THIS IS NOT A PIPE

Last day of work today! Handed in all my essays, all my performances for this year have been performed, and my very last lecture is long gone. Woo!
In our last lecture we had to discuss the piece of theatre we had made and things that we had learnt and discovered about creating theatre that we had not previously known. The play we made was, well, not brilliant (though, admittedly, it's allowed to be a bit rubbish, only a first year!) and Dan was trying to describe how we wanted the piece to not be in your face, but rather to resonate, and this got me thinking.
I've been doing far too much thinking recently, for Christmas I shall allow my brain a day off, it never comes up with any good stuff anyway.

In my opinion (I'm aware that I'm not really educated enough to have an opinion to hold any weight, and that none of this will be original, but bear with me) there are basically three different types of theatre. There's theatre for escapism and entertainment, that's purely there to make you happy and therefore the happiness will last for as long as the show plus however long you can remember it/until someone spills coffee on you on the tube. There's theatre that is very much in your face and yelling at you 'THIS IS AN ISSUE! DO SOMETHING!' that again only lasts as long as you are in the experience. And then there's the theatre (which we were aiming for) that relies upon a sort of aftershock effect. This idea that, when watching the play, there's perhaps not as big a response as one would expect, but something about it just sticks. There's something about it that makes you think, perhaps something would be said or seen in life that relates to an image or a line in the play, and that sets you thinking, and only once that process has been set in motion do you fully appreciate the play and what was done and said. I think that that type of theatre often sticks with you for longer. Not that I'm saying any type is better or worse than the other, it's just what I think.

The best example I can think of to try and explain my aftershock theory is a painting by Rene Magritte of a pipe (a smoker's pipe, not a lead one in the study with Professor Plum) and underneath it written 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe', 'This is not a pipe'. I love this painting partially because it's not a painting you have to study, it's a little pocket painting that you can look at, not making much of an impact it must be said, remember and take away. It's not like a Dali piece which you spend ages peering at and studying and finding all the glorious intricacies of it, you just have to remember how it looks.
The first time I saw this painting I was only about fourteen and my first reaction was very much 'Of course it's a pipe, weirdo' and I never thought much of it afterwards. Until it was brought up in an episode of 'Boston Legal' where a girl who couldn't smile painted herself looking glum and captioned it 'The Smiling Girl' saying how Magritte had inspired it. I then thought of the painting, I saw it as something very different, now it was something hypocritical, it made hypocrites of the viewers as it tricked you into objecting when you didn't know the story.
The next time I had call to recollect this painting was during our a-level devised piece which was based on the stimulus of 'dreams'. This time when I thought of this pipe that is not a pipe I saw it as something of an hallucination, an 'is this a dagger I see before me' type image. And during this blog post thinking about the painting that I love I've realised that I now see it as a painting that keeps secrets. It knows something that we do not and we will never know (I ought point out that I've never seen or read anything by the artist talking about the painting, I don't want to).

I like to think I can keep track of my mental maturity with how I see this painting. But it does sort of link with the point that I was trying to make, if not in a very rambly and long winded way, sorry. I'm not sure who will still be reading this far (I'm not sure who will actually be reading this at all). I also realise how incredibly geeky I sound discussing my opinion on art... sorry.
I tried to defend my non-geekiness and somehow managed to share the fact that I am in possession of a chess board where all the pieces are shots glasses, so that when you capture a piece you down the shot. It's great! Possibly some of the finest chess I have ever played.

ALSO...

Sorry, two posts in such a short time is quite ridiculous, but I feel the need to say
I really miss Shakespeare!! None of the work we've done thus far is Shakespeare, and I'm really sad. It's just because when I went walking yesterday (I have a tendency to stage plays in my head as I walk) I started directing a version of 'Macbeth' and got really enthusiastic about it, and realised just how much I missed working with that William bloke. (I realise loads of people hate Shakespeare, but I read (and SAW them! SAW!!! They're plays! You're supposed to watch them! They make so much more sense when read aloud, honest!) it before I was old enough to be cynical, and genuinely love the good plays (not the shit ones he wrote, and he wrote some) and read them of my own volition instead of having a bored teacher talk at a bored class.)

..... I should get to work now. Essays to write.

£400! ='( [OK WELL, £385, BUT WHATEVER....]

So, just got back from auditioning for '4.48 Psychosis' (which I love! Genuinely! It's awesome! However she only wants two people (preferably men) so yeah... not gonna be in that play am I? )= Shucks). Anyhow, Keith Johnstone! Keith Johnstone is a theatre bloke, who wrote a theatre book (these past two posts are very studenty aren't they? Ooh, Howard would be proud!) called 'Impro', which I read, and is AWESOME!.

Essentially there are four points Johnstone makes (at least, there are four main things that I got from the book. I'm assuming someone cleverer would spot more interesting stuff than myself, but hey ho). They are: 1) School and education are a destructive process. 2) Status games are everywhere. 3) Everyone is scared that they are a little bit insane. 4) Everyone is a little bit insane.

