How Keanu Reeves Saved The World @ The Arches

Get slack and see the truth

I have a serious art-crush on Amanda Monfrooe. Not only does she share my fascination with the beautiful slacker who is often accused of underacting, she even parlays this obsession into a playful and heavy lecture on the flux of meaning in the post-modern universe. She might not avoid the easy jokes - yes, a block of wood does stand in for Keanu – but she refuses to dumb down her essential message. Ironically, this makes it tough going as part as Arches Live – a festival that has settled into a programme of new, tentative theatre – and a rare example of a show that I felt could have been spread more easily over a longer span.

Monfrooe's thesis is that the films of Keanu represent a consistent philosophy, that insist on a rejection of consumerist hegemony. The Matrix's blatant dualism between appearance and reality is the core text: Monfrooe goes onto identify the theme in his earlier works, and in his friendship with the more respected, probably because he is dead, River Phoenix.

The cod-academic rigour, not without its own humour, does drop back, with Monfrooe revealing her working process in a series of sketches, ably supported by a variety of masks (including Keanu's beautiful face) and performer Lottie Maslin-Prothero. The lectures are recited to the subtle drumming of Glynn Forrest, dragging the show out of the classroom and enthusing the speeches with a jazz beat poetry.

If the structure is uneven – the truth behind Keanu is revealed in something close to a rant, and a few scenes wander around unrelated ideas – How Keanu Reeves Saved The World is quite unlike anything else on the stage. Passionate, intelligent, it draws equally from puppetry and academia, takes a much maligned celebrity and battles to forge meaning in a society that is increasingly losing its faith and purpose.

Playback by Ankur A Public Apology - The Tron's Open Stage and Ankur's Social Rage

My misgivings about The Tron’s Open Stage competition – that the public vote would ensure  mawkish, safe drama ­ - are squashed by Sea and Land and Sky. My defence -   its online trailer suggested a more conventional take on World War I - can’t escape that LASAS  harks back to the vicious theatre of Edward Bond, Howard Barker and even the blessed Sarah Kane.

If the final scene is disappointingly sentimental, and the odd line smacks of historical research bubbling to the surface (“fifty seven thousand men die in the first two hours,” indeed), Abigail Docherty’s script  is admirably uncompromising in its presentation of the psychological impact of violence. Scattered body parts, desperate humping amidst the carnage, corpses embraced and wounds self-inflicted: Docherty’s portrayal of psychological disintegration in the face of World War I’s horrors is unflinching.

There are moments in Andy Arnold’s direction that lift the action beyond the immediate violence into an abstract absurdism: Tyler Collins gives his philosophical deserter an  overdone gravity, while a disembodied head expresses a desire to die old and horny. The dead soldiers carried about by the deranged nurse could have done with a little more weight, and the collection of body parts slips towards slapstick.

With a solid set that doubles as trench and endless road through fields of slaughter, LASAS is nasty theatre, uneasily between naturalism and a symbolism. This is difficult theatre: the dry delivery gradually gives way to hysteria, and it is a challenge for the show to live up to the extremity of the script’s themes and episodes. Yet its message is familiar: war is hell. Even Paul Riley’s working-class romanticism can’t transcend the brutal rending of flesh and hope.

Towards the end, the script betrays a lack of confidence, bringing in domestic murder to add to the pathos: whether the revelation that one nurse committed matricide is an attempt to show the universality of savagery or a late plot twist is debatable. However, I do accept that this made for a more engrossing victor of Open Stage than my own entry, the burlesque Greek Tragedy.

Playback, over in the Briggait and the latest community-focused project from Ankur, is very much youth theatre gone tough. Bigg Taj rocks the mic, young actors play gang members and the story is a hip-hop variation of the struggle between good and evil social impulses. The competing stories don’t always mesh effectively – Taj’s narrative only becomes relevant in the last moments, and feels like an after-thought finale just to prove how bad the bad boys really are, but it is exciting to be ushered around the Briggait’s cold storage spaces and see how community theatre is attempting to take on the challenge of both physical and site-responsive theatre.

Since the play is set in the places where I live and socialise, the question of authenticity becomes vital. There’s a slight sense that the script is spelling out the tension, using almost stereotypical notions of communities and gangsters, yet the theatrical presentation of Glasgow South’s street youth is recognisable and chilling. Ankur still haven’t quite found their voice -  the integration of local detail and the archetypal narrative isn’t complete, but it does feel as if their fusion of community work and ambitious productions is a leading edge within Scottish theatre.

