A Postdramatic Portfolio

As a group we chose to explore Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis in regards to postdramatic theatre. One of the main focal points for this performance is that we wished to create an immersive atmosphere between witness and performer.

 

Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis is fragmented, sporadic and lacks clarity in its structure and form. There is no clear idea on character, setting or narrative. Ahmet Bicer states, "Sarah Kane emerged as one of the most influential figures, purveying an experiential theatre with deeply shocking images." (2011, p76) Seeing that 4.48 Psychosis is deconstructed could illuminate the reader that it could be of a postdramatic influence. Lehmann suggests that, "4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane would almost have to be invented as one of the great texts in analogy to postdramatic theatre if it did not already exist." (2006, p1) He suggests it is one of the greatest texts that understands and uses devices that could be considered as postdramatic. Ahmet Bicer goes on to analyse Lehmann’s ideas of Postdramatic:

 

 "Postdramatic theatre is for Lehmann beyond the boundaries of traditional drama. It rejects dramatic notions such as illusion, mimesis and mimetic representation, catharsis, characterization and primacy of character, a plot with a beginning, a middle, and an end of well made plays." (2011, p76)

 

There is an assumption that postdramatic theatre brings attention to certain dramaturgies used within contemporary theatre and challenges these in performance. "To call theatre ‘postdramatic’ involves subjecting the traditional relationship of theatre to drama to deconstruction and takes account of the numerous ways in which this relationship has been refigured in contemporary practice since the 1970’s." (Lehmann, H. 2009, 2) This argues that the postdramatic elements are made primarily from deconstruction, and then exposing them to become something other than just drama. It is the relationship between drama and theatre, which has been ‘refigured’ in order to produce something postdramatic. It is within this deconstruction and re-figuration that we can expose of the dramatic elements and use them to make performance. Jürs-Munby states, "For by now the concept of ‘postdramatic theatre" - describing forms of contemporary theatre without the mimesis of a dramatic plot, fictional universe and conflict between psychological characters – has arrived in its dictionary.’ (2009, n,p)

 

Hans-Thies Lehmann goes on to suggest, that the postdramatic can often be miscommunicated as being the increasingly similar to postmodern theatre, "This relationship has often been neglected, or at least under-explored, by approaches that, have preferred to call these new forms of theatre ‘postmodern’ or more neutrally ‘contemporary experimental’ or ‘contemporary alternative.’" (2009, p4) This quote suggests that the relationship between what is called postmodern and what is postdramatic have a very similar presence in contemporary theatre, that often one is misconstrued as the other. "In any event, “postdramatic” initially modeled itself on “postmodern,” and at the historical moment when theory was having difficulty renewing itself." (Pavis, P. 2012, n,p) There is a relationship between the two terms that suggest the development of postdramatic has been influenced by the defiance of postmodern thinking.

 

To better inform our discussion of what depicts the term postdramatic, it may be of note to mention that it is very much of an umbrella-like disposition, which has had many influences and having formed through a multitude of significant ideas that contribute to the definition of what is Postdramatic. In the 1960’s, there was a paradigm shift into Performance. This is where we begin to see slippages in theatre, where life turns into art, and art into life. This was reflected by the birth of live art or Performance art. It moved away from the Avant-Garde’s notion of ‘anti-art’ and moved into a time of ‘non-art.’ Jürs-Munby states, "The emergence of neo-Avant Garde art forms such as happenings, environments, Fluxus events, and performance art or live art, all resulted in a new attention to the new materiality of performance in theatre." (2006, p4) Fluxus can be seen as a negation of art in art. To create something experimental and something new that does not rely on the everyday culture and society. Its aim is to realise the distinction between culture and art and problematize the relationship in order to become performative. One of the main associations with the word ‘fluxus’ is the understanding of performativity. Pete Eckerstall and Edward Schneer talk about the shift into Performance:

 

"Art works came to reject academic and formal qualities of art and instead related to the everyday world. The intention was often conceptual and dynamic. An emerging discourse of performance challenging ideas of representation and politics in art was evident." (2006, 1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Initially, through our process in creating an immersive piece of postdramatic performance, we encountered difficulties. One of the main obstacles we faced was the idea that the postdramatic can be increasingly subjective. What considers itself to be or become postdramatic? I chose to work alongside a production team within this performance, as I wanted to better understand what it is to create a postdramatic environment for performers. Most importantly, it was interesting to see how we were going to create a sense of immersion with the audience with a text that is specifically subjective regarding interpretation. "Postdramatic plays differentiate themselves from representational theatre by offering actors and audiences theatrical experiences […] free of drama’s limitations." (Barnett, D. n,d) During our process of making 4.48 Psychosis, this is a statement that we had to continuously refer to, in order to justify our performance to become postdramatic. This coincides with our idea of creating an immersive piece of theatre, as we wanted to provide an experience for the audience rather than just a mimetic representation of a narrative we concluded from the text.

