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CONTENTS

PREFACE p. 7

PERSONAL TRILOGY THE SMILE OFF YOUR FACE p. 11 INTERNAL p. 63 A GAME OF YOU p. 127

TEENAGE TRILOGY ONCE AND FOR ALL WE’RE GONNA TELL YOU WHO WE ARE SO SHUT UP AND LISTEN p. 167 TEENAGE RIOT p. 217 ALL THAT IS WRONG p. 287

A HISTORY OF EVERYTHING p. 327 AUDIENCE p. 391 FIGHT NIGHT p. 455

‘Audience’

‘Audience’

AUDIENCE

An homage to the beauty and the danger of being an audience:

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Performer ONE

Performer TWO

Performer THREE

Performer FOUR

PROJECTION

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OUTLINE

‘Audience’ is one of our most controversial shows. The per-formance deals with all the different aspects of a crowd gathering to share an experi-ence. The spectator is never left out of the action, at times even forced to take position. It’s a playful challenge which gives food for thought and debate. However, under the surface, it carries the scary warning that any crowd is susceptible to manipulation.

CREDITS

Created by:Alexander Devriendt (director)

In collaboration withJoeri Smet

AndMaria DafnerosTiemen Van HaverMatthieu SysAaron De Keyzer (the original cast)

First performedMarch 15th, 2011Vooruit, Gent, BE

Originally produced byOntroerend GoedTheatre Royal PlymouthRichard Jordan

Productions Ltd.With the support of the

Flemish CommunityProvince of East-FlandersCity of Ghent

REQUIREMENTS

· A camera.· A projector.· A large projection screen,

filling a standard stage.· Microphones to record

voices.· Microphones to amplify

voices.· Fireworks.· Confetti, streamers.· Flags, an Arafat scarf,

3D glasses, a smartphone, popcorn, sunglasses, a vuvuzela, a rosary.

· An audience.· Jackets and hoodies of

the audience.· Fake bags and purses of

the audience.

The initial idea for ‘Audience’ was an homage to ‘being an audience’ and drew largely on our experience of performing the Personal Trilogy, getting into close contact with individual spec-tators. We wondered if it was possible to apply the knowledge and skills we achieved through immersive theatre on a larger group of people. As inspiration material, we used Peter Handke’s ‘Publikumsbeschimpfung’ (‘Offending the Audience’), a classic piece of subversive theatre, mainly directed at the overly bourgeois, rusty audiences of the late sixties and the old-fashioned, easily digestible repertory plays they enjoyed. The piece is unique in pointing out the theatre situation, drily summing up the steps the audience took to come to the theatre and their predictable expectations, only to finish by openly offending them. Our secret desire for ‘Audience’ was to update this piece – different in approach, since audiences have changed in many ways, but similar in trying to produce a wake-up call. Instead of adopting a confrontational style, we opted for seduction as our main instrument. We wanted to get under the audience’s skin, rather than forcing them into the defensive. First we needed to avoid a few traps. Fictionalizing the audience was one of them, perhaps even the biggest. In our first rehearsals, the performers acted out typical audience behaviour, which was then recorded. The exercise was comparable to copying and

CREATION

‘Audience’

impersonating visitors in ‘A Game of You’, but we wanted to apply this principle on a larger scale. Projected on a screen, the actors would help to produce a ‘virtual audience’, mirroring the real audience. From there, we thought of devising eerie dream-scenes in which ‘impossible’ things would happen, nightmares such as waking up naked in the middle of a crowd or fantasies of audience members experiencing love at first sight during the show. It seems a trifling detail, but one of the reasons why we got stuck in this train of thought, is the icy cold temperature in the rehearsal room, which prevented us from improvising on the floor. Our first test audiences, however, soon rapped our knuckles for overlooking their presence. Instead of playing audience members, sometimes even just using voices, and projecting images of empty seat-ing areas, where ‘crazy’ things would happen, they wanted us to address their reality and work with that. Luckily, our time schedule allowed us to make a U-turn and start all over again. At this point, the director even toyed with the idea of dismissing the performers altogether and devising an installation with the audience at the centre of the action. From then on, one rule applied in rehearsals: everything that would be said, done or shown in the performance, had to be linked directly to the experi-ence of being an audience – the specific audience of that night. We contemplated all the aspects of being in a theatre, from the cloakroom to the final applause, and improvised scenes around them. Every character we would assume, had to be functional for an audience: a warm-up guy, an usher asking for mobile phones to be turned off, an interviewer gauging the atmosphere in the house. We would point the camera at people and scrutinize them. When we explored the idea of having a standup comedian pick on someone in the audience, things

‘Audience’

got heated. We felt there was more to it than met the eye. In a comedy show, singling out an audi-ence member – usually in the first row – has become a standard moment and people seem to accept it as such. But if we took it further and had a grim, nasty bullying scene, the audience would be forced to react – or give their silent permission. During improvisations, we all got our worst bully tricks out and then pasted them together into a relentless session of cornering a spectator. We had questions and doubts about the acceptability of the action, but we needed a moment that would transform the audience into a crowd, relating directly to the events in the performance. Not on a rational or intellec-tual level, but emotionally and socially. The first time we tested it with a live audience, some people were upset, but everybody could feel the importance of the scene. Some even wanted it to go further – a line that we incorporated in the scripted debate after the bullying. In the last phase of rehearsals, it became increasingly difficult to perform ‘Audience’ without an audience. We considered this a good sign: it meant we had truly devised a performance in which the presence of spectators was indispensable. The general rehearsal was more like a technical runthrough than an actual performance. We even put cardboard figures in the seats for camera practice. The first performances of ‘Audience’, in Belgium, didn’t upset the audience as much as we had anticipated. The irony shone through too easily. In the UK, however, the show caused outrage and indignation, due to the ‘questionable ethics’. Shoes were thrown at the stage, people got up and tried to sabotage the camera or improvised a sit-in in front of the screen. For the performers, it wasn’t always easy to keep a cool head, but the strong reactions proved that the performance touched upon a sore

‘Audience’

point. After a while, we even longed for lively, rowdy crowds, because they made the performance all the richer, more meaningful and memorable.

‘Audience’

APPLAUDACCORDINGLY

‘All That Is Wrong’

‘All That Is Wrong’