Friday July 3: Somewhere Between Truth and Lies: The Self as Character in Devised Performance

Readings: Matzke, Annemarie. "Performing Games: How to Be Cast as a Forced Entertainment Performer -- Seven Hypotheses." Not Even a Game Anymore: The Theatre of Forced Entertainment. Ed. Judith and Malzacher Helmer, Florian: Alexander Verlag Berlin, 2004. [PAGES 167-81.]

Initial Response:

Through anatomizing and analyzing four performances created by Forced Entertainment (including: Emmanuele Enchanted, Speak Bitterness, Quizoola!, and Who Can Sing a Song to Unfriten Me?), this article is trying to help the readers understand the performances as well the individual strategies used by Forced Entertainment.

Annemarie gives us a “back stage” view on how is every performance of Forced Entertainment created and why each performance is the way it is. Annemarie identifies Forced Entertainment performers vary from traditional role-enactors and also performers in performance art terms, and recognize them as consciously playing themselves and playing with their own self in a game that follows its own rules (p. 181).

Through “Seven hypotheses on how to be cast as a Forced Entertainment performer” (p. 171), Annemarie presents Forced Entertainment in a differentiated way. The seven hypotheses includes: 1. “Organize, Arrange and Test”, it identifies the materialized use of text and speech in Forced Entertainment performances. 2. “Follow Rules”, which describes Forced Entertainment performances as games with its own rules, and performers are merely following the rules to their falter or triumph. 3. “Repeat and Improvise”, which explains the repetitious and improvisatory strategies used by Forced Entertainment on stage. 4. “Use Strategies to Stage Your Presence”, to stage the performers’ presence on stage, to enact their own selves, instead of presenting the own self on stage. This section talks about the ideologies and methodologies used to make the performers inseparable from the performance itself. 5. “Skillfully Fail and Let Fail”, talks about the conscious use of techniques to “not to act” or “not to pretend”, for example through 24 hours of straight story telling, the performance successfully shared the tiredness and the exhaustion with the spectators; or like in the performance “Quizoola!” the tension created by the “unequal distribution of powers between the questioning and the replying performers” (p. 178) 6. “Be a Good Director”, which explains how Forced Entertainment performers constantly keep an eye on the other layers of the performance (on the spectators, the other performers and so on), and ready to make improvisatory changes when it needs to be. Also to challenge and surprise the other performers as well spectators, the performers are granted “director like” responsibilities, which make their performances even more precise and delicate. 7. “Your Aim: A ‘Play-Biography’ for the Evening”, by comparing board games with Forced Entertainment performances, Annemarie clarifies that the performers are not the figures in the game, but the players that are given multiple figures to play with the rules, which makes every single performance a own identical “Play-Biography”, which according to Annemarie “dissolves any form of subject-assignation.”(p. 181).

To me the performance techniques of Forced Entertainment is still heavily influenced by the improvisation and randomness of Dadaism and Happenings, still reflects the spirit of Fluxus, and still uses lots of methodologies from site-specific creations. Maybe not so much surrealism and subconsciousness, but more conscious and direct presentations, which sometimes could also influence the spectators’ subconscious minds. Most importantly, Force Entertainment performances started analyzing in-depth other elements of theatre and traditional values, such as text, speech and time. Dadaism may not return until the next big world war which no one wishes to happen, but gladly, Forced Entertainment is continuing and developing the energy of postmodernism.

The way in which 'Forced Entertainment' uses a combination of both personal and fictitious characters and events to help assist in creating their performance seems like it would be very productive in coming up with something very creative and interesting to watch. This blurred line between reality and make-believe leaves the audience wondering 'what if?' or 'is that true?' to every incident presented to them. One piece of information that posed confusing was the time limit. Since these performers do not have completely rehearsed pieces of work and it is mainly switching of clothing and signs, would it not get boring after say, 45 minutes? However according to the article, there could be this kind of performance from 6 to 24 hours-how could anybody watch for this long, let alone perform for that long?

RESPONSE: Jessica Hoover

The article was interesting to say the least. I enjoyed the fact that we had already seen a bit of what was being discussed, otherwise the whole peice wouldn't have made sense! The entire idea behind "Forced Entertainment" is very smart and a little insane, it's hard to grasp I guess, so I found it very fitting that a lot of the article juxtaposed ideas and used several contradictory sentences, "...follwong the rules, only to be able to bend and break them onstage" (173) or my favorite, "Individuality shines through...highlighting deviations from the constantly same( which is, of course, by it's nature, constantly different)" (174). I can't say with confidence that I get exactly what happens on their stage but i think I can grasp the concept of being yourself, while still removing yourself and becoming a perfomer. We need to remember that although the cast is not trying to represent thier individual selves they are also refusing to act. I highly doubt that any one of these individuals do these sorts of experiments and discussions on their time away from work. What's funny is, that this is their work. How many of us are removed, or perhaps a different part of ourselves at our jobs, or family dinners etc.? I think these people must have to try and live and perform in this other "realm" of thier own lives in order to do what they do. Every rule in the article begins with, "imagine", which I am sure is what many of the "Forced" group has to do; however it's not about imagining unicorns and riding on squirrels, it's more about imagining you are removing a peice of your self? The "judge" we all have inside of us, in order for them to explore and do this work? Is any of this making sense? I feel as if these people must have to become a "safer" them, for lack of a better term, so that the bruising and scaring, both mentally and physically is set aside during performances like "Speak Bitterness" and "Quizoola!" That is what I am offering, the idea and discussion that these people are more than able to be both themselves and performers at the same time. ps- i dont know why my response is showing up everywhere here! sorry guys!!!

