I’m not trying to derail the progress of the scene breakdown. I was cleaning a room and got distracted. Maybe this is more appropriate for the Lichtenbergian site since it represents divided attention; I don’t know. It does touch on theatre art, however, so…
I wrote a speculative little thing a while ago in which I tried, yet again, to synthesize two of my interests: performance and psychoanalysis. Yes, I know; I’m pretty predictable, but don’t begin chanting the Te Dium just yet. And no pained sideways glances. Have a look at it and see what you make of it.
I’m not much interested in being asked questions beginning with What did you mean by…. or entertaining editorial observations; as exposition and improvisation, it is what it is. Rather,I think there are occasional passages I’m quite proud of because of the way they articulate some pretty arcane Lacan concepts in everyday language. Also, I want to inspire new thinking on performance issues. To my mind, nothing I’ve offered is shattering original, just another stirring up of the familiar into a slightly unfamiliar brew.
Useful for Coriolanus? Not a bad question. It’s not my agenda in encouraging you to read it, but if it inspires, why not. Too eccentric? We can only hope.
So vhat doess he vant, louder or zofter?
::going to print it out to read it::
O reason not the need!
Okay, I’ve read it, although I will confess I skimmed over all those sections cast in Lacanian abstractions despite the author’s promise not to use such.
I too am predictable. In all of this musing, even in the section on “Practice,” the only action given to us is the narrator sitting a car and parsing the phrase he uses to express a desire to avoid human contact, quickly devolving into symbolic language, with any hope of the reader for further concrete visualisations of a new process evaporating as we go.
Let me back up and express a curiosity about the “body” being a visual thing. I think I would have to use the Dr. Johnson reference as a rebuttal-an-sich: I would reject the idea of the body “being grounded in the experience of seeing something.” Nay, sir, I reject it, or at least raise an eyebrow at it, feelingly, most sensibly.
I’m more than up for alternative explorations, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, but let’s play a game here. I meet you in mid-August at the studio. We go into the studio, take off our shoes. What’s the first thing you tell me to do? (Note that I’m not asking you what the first thing you say is.)
Your challenge is reasonable. I have put myself in such a room with performers countless times in my imagination. I too find it comes down to how I respond to the specter of Authority, to offering myself as a Master and giving instructions. My resistance to that traditional solution–the proof of the pudding approach–is not meant to frustrate.
The body is not being reduced to only “a visual thing.” I’m trying to use the Lacanian troika of the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real to complicate our understanding of the body as a performing vehicle, expressive entity, something that “does things,” etc.
You say “devolving into symbolic language.” The psychoanalytic wager implies that our bodily experience has always been both constituted and constrained by symbolic processes. To believe that the body is ultimately free of, better than, more than, apart from the actions of the symbolic is an imaginary illusion.
My exploration of the phrase “take too much out of me” was an attempt to model activities that work with the symbolic. Abstract to read, perhaps. But also a stab at indicating what might be done. Remember, my ultimate goal is to have the performer encounter the Real in some new way and then down the road perform something new for the audience. We can’t impose a picture or set of instructions as if we know what the Real looks or sounds like.
I’m tentatively playing with notions. The analyst tries to nudge the subject toward an experience with “symbolic language.” The instructions regarding what to do are kept simple: say whatever comes to mind, no matter how irrelevant or unexpected, try not to pass judgement ahead of time. That’s it. Then you let a picture of the symptom emerge. I’m trying in a similar fashion to create the “symptomatic atmosphere.”
Maybe “What’s the first thing you tell me to do?” is our first artifact, our first piece of symbolic production. How might we proceed? What imaginary fantasy of certainty does it touch upon? What is the Real of the body with respect to this material?
Or we could explore the difference between “say” and “do.” You, as a subject, have offered this as a significant distinction.
To rely on the word of the Master is to risk losing touch with the subject.
And didn’t that little statement sound suspiciously like some utterance from a Master?
Like Linda Ellerbee used to say in her news broadcasts on Nickelodeon: “But you don’t have to take my word for it.” I think that’s what I’m thinking of.
So… let’s roleplay. Everyone, join in.
[scene: the studio]
(Dale enters, removes shoes. He is dressed in sweatpants, t-shirt. He begins to stretch.)
DALE: Ow. (Continues stretching.)
Not the fundamentalism of WHAT IS, but … the fundamentalism of Lacan?
If you’re constantly in a state of anxiety about becoming a “Master,” then how the hell does one ever say ANYTHING?