 

The definition of immersed means to engage ‘wholly’ or ‘deeply.’ We wanted to have this in mind whilst making decisions about the production. Initially, we wanted the space we found to become similar to that of an art exhibition. This would mean the audiences go round and through the set to observe the performance. This is why when finding the venue and performance space for the group, having a corridor or possibly two rooms connected seamed like a feasible way to create this exhibition atmosphere. The audience would then become free to roam the two spaces accordingly. This can be seen as a point of immersion as it becomes the audience’s decision whether they choose to partake in this exhibition of space, or simply observe as they are going through the area. The space needed to become inviting in some sense in order to manipulate the spectator to become intrigued by this unusual creative decision. Using Guildhall as our performance space comes with a background of cultural context, it is a very historic building within the community of Portsmouth and it can be seen as a traditional and conventional building. It was important to dress the space and utilise the characteristic appearance to our advantage. This brings me back to the idea of the relationship between culture and art. We merged the two by bringing a performance of this nature to a space with considerable cultural context. You could assume that the performance juxtaposes the environment it is in. The text connotes ideas of mental health; therefore perhaps a stereotypical space would become something that could be seen as clinical or detached from reality. By choosing Guildhall it seems an obvious deviation of this idea, so we can expose elements within the text. We set it in a ‘business lounge’ where it is not unusual to see people operating in corporate affairs. This is an obvious and deliberate defiance to the text. Similar to the 1960’s we chose to see this juxtaposition as a comment on the relationship between culture and art and to some degree, expectation.

 

However, by choosing a setting such as the Guildhall it presented unexpected problems for us as a company. One of these problems was the lack of audience. By choosing a space such as this we have given the audience a choice whether they wanted to visit the space and see a piece of ‘free theatre.’ This is where the problem lay; due to unforeseen reasons we had a considerable lack of audience, as people did not wish to spend the time looking for the performance. Perhaps, a solution for this error would have been to set the piece in a public area. This would mean we would find ourselves having an ‘accidental audience.’ People would walk past and look at what the performers were doing and unintentionally engage in the performance. Perhaps, as a production team, we should have sought inspiration from Marina Abramovic. An example of this is Abramovic and Ulay’s performance of ‘Imponderabilla.’ This gives the audience no option but to engage with the performers, whereby this being to run away from them or walk through the performance space, either way they are reacting to the piece of performance art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition, we decided to use multi-media within the performance to immerse the spectator. "The process of “remediation” in postdramatic theatre can similarly be seen as a conscious attempt to imitate, adapt, and incorporate the dramaturgical strategies used in dramatic theatre for the purpose of critique" (Bicknell, S. 2011, 30) The idea of remediating the original Sarah Kane text to layer the performance also became a useful tool to immerse the spectators. The projector was an element that both performer and audience member can engage with, not only does it make the performance more visually interesting but it is also something can that structure the material. As a spectator seeing the performer in front of you and seeing them on the projector or television live stream, plays with ideas of ‘liveness’ both performativity and visually. You could also assume, the use of intermediality in the performance can be used as a framing device to construct the material. Steven Bicknall states, "With this, postdramatic theatre develops beyond the postmodern dramaturgy of playful theatricality and fragmentation of unity by using digital technologies and new media to interrupt the process of mimetic representation." (2011, 27) The pre-recorded material is used to randomly select a number that is associated with a rule that the performers must interact with.

 

The idea to use multi-media within our set was inspired largely from The Wooster Group and their production of Hamlet. They use Richard Burton’s representation of Hamlet as a framing tool to layer and structure their performance. Likewise, we strived for this mediated feel to Sarah Kane’s text. We introduced a projector to show pre-recorded material of a morning routine, we also had a live feed connected and shown via a television screen. Both choices to use this media were deliberate and purposeful. Like Hamlet, the Wooster Group use sound and gestures from Richard Burton’s adaptation to layer their performance in order to create a bricolage of performance. They use this mainly by use of parody and mimesis. "The Wooster Group brings together the intertextual, the intercultural, and the intermedial in a new definition of the liber mundi." (Marraca, B. 2003, 1) We took this as a stimulus in order to create our production of Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis. We tried to create this mediatised feel alongside the text.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In conclusion, the performance day went well. The environment created was one that had a feeling of exhibition. However, this could have been pushed further by using an alternative space where the public had no choice but to engage as they walk through. Allowing this ‘choice’ for the spectator was primarily what let us down. In addition we could have pushed the multi-media to incorporate more layers to the performance, which could have made the piece slightly less chaotic and would have created a rthythm to the piece. Overall, we recreated Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis to become immersive which could be deemed of a postdramatic influence and I am satisfied with our performance.