Response: Carly McKee I think what I found most interesting about this article, is the way that it discussed Forced Entertainment’s performances, and how it all related back to the video we watched in class, and in turn how I felt about that video. It seems that the short documentary was a piece of their performance creation also. In the article it discusses in one of it’s “imagine you’re on stage” scenarios, and it talks about being asked about what you did last night in your hotel room, and it describes the physical act of thinking “quickly bite your lip, trying to remember…” and I realized that’s exactly what they did in the video. They had several vignettes of all of the actor’s just thinking, and pausing. As they discuss in the article, they are displaying themselves onstage, as themselves, and again that’s what they did in this documentary. I just thought the connection between the two was interesting.

Response: Victoria What is authentic performance and how is it defined? This question or understanding that it provokes comes to mind as the article both tries to answer the question on what is authenticity of the performance as well as to ask the question; how this will stimulate a creative response of truth. At the same level the performers attempt to maintain the relationship between the realities of truth within the condition of the rules governing the game of improvisation. It is both a balancing act of presenting the truth in performance and asking oneself what is truth in authenticity of the piece.

Response: Keitha Tetreault In this article about the cast of Forced Entertainment the rule that intrigued me the most was No.6”be a good director.” (179) This rules talks about how a dedicated director can build a performance from limited components. If a director is given no narrative structure, no storyline but random questions and a set of rules set then authenticity can be created. This can be a challenge for the performer but the director must work within the rules to encourage the performers to answer the questions and solve the problems while making the performance interesting. This idea is similar to a rule that is used in traditional improvisation. A good performer must always make his partner look good. If the performer is accepting and helping his partner to succeed then they both succeed. I appreciated that Forced Entertainment uses the same principals when creating their performances. Forced entertainment believes that the director must always aid the performer by providing constructive answers and solutions to the challenges that present it’s self.

Response: huibing wu To me, the most impressive thing of this article is the ‘characters presented with cardboard signs’, which also showed on the video we watched today. Performers do not need to say anything, all they do is to pick a cardboard and a cloth and then make a pose and stand on stage for few seconds. It is like a character changing performance. The signs on the cardboard, the costumes your wear, and the pose you make help the performer send the message and tell audiences who they are. It remain me the bodywork by Ono York from last semester. However, this one is not really like ‘cutting pieces’, they are more like changing people’s interpretation of performer’s identities like gender, a male performer dress in a female costume.

Response:Luana Yu

I think the Forced Entertainment influenced the way performers would re-create their selves using cardboard signs, and words represented their emotions or personality of an individual. It is very difficult to act without following lines in the play, but simply just reading” confessions” on your own. The most annoying thing is strict discipline in Forced Entertainment because they asked questions over and over again in order to make you feel frustrated on stage. These restrictions are in their following plays such as Speaking bitterness, and Emmanuelle Enchanted. Authenticity is an important element for Forced Entertainment because it shows the genuine or the truth from the origins of an individual without hiding behind lies. There are different techniques used in the Forced entertainment to being authentic, by approaching the individual with more questions, and setting your presence on stage. I think being alive and able to directed performers on stage or giving good eye contact could drive the performers to feel themselves more.

Response: Candice (Jingyi) Chen

After reading this article and watching videos in class, I think I find the answer of a question which confused me through the entire Drama 360. The question is that how to distinguish “acting” and “no acting”. From my point of view, acting is a way that you pretend to be someone else and do whatever others, for example, directors, tell you without your elements. On the contrary, even though members of Forced Entertainment were performing assigned characters, I really believe they were themselves on stage. They were performing someone else using their own ways. They believed what they were doing was how they would do in that specific situation. They did have truthful physical and/or emotional experiences. Like what is written in the article, “Facing the audience, the speaker explores forms of truthful speech” (P173). So, I think the difference between “acting” and “no acting” is whether performers are self-directed. In the forced entertainment, actors act as a role and repeat a action with different pose which let spectators to image a new thought of a actor. In a video, actors perform very random and constantly doing the same thing: walking, choosing a cloth, and strike new poses. They act as thmeselves and perform with their own personality. they perform everything which they design before a performance, however, they act as a role which they seem to like to be. There are no rule, no order, no written role in a forced entertainment. In the article, " There are no lines, no written role to use as guidance, except uniform rules for everyone on how the performance is to be structure." (p170). Although their action is depend on their thought and personality, their stage, music and uniform have been determined. Some movement and idea of the performance have been framed by a stage and uniforms.

