Clowns and Strippers

http://www.samandfuzzy.com/sketchoff/jobs/

"The presence of the actor upon the stage is unremarkable: they are the expected. The emphasis on quality of performance, the celebrity achieved by certain of their number, the identification of a performer with a particular interpretation of a familiar role: all of these merely obscure the fundamental predictability of the very presence of a person who, ultimately, is pretending to be someone else.

Against this stands a holy dualism, a Moon Goddess and Horned God who preside over the carnival. Their presence is disruptive. They stand in opposition to each other, representing different energies and different cosmologies, yet their end is the same. They expose the pretense of the theatre, simultaneously revealing the dramaturgy and connecting the events of the play to immediate, physical reality. 

In the person of the stripper, performance and identity are conflated: the plethora of enthographical studies which willingly ask the stripper about her sexual habits follow the same ignorant pattern as the moralists who confuse the performance of sexual desire with a deviant character. 

Meanwhile, the clown shatters the epic grandeur of the play, jumping between ignorance and meta-knowledge (they were the first to break the fourth wall), exposing the theatrical, attacking the haughty and reflecting the audience's gaze back upon them. 

In their diverse ways - the clown exposing the artificiality of the events on stage, and the stripper's muddling of authenticity and dramaturgy - the double divine undermines the pretensions of performance. It becomes, in their hands, either painfully immediate or ridiculous. It is no accident that both laughter and desire are possible to fake, but difficult to prevent. 

This is recognised even in the burlesque, in which the unfortunately gendered division of labour matched strippers and comedians paid ritual respect to bi-theism."

The Fifth Epistle of Criticulous to the Reviewers (1845)

A Brief Guide to Critical Personae on the blog

Seriously, if you looked like that, you'd want to wear a mask, too.

This blog uses a variety of identities to explore the possibility that criticism can be a form of fiction. The masks that are worn - the performed persona, if you will - enable a mimetic process of critique, rather than a diagetic. 


Mad Cyril
The most gangster of all the personae, Mad Cyril was discovered in a brief cut-scene of the film Performance. He gets to say the stuff that The Vile Arts find simultaneously unacceptable, true (as far as truth has any value, natch) and funny. Hence the casual sexism and so on. Cyril, when reviewing, uses a rating of 'dustbins', based on his habit of throwing them through the windows of bookies who owe his bosses money.

Criticulous
The first mask ever worn, Criticulous exists both on the page and the stage: he performed at Buzzcut, The Traverse and The Arches. Conceived as a demonic guardian, like the pictures on the walls of Tibetan tombs, he reverts to a compassionate stance when faced with human beings. He is the clown of the gang, heavily influenced by the 'drunken style' of Ol' Dirty Bastard (hence his other name, Wee Dirty Bastard - given to him by dramaturge Elliot Roberts).

Ghost Faced Critic
Another Wu-Tang steak, GFC is a new addition to the team. Still in

development, he believes but knows nothing, and is likely to become the religious member of the group. 

Gareth K Vile
Remember: personality is performance. I can never be trusted. 


Real People
When he remembers, GKV is a member of the Tempo House collective. References to Lorna Irvine and Elliot Roberts actually describe two of the people he actually listens to. Lorna is a critic of international standing, Elliot is a dramaturge. 

A New Sexual Fantasy (Criticulous said it, okay?)

Last night, before I slipped into my codeine sweetened sleep, I put on a Sargon of Akkad video. You see, there's nothing I like more than masturbating to the voice of a man who sounds like he has kidnapped me, tied me to a chair and is explaining why feminism is wrong while pointing a knife at my throat.

Hey, don't judge me. Everyone has their own way of getting kicks.

Unfortunately, about half an hour into his video, Sargon started shouting at a video he was watching, and woke me from my slumber. And this is when the internet upsets me. The level of discourse around really important topics has become a shouting contest.

Another thing that makes me want to buy a glove made of sandpaper for my special alone time, just so that the pain will distract me, is Brendan O'Neill. Brendan said that he wants to literally eat his computer. He experiences such outrage at what he sees on the internet that he literally wants to devour metal. 

Brendan is not angry because he can look out of his office window and watch a parade of humans, the suffering inflicted by consumerism etched on their bodies. He's not angry because first world feminists aren't doing enough to support women in third world rape cultures. He's not even angry because Sargon woke him up from a post-orgasm snooze. He literally wants to eat a computer because some people found Boaty McBoatface funny. 

From this chuckle-fest, Brendan waxes lyrical on a generation who take nothing seriously. Apparently, these losers are apathetic, apolitical, and challenging them is to be called a kill-joy. 

So, they are not, like, saying stupid shit to get attention. Word up, Brendan: if you want the internet to have more depth, try writing about stuff that has more depth. You do manage to write pieces about, like, real politics, dude. But you have written about Boaty McBoatface, Paul Daniels, The Oscars, Lou Reed and David Bowie. It's fluff, mate. 

And most of your serious articles just rehash that whole 'political correctness gone mad' routine that gives Spectator readers a boner.