Freak Out and Show Everything (2010)

It is rare to see the audiences for Live Art and burlesque overlap – even though both genres share a great deal and could learn from each other. Mat Fraser and Julie Atlas Muz achieve this integration: despite leaving burlesque out of their publicity, the burlesque aesthetic is ever-present during The Freak and The Showgirl, alongside a clear Performance Art abrasiveness, a sly revisionist humour, Fraser’s unique charisma and Muz’s nods towards political engagement.

Both performers are talented and imaginative, and their combination ought to be explosive. The adoption of a cabaret format allows them to showcase their signature acts: Fraser revives a segment of his Seal Boy Fringe success, which re-examines the assumed exploitation of the freak-show; Muz offers singing sensation Mr Pussy and awkward stripteases, undercutting the eroticism with aggression and wit. 

Yet The Freak and The Showgirl has the feel of a draft, of a work-in-progress. They rarely team up, beyond performing their individual acts together – the finale of Fraser singing and Muz dancing naked, or the audience participation beer-drinking contest, are all the more effective for bringing them together. The first section of the show alternates Fraser’s monologues or songs with Muz’s stripteases.

Aside from being a joyful nightmare to categorise – is this circesque, integrated performance or variety? – The Freak and The Showgirl promises to ask questions about performativity, gender politics and transatlantic collaborations. Fraser even provokes the audience by citing the post-modern irony that drives neo-burlesque. He seems to be challenging normative ideas about body image and erotic representation – throughout his career, he has made a point of undermining clichés about disability. 

Muz is one of the more confrontational artists in neo-burlesque: her Breakin’ The Law routine snaps at cock-rock posturing, while vaguely challenging certain laws that circumscribe freedom. But as the late appearance of a parodic Scottish costume double act implies, the pair are working on the hoof, finding common artistic ground to launch something more than merely suggestive.

If the energy of the show comes from the obvious confidence and ability of the duo, it suffers from a common burlesque weakness: it is more comfortable with making statements about how they are challenging rather than actually integrating the theory into succinct performance, and the structure isn’t forceful or directed. 

Mr Pussy, a film clip of Muz’s pussy miming to the hippie musical theatre hit Hair, pokes at modern fashions for depilation. Seal Boy celebrates the life of an American side-show freak. The beer drinking competition is harder to decode: is it attempting to break down the fourth wall by asking the audience to act like Freaks or Showgirls? Is it celebrating or mocking alcohol consumption in a city blighted by alcoholism? Is it re-inventing pantomime into Live Art?

The Freak and The Showgirl is never less than entertaining, and treads a careful line between shock and charm. Muz and Fraser have a delightful mutual respect, and each act is engaging and questioning. Despite the nudity, a spot of cock-sucking and Fraser’s insistence on questioning responses to his physicality, the hour feels safe, even comforting. It is undeniably a step up from most burlesque shows, without reaching the intensity of The Wau Wau Sisters’ scattershot brilliance, Red Bastard’s frightening buffoonery or Jess Curtis’ vigorous examination of “imaginary bodies”. 

It poses questions about the role of the body in performance, and easily answers them. The remaining question is whether this collaboration can push into more bracing territories. Fraser's website advertises a new work coming in April: that ought to do it.

Club Noir 2010

The oldest and largest burlesque show in the UK
EVENT REVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED IN THE SKINNY 07 DECEMBER 2010


While many other burlesque nights have faded away, Club Noir keeps going strong. A loyal party crowd, its willingness to expand beyond burlesque – recent collaborators include Scottish Opera – and high quality costume have ensured that Noir has held its market position throughout the revival and into the New Burlesque Order.

Club Noir strives to be more than just a series of routines: it regularly features bands (this time it was the Seventeenth Century, a group of young men who take their cues from both folk and the Godspeed You! Black Emperor school of emotive indie dynamics) and fetish inspired acts, linked together by glamorous women and camp men stripping. It is certainly trying to be far more than just burlesque: the atmosphere and the audience are crucial parts of the evening. The presence of Jim Gellaty behind the decks made the club evening even more crucial to the entire evening.

As burlesque emerges from being a revival to being part of the entertainment establishment, the challenge becomes how to keep the style fresh: tonight's entertainment was kicked off with the aforementioned Seventeenth Century, took in a dominatrix making a reindeer's Christmas wish come true, a fire act that moved onto arc-welded sparks showering the performer and a old school burst of elegant dance, Gene Kelly style.

The striptease itself is heavy on the costume and concept, holding true to the contemporary burlesque preoccupation with recreation of vintage glamour and tentative narratives: champagne is poured across semi-naked bodies, a man strips between awkward, ironic balletic leaps. There is a ritualistic edge to burlesque, a familiarity that is perhaps at odds with its erotic potential.

