perhaps it is in those cities where people learn these virtues that they come to a theater hoping to nurture the lifespan of a theatrical company, rather than wanting to devour or spit out one show at a time.

Again, I am no innocent, nor do I exempt myself. I speak only of virtues that I myself might imitate. Where do I live? New York. Why? Because I love it here. Why? Because I love the people here. Do I have a garden? No. Would I be good at gardening if I had a garden? I don’t know. (more…)

[This is a continuation of Sarah Ruhl's series of short essays about which she says, "If anyone would like to finish any of them for me, consider them all fair game."]

2. On the Loss of Sword Fights

We lost sword fights somewhere in the 20th century and it has meant a new accepted standard of dramaturgy: drama is conflict, conflict is drama. Because our primal bloodlust requires a good fight on stage. But it is one thing to fight with our bodies and swords (it requires skill and virtuosity) and another to merely bicker with words. The gun-fight on stage will not do, it will not do (because it has no virtuosity and because we all know guns are fake on stage so there is no real fear with a gun on stage) but swords have a reality on stage even if they are fake. Fake swords make a better sound than fake guns for one thing—they come from the object itself rather than being dissociated from the object with a sound cue and no real bullet. And so Shakespearean sword fights became in the 20th century Hedda having to bicker with her husband and then shooting herself off stage. (But that brings up the question of suicide with a gun or with poison or with a knife which is another question entirely—the protagonist’s monologue before the death can be better heard on stage with poison than off-stage with a gun-shot, which means the primacy of language itself fades with death by gun.) But going back to the duel…fake swords are mano a mano whereas fake guns are merely: did you remember to bring your gun or didn’t you? If you remembered your gun, you win the battle—if you forgot your gun, you die. Of course there is the matter of the quickness of the draw, but that is better captured on film than on the stage.

Which brings me to: perhaps people have gone to the movies instead of the theaters at this point because their bloodlust is more accurately satisfied at the movies because there gun fights really do inspire fear and anxiety—as do car chases. Because gun fights and car chases are really no good on stage. Which leads us to think that technology itself is really no good on stage. (Should actors be trained in karate or some other fighting art? Should they be trained in a physical fighting art rather than in the art of the verbal duel—i.e. I have an obstacle?) (more…)