Anyway, I'll tell you what would give me a stiffy: a video of Brendan literally eating a computer. He's said this is literally how he feels, so I'll even come round and chainsaw it for him into bite size chunks. And I'll shoot my bolt when he opens his mouth and it has all bits of wire in it. 

Criticulous gets Unfixed Episode Three

Criticulous gets Unfixed Episode Two

Criticulous gets Unfixed Episode One

Nostalgia is the Enemy

Despite Liam Howlett's talk of The Prodigy's 'angry album', and the aggressive titles ('Nasty', 'Get Your Fight On'), The Day Is My Enemy is a musically conservative album. Aside from sprinkling occasional samples of Arabic music, and a melody line on 'Wild Frontier' that evokes eight-bit computer music, The Prodigy work the same template, of shouted vocals, industrial strength beats and ferocious electronic sounds, that bought them to national attention in the 1990s.

Gareth K Vile, The List 2015

The cheap price of land along the river pushed the larger media institutions further west from the city centre: the state television station and the commercial rival built huge glass warehouses, filled with studios and technicians and research experts and runners and interns and bored producers.

'The landscaping of this area, on both banks, has been a lesson in the clinical application of concrete,' says the tour guide, as they rush past the twin arena towards the more picturesque environs of the University. Criticulous stubs on his cigarette on his shoe and enters the red tube that takes him across the motorway to the Conference Centre.

He can feel the buzzing of the transmissions from around a mile away. In more sentimental times, he believed that he could hear individual words, that the satellites were calling him. 

The Life of a Critic: Chapter 26

The Life of a Critic: Chapter 1

SUMMERHALL TO BEAM TO 30 UK CINEMAS NATIONWIDE THIS FESTIVAL IN A FRINGE FIRST

Man, I hate Summerhall. You know, the Fringe venue. It is just too cool, too good to believe. It has had some of the best fringe shows of the last few years - Abattoir Ferme, Robbie off 85A's tesla coil special, that one where the man talks into loads of microphones (back at the Traverse this year), and the one with the nude lady shouting that she has got politicians in her shit. 

Every year, it has something new, so I can't make the complaint that it is complacent.

It always has some great stuff, plus PAS are based there. And imaginative visual art galleries... 

Doesn't Rupert Thompson realise I need a nemesis? Where would Hunter S be without Nixon? Can't he do more of the bad programming, like that chess thing? True, that was the worst thing I have seen that didn't have the word 'student' in the company name (not that student means 'bad'), but it was a like a sop, a deliberate proof that their curation could fail, to keep me off the scent...

Anyway, they came up with this...

SUMMERHALL TO BEAM TO 30 UK CINEMAS NATIONWIDE THIS FESTIVAL IN A FRINGE FIRST

Hibrow, the digital arts pioneers, will join forces with big screen giants, ODEON, to take the world’s biggest arts festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, out of its cobbled confines and into a cinema near you with a series of special screenings throughout August.

Hibrow Hour, generously supported by Arts Council England, is a series of daily performances at Edinburgh’s fêted Summerhall venue, throughout this year’s Fringe.

Rupert Thompson, Artistic Director at Summerhall:

"We are delighted that Summerhall will be hosting this live cinematic fringe first - beaming the festival to audiences across the UK. We are immensely proud of the programme of festival events this year - and delighted to be working with theatre innovators Hibrow on this project."

Eight of these new shows, spanning theatre, comedy, opera and visual art, have been specially designed to

He even looks like a good doctor, not Doom

be transmitted via satellite to selected  ODEON Cinemas nationwide. Hibrow Hour represents an exciting new digital frontier for the legendary festival: three brand new plays by young theatre-makers, an opera from an internationally recognised artist/filmmaker, comedy acts curated by two of Britain’s most celebrated comedy producers, and a show from the inimitable Steven Berkoff who epitomises the Festivals dedication to talent and innovation. All designed to bring to cinema audiences the excitement of the festival. Each 90 minute programme will also include exclusive coverage of the Festival at large in a specially produced featurette.

Tickets for all shows still available from summerhall.co.uk

DATES

August 4^th - The Dispute

August 6^th – Hibrow Comedy Hour: Jonny & The Baptists

August 11^th – The Man Who Almost Killed Himself

August 12^th – Four Screws Loose

August 14^th – Berkoff, the Inimitable

August 18^th - Sleight & Hand

August 20^th – Sarah Louise Young as Cabaret Whore

August 21^st - Allison Jackson: A Story in the Public Domain

Most of these will be pretty good shows, too. Although Berkoff, the Inimitable does look like it is going to be a pretentious wank-off, so I have some consolation. In the meantime, I have to put up with Summerhall maintaining its position as the most exciting new venue, longing for the moment I can put the knife in Thompson's back and say that he's lost the edge. 

Back to the 1930s... Criticulous experiences a Philosophical MisUnderstanding...

The First Lamentations of Criticulous

And in the twentieth minute after his arrival, Zarathustra did say unto Criticulous:

'Wilst thou give it a rest, for you are most grievously doing in my head.'

Unashamed, Criticulous replied that he was disappointed in this supposed prophet's lack of imagine and lo! He did find himself tumbling out of the cave and down the side of the hill towards the Street of the Willow Trees. He shook the dust from his vintage, white polyester jacket and espied five women in the shortest of skirts.