Equally important, however, is the participation of the crowd: dressed up either in fancy dress or fetish club style, they greet the performers warmly and dance into the late hours. It is a reminder that the neo-cabaret revival is as much about community as it is about performers.

Interiors @ Tramway

MYRA MCFADYEN, AURORA PERES AND BARNABY POWER

There’s little point in belabouring the excellence of Vanishing Point
EVENT REVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED IN THE SKINNY01 OCTOBER 2010


Interiors scooped the CATS awards in 2009, even against the competition from David Leddy’s first run of the powerful Sub Rosa, and has more stars than a major constellation. The cast, silent behind a glass screen, bring the intense emotions and trivial interactions with appropriately naturalistic mime and the drama, allowing for typical theatrical compression, is naturalistic and nuanced. The voice-over does get rather over-wrought at times, but the willingness not to spell out the exact details, and the contrast between the exterior of the party and the emotional turmoil within is seamlessly handled.

It’s more interesting to consider Interiors’ message: essentially that to be human is to desire, but that death eventually takes us all. Interiors doesn’t turn this into a soft appeal for compassion. The detachment is almost Buddhist, while the final message, from the ghostly observer, is, paradoxically, inconclusive and slightly melodramatic.

Interiors doesn't quite celebrate life. It is a play of “almost” and “nearly”, constantly homing in on moments where one set of possibilities are opened, only to be abruptly closed. Young love almost flowers, a seduction is foiled, a marriage proposal is rejected, then mocked. The comedy is never cruel, but softens the intensity lurking in the interplay of the characters. Nothing really happens, although the characters seem to threaten sudden outbursts.

Interiors seems to be profound, yet offers little but a vague truism. Through its deceptively casual performances and measured direction, this absence of moral or meaning is, in itself, fascinating. It is as if Vanishing Point are refusing the convention that theatre has to have a message, and come close to actually expressing the anguish of a community disconnected and purposeless. The relationships between the characters are vague, their reason for assembling never clear, the empty seat at the table is never explained. This incompleteness is discomforting, lending the production a luminal, suspended languor.

The responses of the audience are equally fascinating. One Scottish performer claimed that he wanted his hour back, comparing it unfavourably with the sense of event that surrounded the revival of Blackwatch: another said she didn't understand the mention of polar bears, or why the ghost outside bothered dressing for winter after repeating that she didn't feel anything, anymore. These are more than quibbles, especially given the critical and popular reception of the play. They express the unease and discomfort Interiors generates. Their negative responses, however, do not detract from the importance of a play that so imaginatively uses the stage and actors to comment, albeit slightly, on the subtle conversations and disappointments of mundane life.

A Public Apology - The Tron's Open Stage and Ankur's Social Rage

BLOG POST BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED IN THE SKINNY 17 OCTOBER 2010


My misgivings about The Tron’s Open Stage competition – that the public vote would ensure mawkish, safe drama ­ - are squashed by Sea and Land and Sky. My defence - its online trailer suggested a more conventional take on World War I - can’t escape that LASAS harks back to the vicious theatre of Edward Bond, Howard Barker and even the blessed Sarah Kane.

If the final scene is disappointingly sentimental, and the odd line smacks of historical research bubbling to the surface (“fifty seven thousand men die in the first two hours,” indeed), Abigail Docherty’s script is admirably uncompromising in its presentation of the psychological impact of violence. Scattered body parts, desperate humping amidst the carnage, corpses embraced and wounds self-inflicted: Docherty’s portrayal of psychological disintegration in the face of World War I’s horrors is unflinching.

There are moments in Andy Arnold’s direction that lift the action beyond the immediate violence into an abstract absurdism: Tyler Collins gives his philosophical deserter an overdone gravity, while a disembodied head expresses a desire to die old and horny. The dead soldiers carried about by the deranged nurse could have done with a little more weight, and the collection of body parts slips towards slapstick.

With a solid set that doubles as trench and endless road through fields of slaughter, LASAS is nasty theatre, uneasily between naturalism and a symbolism. This is difficult theatre: the dry delivery gradually gives way to hysteria, and it is a challenge for the show to live up to the extremity of the script’s themes and episodes. Yet its message is familiar: war is hell. Even Paul Riley’s working-class romanticism can’t transcend the brutal rending of flesh and hope.

Towards the end, the script betrays a lack of confidence, bringing in domestic murder to add to the pathos: whether the revelation that one nurse committed matricide is an attempt to show the universality of savagery or a late plot twist is debatable. However, I do accept that this made for a more engrossing victor of Open Stage than my own entry, the burlesque Greek Tragedy.

