It was a revelation to me to discover
that a significant part of any performance takes place not on stage
but in the heads of an audience. Self evident on reflection but
startling nevertheless.
'Hoopal', one of the most innovative
and intrinsically comic stage and street performers I've called
friends came up with a show that used as props two hand held noise
making toys, [one each].
They had smiley faces [the toys], a
handle and two small noise making attachments on either side of the
face that made an 'eee' 'eee' noise when you moved your wrist and
rocked them to and fro.
They were brought out and used in a
dialogue. The performers mouthed the words silently and the toys were
used to denote each syllable of the words used.
Here is the dialogue.
“Stu-pid”
“No You're Stu-pid”
“No You're Stu-pid”
“No you are”
“No you are”
“No you are”
“No you are”
“No you are, Mo-ther-fuck-er”
I saw this show a number of times
because I was astonished and delighted by this new effect I had been
made aware of.
The toys made a uniform sound, BUT YOU
HEARD THE WORDS IN YOUR HEAD!
That was what was so funny. Given the
stimulus of the words mimed you actually heard these little squeaky
toys articulate a dialogue. They were simple happy squeaky things and
the performers were being angry at each other and like most of what
Hoopal did it was inspired and multileveled almost instinctive
sub-texturally comic. But I returned again and again to make sure and
yes, you actually heard the words in your head.
OK, stay with me,
One of many defined differences between
a Liberal and a Radical is that Liberals think the basis of all
politics is the individual whereas Radicals have as their political
reality, groups. Power blocs striving to achieve collective gains.
For purposes of illustration consider,
“Bankers” “Landowners” “Merchants” “The
disenfranchised” etc. as groups Radicals would define as
politically active or inactive primary objects in life’s chess-game
of acquisition of quality of life whereas Liberals believe that
education of the individual is primary, allowing the individual to
make choices that allow for informed and mature progression of
society. [ I know, I know, mindbendingly ostritchly headhidingly
idealistic and naive in the face of the entire history of human
society, a kind of tie-died thought experiment but there you go.]
Just in case you are drawn to conclude
that I am suffering from age onset conservatism as my mind gets
brittle let me reveal that I think Conservatism at it's bedrock is a
social retardant, a reaction by the moneyed classes that were
horrified and nauseated by the outcome of the French revolution and
set out from that point to ensure that nothing as gauche as an
uprising that disempowered them would ever happen again.
Conservatives, when stripped of their befuddled magpie'd self serving
principles are all embittered cartoon Mary Antionettes being led up
the guillotine steps.
So to conclude this one particular
thought my barely controlled, overpowered and dangerously overclocked
cement mixer of a brain is trying to articulate.
That statistically rare group of
performers, who create their own material designed to create laughter
in their audiences may believe they are Liberals, individuals favored
with the opportunity to express their little thought experiments in
real time. To a degree this is so.
However there might be some, myself
included, that see ourselves as Radicals, people who serve groups
primarily so we can be part of them in our own, quite responsible
ways and that the power via the tools we apply, [in the service of
laughter] are quite secondary in the power our audiences have to use
us to create for themselves the best of worlds. Without us, the
laughter wouldn't exist but just as importantly, without them the
laughter wouldn't exist and while we as performers might trigger
reality in darkened rooms full of people facing us. Those people in
large part create it.
No this isn't badly masked Marxism, I
only really liked the one of the three that didn't speak. He was
funny.
[Post script]
How Hoopal got out of their
articulating toys piece....
...The argument esculates, the two
performers are glowering and enraged, their toys are flinging
profanities, unseen by the audience one of the toys is switched with
a broken one, one that does not go 'eee'- 'eee' but 'eee'-'clonk'
The owner of the broken toy is
heartbroken, each inspected “eee'- “clonk” compounding his
sorrow.
His partner beckons to have the defunct
toy handed to him sympathetically.
The broken toy changes hands and the
partner leaves the stage. A moment passes then a gunshot is heard.
The partner returns still carrying his own toy and also the other,
now the smiley face is replaced by this + + The unit is dead. He
hands it back then, using his own toy begins to speak again.
--
His toy goes “eee'- “clonk”
He shot the wrong toy, his own. Sudden
status reversal = comedy.
Those Hoopal guys, [Chris Gibbs and
Peter Mielniczek ] were brilliant.
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