And why is Lacan, then, not the Master?
I’m serious. Don’t discuss. Roleplay.
DALE: (still stretching) Who all is showing up tonight?
Present.
I stand in humble awe of those Socratics who have not planted some stake somewhere.
Why does my both invoking and questioning the Master signifier piss everybody off? Yes, yes, of course the Master is inescapable; it’s the logical inversion of psychoanalytic suspicion. Which, you will point out, sounds suspiciously like Lacan. Oh, ho, nothing gets by you, does it?
The point is to explore ideas, not demonstrate how we are superior to them by revealing all the paradoxes. The works by authors who have held forth on the paradox of Lacan as Master would fill a bookshelf.
I’m prickly not because you don’t worship along with me, but because we remain with the hall-of -mirrors issues rather than trying on other things.
If Dale is getting ready for a Coriolanus rehearsal, I’m fine. If he’s getting ready for an exploration of the thoughts in my article, I’m very anxious. If I am to be the subject and my uncertainty the first object of scrutiny, that’s intimidating.
JB. It is presumptuous of me to put my ideas forward for consideration, I realize. I’m not trying to seize the reigns and pull everyone off on my own little adventure, however. I really am not trying to pull rank intellectually, here, as if my various “learnings” put me in a privileged place. I offer my enthusiasms because, as much as I am consumed by them, I also need some reality checks, and we have created an atmosphere in which I can safely seek those kinds of conversations. And my interest in performance is not of the solitary, auto, one-person variety; I’m interested in groups experimenting with ideas to make something. So I push what’s in my head as a place to start a collaboration. But I don’t need to be the sole source of new ideas. I don’t want to be.
Dale. I wish I knew what the implementation looked like. I don’t yet. I think I really wanted to find out if my exposition inspired anything in others. If it doesn’t, back to the drawing board.
MARC: Let’s share our favorite vocal warm-ups.
[Yes, I’m attempting to walk my way through whatever ideas you’re trying to solidify. If I were in Newnan, I’d suggest doing it for real. Since I’m not, I’m falling back on my AOL chatroom days. Just visualize what we’d do next. Hey… performance with no body? I think we’re done here. Only it’s all visual. Damn. Anyway, I’m trying to play and help figure this out.]
DALE: That’s why I’d be a terrible acting teacher. I don’t really know any vocal warmups.
MARC: (I’m probably wandering around in the space at this point.) How about how the televangelist does these things with his (usually “his”) voice? There’s a relationship there with authority. There’s this extreme expression which could be attributed to the Holy Spirit that helps to punctuate the command. Command and transport. The power of the female (usually female) voice when it conveys some kind of sexual transport has another kind of authority effect, I think.
I’m pre-occupied with the power of voice in the actor. Not just in the actor…(I sing a bit in my big bass-baritone voice.)
DALE: Does it have to be extreme, this voice thing? I don’t think my voice is extreme, nor any of the things I do with it. But I’m told my voice is intimidating, authorial. Of course, I can do it on purpose, the teacher voice, the librarian voice. But apparently I do it without trying. Is that what we’re trying to analyze?
MARC: Not necessarily extreme, but what of the qualities apart from content? What do you do to make your voice do those things?
How does content play its part?
Since we are on the blogosphere, how do we protect confidentiality? Can you think of a way to talk of who has told you these things about your voice without compromising anyone?
You say “apparently.” Were you unaware of this effect? Are you skeptical of the judgement? Something connected to appearance? A parent?
I don’t want to be alone playing with theory, so two things: 1)The voice is an example of the (a), the unassimilated object, related to the mouth and the ear as rims open to the Other. The object producing effects neither word nor image can contain. 2) We are using a more symbolic method to create imaginary effects. We are writing in an effort to pretend something is taking place. This, in itself, is interesting and could lead to something.
DALE: I say “apparently” because it seems to be in effect even when I’m not trying for it. And everyone says so. So are we going to work on “voice” tonight?
MARC: Here’s JB and there’s chair. Why not use your voice to find and execute a sequence of actions involving yourself, JB and the chair. Don’t pre-plan. Find the material as you engage in vocalizing.
What is vocalizing? Do I prohibit words? Do we run the risk of creating some imaginary language like Brook and Hughes at Persepolis? Voice. Start with what is unscriptable. Or difficult to script. Nuance? By letting the voice lead we are risking departing from custom, normalcy, credibility, the social contract.
MARC: Working with voice also in terms of what does the Other want or expect. Now that it’s all reality television, we are even farther from the impact of voice. It’s the squashed nasal monotone of the average participant we are used to.