Playback, over in the Briggait and the latest community-focussed project from Ankur, is very much youth theatre gone tough. Bigg Taj rocks the mic, young actors play gang members and the story is a hip-hop variation of the struggle between good and evil social impulses. The competing stories don’t always mesh effectively – Taj’s narrative only becomes relevant in the last moments, and feels like an after-thought finale just to prove how bad the bad boys really are, but it is exciting to be ushered around the Briggait’s cold storage spaces and see how community theatre is attempting to take on the challenge of both physical and site-responsive theatre.

Since the play is set in the places where I live and socialise, the question of authenticity becomes vital. There’s a slight sense that the script is spelling out the tension, using almost stereotypical notions of communities and gangsters, yet the theatrical presentation of Glasgow South’s street youth is recognisable and chilling. Ankur still haven’t quite found their voice - the integration of local detail and the archetypal narrative isn’t complete, but it does feel as if their fusion of community work and ambitious productions is a leading edge within Scottish theatre.

Theatre Venue of the Month: Tron

More than a theatre

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE SKINNY 01 OCTOBER 2010

When Andy Arnold moved from The Arches to The Tron, he was arriving at a very different theatre to the one he left. While The Arches has a reputation for new work, and an atmosphere that converts every show into a site responsive extravaganza, The Tron has a classic theatrical arch and has drifted between the populist and the experimental.

Arnold has not so much redirected the Tron as find a surer balance between the populist and experimental: the return of DC Jackson's popular dysfunctional family in The Chucky Brae this year has been countered by an increased use of the smaller Changing House for a series of challenging plays, while his Mayfesto was a brave attempt to revive an old Glasgow festival with a political edge.

Equally, The Tron has been open to outside influence: the competition in association with the NTS, Open Stage, may not have found Many new voices, but it has led to the development of three new plays from established authors – including CATS award winner Rob Drummond –  and winner Sea and Land and Sky from Abigail Doherty, which is premiered this month.

Directed by Arnold himself, SLS looks back to WWI for a story of love, loss and dark humour. Although Arnold did not select the winner himself, the play has the classic Arnold combination. Fascinated by sparse, terse scripts – he is a master director of Beckett – it has a strong cast, an emotive background and the potential for serious dialogue and revelatory climaxes, plus the guy who played Winston in Still Game, Paul Riley.

Dirty Paradise, a monologue based on a story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is a fine example of how Arnold has opened up the building to other groups: it is part of The Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival, and directed by Alison Peebles. Peebles, fresh from David Leddy's Sub Rosa and currently working on Panic Patterns for Glasgay! has a good claim to be the hardest working women in Scottish performance: this one hander, that deals in magic realism and hallucination, is both written and performed by Leann O'Kasi, who superbly directed the thrilling Top Dog/Under Dog at the Citizens last year.

The smaller spaces at the Tron are equally open to exciting events: the Victoria Bar regularly hosts The Supper Club Cabaret, alongside Club Sublime – led by Blind Girl and the Crips, this monthly special is curated by the ever imaginative Sounds of Progress – with Lost in Digression joining them from October. Dedicated to anti-heroes, riot grrls, nancy boys and anyone who has never quite managed to find their way back, Lost is a salon for the post-burlesque cabaret.

As the latest posters advertising the season suggest, the Tron is attempting to be far more than just a theatre: the various rehearsed readings, the arrival of Traverse hit Midsummer and the visits from community poetry slammers Word Factory all combine to generate an atmosphere of constant activity and creativity. It may not be The Arches in audience or intention, or atmosphere and continuity, but Arnold's Tron is finding a logical direction for a traditional theatre space to break the mould.

Sigurður Jónsson

Back in 2010, I chatted (over the internet) with the then graduating artist Sigurður Jónsson. I had just seen him wrestle a huge trunk in The Arches, and, in the best tradition of live art, this apparently bizarre activity resolved into a profound meditation on man versus nature.

Aware that the phrase 'profound meditation' is a terrible cliche, I bothered Jónsson with a few questions about his art. 

The work moves between personal history and mythology. Do you feel that mythology retains a resonance for you, even in a modern age that has abandoned its traditional stories- even if they are replaced by modern myths?
From a personal point of view I think mythology resonates with most of us, or rather, we hope mythology to reflect certain truths or present us with meta-narratives that we can draw from and count on. This was an inquiry of mine throughout the process: how does my history fit into a greater narrative. 