It's a really, really good book, (Can't emphasise this enough!) and Johnstone is now my new favourite theatre practitioner bloke. Basically, I was hooked the moment he started talking about how much he hated school and how the school system was generally bad. He writes about how once he was reading a poem and started crying. He wrote that "If I had cried at school the teacher would have been horrified. I realised my school had been teaching me not to respond". He writes how a young girl was in the garden with her nurse, the nurse pointed out a flower and said how beautiful it was. The girl says that all the flowers were equally beautiful but the nurse insisted that hers was more so. "Actually, it is insane to insist that one flower is more beautiful in a whole garden of flowers, but adults are expected to warp the perceptions of children in this way.
I hated school, and was therefore a horrible student. I didn't do essays, I skived off lessons, I hated quite a few of my teachers and quite a few of my teachers hated me. If I didn't see the point in doing something I didn't do it. I don't blame my teachers, of course I don't. It was my fault I didn't do the work. It was my fault I didn't try harder. I have never revised for an exam in my life, because I never felt the need to. One of the reasons I chose the university that I'm at (as much as I do love it, and it's a very good course, and nearly two hundred miles away from home (always a boon)) is that it had the lowest grade boundaries to get in. "then you should have revised!!" I can imagine many a thought process going. If only I'd've worked harder I'd be cleverer. But I didn't want to. It was all so dull, and I am so average that nobody ever bothered. I was a horrible student, but because my grades were neither good enough or bad enough to warrant special attention I got away with all kinds of hell. And that was my mentality toward education. And here's a bloke who's written a book saying 'I hated it to. And it wasn't my fault, in my opinion, the school is the one that got it wrong'. Right on!!
(I have never used that phrase before, I never intend to use it again.)
Uni is weird because I spent so much of my time in school kicking against convention, that to get here where everything I hated about school doesn't exist, was bizarre. I don't quite know what to do with myself if I'm not rebelling against something, I spent so much of school doing things begrudgingly that it is very much out of my comfort zone to be allowed to be enthusiastic without danger of earning a 'nerd' status. The fact that this book then goes on to say "Let go!", "Have fun!", "Everybody's mental, enjoy it! Use it!" means that I love it. (And am very much of the opinion that this should be compulsory reading for any future teacher! (Not that I am a future teacher! Don't panic! Good god could you imagine? I'd be worse than Mr.Doctor.Robot))

Linking back to the title, I googled Keith Johnstone, as I am a part on the DotCom generation, and discovered that he has a website. He's still wandering the globe giving workshops, 'Great!' thought I. He's in London once in 2010, 'Wow' the voice in my head exclaimed, 'I'm in London in 2010'. He will take all variety of people in his workshops, not just professional actors or really old or really young, in fact, the more variety the better! 'This means' said the voice, 'that I could potentially be in a workshop run by Keith Johnstone! This is awesome'. And it only [Pause! Mock the use of the word 'only'] costs £385. The voice in my head said sad, sad things.

Hence this sad, sad smiley = :'[

...GOOD...WEIRD...WEIRDER!

Saw some plays today (not uncommon for a drama student one would hope (Actually! I'm going to have to stop saying 'one' because everybody takes the piss!!! I'm sorry if my idiolect involves the correct use of personal pronouns! Bullies!)). We saw the level 3 folk move about a lot. That's quite a fair summary methinks. The plays were 'Numbers' (Good), 'We do it to ourselves' (Weird), and 'Cache' (Weirder!!). I'll be honest, this post is mostly going to be about 'Numbers' because I liked it most.

Also, slight interruption, I realise nobody reads this, but I'm posting more often!! Dude!! Be impressed!

'Numbers' essentially focused on the question 'How many people have you slept with'? It went over how some experiences (They replaced words like 'hold' and 'chest' with numbers, and I was so thinking of worse things than 'hold' when she was saying it!) were routine, the casual fuck that means nothing. They also had recordings of people discussing sexual encounters (real people, one of the voices was recognised. A girl talking about a time 'when [she] was still straight' and spent the night with a girl. There were a handful of sidewards glances and mouthing of 'Now way!' (Also, another digression, I'm right in thinking that 'Dyke' is no longer considered a PC term, because a surprising amount of people are using it! Including a lecturer!! The conversation went: "She could be a lesbian?" / "That's a question, is she a dyke?")). And then, the big thing, was your list. Your numbers.

It's that conversation. And the judgements that come with it. It's how many are you comparing me to? How special is this? It genuinely got me thinking (an evening of sex related plays and this was my thought process! My mind is so not a dirty as many would make it out to be!) because many people start this conversation with their drainpipes with a sentence similar to the following "It doesn't make any difference, I just want to know".
Bollocks! Of course it makes a difference. Perhaps not a massive difference, I would hope not a massive difference, but it does, no matter how much you mayn't want it to. Or is this just me? It's either more than you expect, or less than you expect. There's time before any relationship when you don't know them. They have an existence and creation and memories and heartaches and, as much as we care to imagine otherwise, love that we can never know. We can never be a part of it and there is a whole era of happiness that you know you did not cause. And the second you have that conversation, all of that time that you knew of, but didn't care to acknowledge, all becomes real. It becomes fact and unavoidable and true. It changes things.

Another point the play brought up was this question of how much numbers really matter. Does a high number make you a slut, or a low number frigid? There's an episode of 'Will and Grace' (Love 'Will and Grace'!!!!!) where they make lists of how many people they've slept with and Grace's number is higher than that of her boyfriend's. However, they then make another list of how many times they've had sex, rather than with how many people (I admire their memory skillage) and the boyfriend's number was substantially higher than Grace's, even though she'd slept with more. I think at one point Karen has a line "Well, it means that people enjoy sex with him more and you less" because they stick around longer with him. This may seem like a slight digression, but it's a valid point well made. Of how much importance are the numbers. "Too fucking important" we are informed within the performance.

I liked this play, unlike a lot of physical theatre shizz (especially student physical theatre shizz) it made sense. The concept and story (I use the term 'story' very loosely) were not only clear, but very clever. Also, the people in it were very good! I could never imagine being that healthy! The thought alone fills me with dread.... maybe I shall consume some Doritos to stave off the nightmares of exercise.

So yeah..... sex.


EDIT: One of my all time favourite quotes, a genuine question of a friend of mine:

"So, lesbian sex, fill me in!"