Silly observation. We still expect the villain to have something going on with the voice. Voice as object around which circulates an excess of jouissance.
MARC: One more thing, very particular to the actor. Voice as Presence is a typical desired trait. What is that thing that is evoked when a voice is felt to convey Presence. Voice as filler of void. Voice as sense of completion in the hearer.
What does it really mean to be in love with a Voice? Yours or someone else’s?
Remember the commercials years ago for the Columbia School of Broadcasting? It could be really interesting to read through examples from their curriculum, how they imparted professional know-how. Secrets of the trade, that kind of thing.
DALE: Shh. I’m trying to think. None of that has meaning for me. I have to do something with Jeff and the chair, with my voice. (Thinks for a moment.)
Here I am. There is the chair.
There I am. Here is the chair.
I am on the chair.
I am under the chair.
I am the chair.
All of these sentences describe versions of WHAT IS, naturally.
DALE: /vocally, with an edge/ Jeff Bishop, is that gum under your chair?
MARC: (Going through his mind while Dale and “Jeff Bishop” work) He can see the gum under the chair. He knows Jeff Bishop and calls him by name. He is God. He is the voice of God. He is occupying the place of S1. He is the Master.
His observation of JB is also an embodiment of the Gaze, the impossible perspective, the visual object. If Jeff Bishop were paranoid, this is what he would be suffering from.
The discarded gum is another great example of the (a), in this case an oral object, a bit of trash, a secret that must remain hidden. The image of the wad of gum on the underside of the chair is like a visual attempt to represent jouissance.
Jeff Bishop is in the position of the poor hapless subject, named and exposed, having to answer for his desire. Or is his desire a wish to be found out? Or does he want to dodge? Is that his desire? Is there jouissance in experiencing the voice of God? Is this Jeff Bishop’s hallucinated fantasy?
Dale, as teacher, indulges in the fantasy of possessing privileged knowledge. Knowledge that exposes. What, then, does the Master, S1, repress? What is a path for S2? What was the gum before it was discarded?
[As any acting teacher will tell you, “going through your mind” doesn’t play. As part of this experiment, I am literally not reading any “thoughts” on the process. I am concentrating on what I see and hear in the room.]
Quite as it should be. I’m using the advantages of our chosen medium to model or improvise analysis based on what I’ve written. Ultimately, I may not say anything, particularly if I intervene as a performer.
Had to take a moment to tease JB, of course. His sentences are interesting because as sentences they can be experienced in so many ways. Objects. Orders. Statements. Formulas. A universe of meaning. Nonsense. Weapons.
In the words of the legendary Neil Diamond:
I am, I said,
To no one there.
And no one heard at all,
Not even the chair.
Zizek offers that not only does the Other require us to speak. We are also commanded to “Enjoy!” “Enjoy that gum!” “Hours of enjoyment!” I love the commercials out now for a gum that people don’t want to give up. One piece gives eternal satisfaction.
Are JB’s sentences on the blackboard? Is this Dale’s lesson?
Existence is an interview with the Other. You must say something when the microphone is pointed at you: I am under the chair…
Paradox: Words drain jouissance. But we also leak words as a sign of our enjoyment. We are expected to secrete enjoyment in our words.
Repeat after me, Here I am. There is the chair.
Repeat after me, I am the chair.
Also, very different from: I am a chair.
MARC: (Walks on with a mug of something; slurps) Hot. (Blows. Slurps. Goes to Dale.) There’s coffee. (Walks to Jeff Bishop; calmly:) “Jeff Bishop, is that gum under your chair?” (Pause; to Jeff Bishop:) There’s coffee.
Jeff (to Marc): That’s not coffee.
(to Dale): That’s not gum.
I am not Jeff Bishop.
(I peel the not-gum, dip it into the not-coffee, and pop it into my mouth. I chew. I am still the chair.)
DALE: /whingingly/ Jeff Bishop, is that gum under your chair?
In the words of the immortal Hal David:
A chair is just a chair,
Even when no one is sitting there.
Towards a symptomatic atmosphere:
Dale: a dutiful return, with variation
JB: summary closure, tying all the strands together.
Marc: obsessed with word play (gum, mug, not, knot); obsessed with Jeff’s push to closure (wanting to throw coffee in his face)
(I peel the not-gum, dip it into the not-coffee, and pop it into my mouth. I chew. I am still the chair.) But an interesting sentence. A series of descriptions.