Maybe this reflects the Icelandic part of my approach as I feel mythology is understood in a wholly different way here in the UK. Here people seem to enjoy the novelty of the myth, while it seems to have a genuine perlocutionary effect on the Icelandic psyche. Many Icelanders will tell you “I don't believe in ghosts… but I know my house is haunted,” and I think that reflects, not necessarily naivety, but a respect for these traditions and stories.

The body seems to be central to the work- in that by being naked, you draw attention to it, and the physical act of wrestling with the tree makes up an intense sequence. I'm interested in whether you see your physical vocabulary as being connected to dance, or any other performers...
By stripping down at that point, I was hoping to draw the attention away from me, the person, and to the sculptural elements of the two bodies in the space. So even though I do consider the work as a whole to be very connected to dance, I was hoping to explore the space between sculpture and choreography. How does the object inform the movement? 

A piece I took a lot from was Bruce Nauman’s Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square (1967-68). The way I understand this particular piece is Nauman’s seemingly simple attempt to perform a square, but there is an added element of performativity in the way he does it and so instead of just walking, he emphasises parts of the body in relation to the space. I guess I was trying to achieve something similar.

Where did you start? Do you have the objects and stories in mind, and let them dictate the format, or vice versa?

I had wanted to work with driftwood for some time but I had no idea in what way. So when my nan told me a story about this Scottish fisherman who washed ashore and came into the life of my Icelandic family some 400 years ago, I saw a connection. I tried to look up the name but like the driftwood, he seems to have lost his history. So I guess that was my starting point and I started working on lending them a possible past and future. In the beginning of the process I started to try and fit the object and story within a format I thought was apt. 

After a while, and with the help of my tutors and colleagues I realised that the object had to dictate the format. I grew tired of trying to represent something and, with some inspiration from the likes of La Ribot and Florian Flueras, I decided to simply present a series of actions with the driftwood and give the audience a porous structure where they could put their own meaning into how the three main elements interrelate.


This one's a massive question- do you see your approach as especially Icelandic?
No. I understand that people generally might read my work from that perspective but coming from the Icelandic scene, I don't see my approach as Icelandic. If I had to describe contemporary Icelandic performance work there is a certain dry humour in it, an irony that I feel I have moved away from. 

Saying that, the Icelandic scene is very young and volatile and so one particular description will never be fitting. Having studied in the UK I feel much closer to the discourse here and in Europe.














































That is great, thank you... how about I send over some (probably pretty obvious) questions so that I can work up an article?




Best wishes




Gareth





2010/3/15 Sigurður Jónsson <siggiarent@gmail.com>







Hey Gareth,




I've finally put some images on my website http://sigurdurjonsson.wordpress.com/projects/bloðeik-2010/




I you want to use any of them, please send me the name (blodeik1-8) and I will send said image in the full resolution (I have them in .jpeg and .tiff)




Photographer is Hallgerður Hallgrímsdóttir (www.hallgerdur.com)




Cheers,

anna fur laxis 2010

1. What inspired the integration of axe into burlesque?

I was performing in L.A. in the summer of 2008 and I did a show on the same bill as knife expert and "King of Fling" - Jack Dagger (http://www.jackdagger.com/).  I knew nothing about knife throwing (or Jack's amazing marksmanship skills!) and I was incredibly inspired.  I trained for over a year both at home in the UK and back in the USA with Jack before taking my act to the stage, and chose axes as they are extremely fun to throw. Jack has become a good friend, and remains a huge inspiration to me. 

2. What made you start working in burlesque?

It came about through 50s pin-up modelling - I  ended up doing a shoot with another model who also produced burlesque shows locally & she offered me a slot in one of her shows as she said my modelling "performance" was practically a routine in itself.  After that first time I was hooked!

3. What acts are you hoping to catch during the week?

Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to catch any of the other LBW shows - I'm flying straight in from performing in Chicago's Windy City Burlesque Festival, and I have to head straight back to Yorkshire, where I'm hosting one of my pin-up afternoon teas!  

4. How does your routine fit with the theme of the Circus Sideshow?

There's a rich history of knife throwing acts in circus & sideshows, particularly in 19th century American travelling circus, which then translated to Vaudeville and Cabaret stages. The merging of striptease and knife throwing is, to me, the next logical step!

5. Is there much of a scene in York?

In Yorkshire, where I live, there is a huge scene.  Leeds Has "Leeds Burlesque"  (http://www.leedsburlesque.co.uk/), York has Jeepers Peepers (http://www.myspace.com/thejeeperspeepersclub) and of course, also in Leeds, we have the world famous Wet Spot (http://www.thewetspotleeds.co.uk/) as well as several other shows.