Response: Derek One thing about this article was the time frame of the performances. i wondered to myself why stay on stage for six hours and in some extreme cases twenty four hours? this almost seems like cruilty to actors. not until we practiced this in class did i quickly see that once the performers are completely exuasted and frustrated will their most interesting performance come out.

Response: James

Forced entertainment is a very special type of art, which charaters itself in 'authenticity', compared to the other types of objective entertainment. The performer utilizes very limited resources to express his feeling, thought, or we can say he is expressing him/herself. It might not be easily understood or accepted by the majority, who are very familiar to the traditional interactive entertainment. Surprisingly, it can also attracts and impress some audience by its authenticity, or immediacy. The performer also does something repeatly on the stage, with lots of signs and with few words. For someone else, it might be regarded as a chaos, or a crazy people's doing. Due to the fact that the performer is also a director, he or she has more freedom to deliver a unique character. However, it is not easy to inspire people's sympathy if he or she doesn't have a good plan and follow the rules as well. In this way, it is similar to other types of entertainment.

Response :

In the Forced Entertainment, performers combine their intellect to express the urban life and the urban experience, which could be the social issue, or some current popular topic. As the penetration of the media and the colliding cultures, or the new technology, it is impacting the performance art, which makes it be the heterogeneous manifestation. The presentations also explore and unravel the formations and structures of identity, sexuality, and language. It is interesting to see where the new generations will take this synthesis between old and new methods. I am so amazing that, such as the game of collage, used in the Forced Entertainment performance. However, it is often characterized by linguistic and terminological confusion. They will attempt to address the morphological language of works, the development of an individual artist's morphological language, and our ability to experience and interpret the different languages.

Response: Meng Shi

From this article, I think there are some different and also similar points as we learned before from Dadaism. Specifically to the “back stage”, Annemarie identifies Forced Entertainment performers’ rules as the traditional role-enactors. In my mind, “performance” is a random, independent, illogical and avant-garde actions which without any rules. However, the Forced Entertainment performers identified as the traditional. In another hand, Annemarie recognizes the Forced Entertainment performers as consciously playing themselves. I remember there is a game we have been playing in class. Each person stand as a line and when their bodies want to move, then they move. People just walk and pay attention at one point. I think it is also similar as the created by Forced Entertainment performers.

Response: Sijin Chen

After I read the article, hypotheses No.3 “Repeat and Improvise” got my attention. I think the word improvise is very important for Forced Entertainment performances because Improvise means the practice of making and creating in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one’s immediate environment and inner feelings. It can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practice, and new ways to act. When the practitioner has a thorough intuitive and technical understanding of the necessary skills and concerns within the improvised domain, the invention cycle occurs most effectively. Improvisation can make significant contribution in speech, art, music and many other areas. It is the source of creative ability and a way of outputting knowledge and experience.

Response: Alex Felicitas

What makes a Forced Entertainment performer a Forced Entertainment performer? Annemarie Matzke takes her thesis and switches the stage onto us, the readers, the viewers, the interested public. How might we become, hypothetically, performers in the same right as the F.E crew? Matzke makes her intentions clear in this passage:

“The group speak of certain performance skills they have gained over years of practice, qualities of delivery that have their origins in long-term collaboration. As a consequence, describing them requires a new set of categories. What defines these performance skills? Or, to rephrase the question: How might I become a Forced Entertainment performer?” (Matzke, 171)

Matzke goes on to break down the fundamental concerns of the troupe into seven parts, however it is clear from the above quotation that the methodologies of this group are the result of years worth of intense and intentional practice. The verb “practice” here I take to mean the energy invested in pursuing and perfecting the intuitive connection with each other member and within themselves. ‘Practice’ in the traditional realm of performance: theatre, would suggest the pursuit of the memorized monologue, the movement cues, the right way to turn your heels, if, you happen to be portraying a 34 year old Mexican waitress in the 1980’s.

If Matzke’s thesis suggests we are to understand the ways in which to be a Forced Entertainment performer, we must then understand the thesis and intentions of the group itself. I believe that this lies in notions of the Authentic: “How is authenticity created (if) self-representation has the same value as character enactment?” (Matzke 171). Ideas and research into the ‘authentic’ is not specific to the Forced Entertainment group. Numerous if not all artists working within this medium struggle with, over-ride, incorporate, question, and challenge traditional notions of authenticity and the place it holds in typical constructs of the performing arts (music, dance, and theatre).

I believe this is an important topic of discussion that will undoubtedly see some breadth in the coming weeks through our group discussions and projects.