MARC: (I put a piece of gum in my mouth. I chew. I offer some to Dale:) Chair?
I am not the chair.
I chew the coffee.
I hold the gum.
I am not the gum.
I gum the chair.
I dip the chair into the gum.
I am the mug of gum.
I pop the coffee gum mug into my chair.
I am still the chair.
I chair the coffee gum.
I mug the chair.
I am not the coffee chair.
I am not the gum chair.
I am the mug chair.
I not the gum.
I gum the not.
Not the gum.
Gum not the mug.
Gum chair mug not.
I am not the mug.
Pop not the gum chair mug.
I mug. I mug. I mug.
I chew the chair and pop the gum.
I pop and chew and mug. Chair.
Chair mug, chair gum, chair chew, chair pop.
Pop chair I mug chew gum coffee I not not I chair chew.
Still the chair. I still the mug. I chew still. I chew still. Still I chew.
Still the chew. The still chew. Chew still. Chew still.
I am that I am.
Sock Chew. This was the proper name of Crawfish. It was Crawfish who descended into the Abyssal Depths, when all was Water, in the beginning. It was Sock Chew, Crawfish, sea-diver, who reached bottom, when all others failed, and scooped up the first bit of Earth. Sock Chew took the dollop back to the surface. Like gum, Sock Chew spread it out over the face of the waters.
Sock Chew fished out and fashioned the Chair.
Here we sit. Here I sit.
I am still the chair.
Yes, Dale. That is gum under the chair. The gum is the chair. I am the chair.
So are you.
DALE: (Lifts chair over head) Is that gum under the chair?
DALE: (puts chair down. takes Marc’s coffee, puts it on the chair.) Is that mug under the chair?
Jeff:
(picks up Marc’s mug from the chair, drinks).
Ahhhhh …
MARC: (attempts to hide under the chair) Good to the last drop.
JEFF: Gum. You know it’s interesting you should say gum, Dale. Shows a lot of gumption. Not that you’d shun gum. Who would? Barn owls prefer oak, I’ve heard. When my hearing aid is working, that is. Not that it ever does. What’s that? What did you say? I take great offense to that. The gumption! But now we’re talking in circles. Have you ever tried talking in rectangles? People get upset when you talk on a public bus, so I stopped doing that years ago. Not enough gumption, some might say. Not that I’d hear them, which I don’t. Can’t hear a blessed thing. Or even a cursed thing. Are you cursing at me? Sorry, can’t hear you, gonna have to speak up. Gum, you say? Gum?
DALE: (makes /buzzer/ sound) The correct answer was “no.”
Mark hands me a rubber chicken. I graciously accept.
MARC: (Suddenly aware of all the crap under the chair; continues sorting; using his voice to explore being a “dollop”) Mug! Say mug. You’re too loud. Quieter. I love it when you croon sweet nothings. Or offer me sweet meats. Or show me your hidden treasures. Not that I’d see them, which I do. Here’s another one. You’re not disgusted? I guess you are. No one could accuse you of mugging with a face like that. But a few days from now, while riding in some private elevator, something may happen to make you wince. Your little love triangle found out. More like a love dodecahedron if I know you. Try to mug your way through that. You have no defenses. You could be mugged at any moment and there’s nothing you could do. Same as it ever was. The blind leading the blind. Bats in caves, screaming out songs of echolocation. Taking a few lessons in elocution. Learning to talk like the muggles, which isn’t a real word, Dale, I might add. It’s a fiction. It has nothing to do with this mug. This is the only mug that’s real. This. Mug.
Why was my name spelled with a K?
To churn up a symptomatic atmosphere…
We can interrogate.
We can insinuate.
We can make pronouncements.
Fabricate enigmas.
Precipitate subjectivity.
I am paralyzed under the chair. I’ve turned into a stupid piece of shit.
Our precious wads of gum:
Dale the Teacher
Jeff the Stand-Up Native American Folklorist
Marc the Exception
It’s what we choose to act.
Why?
MARC: (using pair of flip-flops he finds under the chair as snapping mouth) First things first. Dale? First things first. As Sock Chew the Crawfish it is only right I ask for first things first. Tell us.
It’s a friction.
Excuse … a “friktion.”
(mugging)
A brilliant slip.
If calculated, still a brilliant slip.
Mugwump. See, I have an appropriately masculine appreciation of American political history. A “mug” word.
Only gums makes for some mug.
Bare gums make for some mug.
Bare gums. Teeth in mug on table. Teeth in mug for eating.