Addressing the one with the highest of heels, Criticulous assessed his chances. 'I see by the dramaturgical choices that you have made in the matter of costume that you seek a mate this evening. I am Criticulous, scourge of performance artists, and I seek a disciple to join me. I have a plus one for the latest show at The Citizens' Theatre.'

And she retorted most uncouthly, that he should disport himself to Fuck. And lo! A man dressed in a banana costume appeared and requested whether he was giving her trouble love, and whether he had a penchant for receiving a doing.

Criticulous sat upon the curb and waxed wroth.

'Woe unto you Glasgow! For your people do not understand that they are merely players, and that the word of Goffman has revealed unto them that all social behaviour is innately theatrical!'

'Woe unto the Live Artists! For they are in sore need of a dramaturg, and yet they seeketh him not!'

'Woe unto the academics! For they reject the idea of quality and instead focus their attention to the content and form, forgetting that an audience has to sit through this shit, sometimes.'

'Woe unto the critics! For they see not the depth and praise the surface, distracted by its shining!'

'And woe unto the dramaturg! For they shall not get any employment lest there is a comprehensive re-evaluation of the nature of theatre!'

And two mighty men in blue did come and lift Criticulous by his arms and tell him he was nicked for being like unto a jake. The court fell mightily in wrath upon him, although he defended his opinions by observing that they were not necessarily those of the Vile Arts and were, indeed, a provocation and an experiment in form.

Vile versus Eric at Stereo (part 2)

EK: Focus, man! Burlesque dancer on the stage! Crowd cheering, guys whistling... typical, I guess. But then, you're tired of nudity on stage, aren't you? And the crowd quickly disperses...

GKV: Yes. That's why I am off for a coffee. And keeping you typing so you are not corrupted by Miss Hell's Belle's striptease.

EK: Well, it's over now. What to do. Not my fault I get excited by these things... Although admittedly, it's more fun in the intimacy of a bedroom. I can see why you tire of the nude on stage - what is the joy of that?
And Derek McLuckie takes the stage.
Extremely poetic narration ensues. It doesn't always rhyme, but he is telling us a story that sounds like a dream. Or a nightmare.
'Machine gun rattles, old woman cackles...'

GKV: It's exciting to see McLuckie going solo... dressed up as a fireman, then one quick change and he's an American starlet in 1952. He's trawling through the glamorous era of  Hollywood. An abortive romance with Steve McQueen is told in a thick Glasgow accent. Then the last days of Marilyn Monroe recited in the voice of a jaded friend of the sex goddess.

It's even better as a juxtaposition - a queer balance upsetting what could have been a rather macho evening of blues rock and striptease. McLuckie is relating a memory of an orgy starring Jack Kennedy, in drag, but the surreal narrative is contrasted by the specificity of the detail. The crowd is silent - my typing is the loudest sound and I am feeling self-conscious.

EK: And we are back to the thick Glaswegian accent, to the rhyming. And he slips into a clearer accent, almost like Dracula.
 'Jealousy is mine'
Commercial break.
Advertising a doll  of Judy Garland - the 'perfect gift for young queens everywhere'. I wonder how many layers of meaning we have to unpeel to thoroughly understand this performance.

GKV: He's jumping between different moods - sometimes singing, other times getting vernacular and even poetic. There's a theme of disappointment and twisted romance throughout... he refers back to classic camp icons, that feminine glamour of Monroe, the ballet dancer, Judy Garland, filters them  through the alienation of a very Glaswegian nightlife. There are corpses littered through the monologue.
EK: And now he speaks of Camp, a wrinkly old lady seducing young men. The audience hangs on his every word. He speaks of elderly masturbation, and 'entertainment'. Not sure what to make of that.

GKV: He's good. He has a presence, and it's fascinating to see him stripped of scripts and props and theatrical supports.

EK: His energy reminds me of the solo performance titled TITUS at THAT Festival, part of a very young, adrenaline-filled triple bill. There was no need for him to move at all, because he tells a story so well.

I Have Known All Along and Pretended Not To Only Out of Weakness

It's clear. It's clear. It's clear. It's clear. It's clear and true. It's clear and true and true and clear that the critic is artist as every attempt to define the gap between art and response will end up lost... the critic responds and are we supposed to believe that the artist is responding to nothing but life itself is not generating the art and the critic comes from the same place... and considerations of form make the haiku and review and the poem all equal...

Another day another we'll look at what political and social considerations are at play that keeps me down, thinks Criticulous. But now we see the true and clear and good and holy even holy urge that strives both in Luke Sutherland as he trembles the strings of his guitar and Robin Masson as he rolls deep oceans through the cello's bow and the sweat of Tony Mills, and Chris Devaney's final loving swerve... the last thing we hear is laughter as the child spins...

Heading home

Shorts...

It's cooler in the corner. Criticulous can command a better view of the room. Mills is like a giraffe over there... tall, elegant. Emma has been dancing with a young child so long it is as if they are a symbol of a young woman still in touch with her childhood. The girl laughs as she chases Emma in circles. Beautiful doppler effect.

Daphne has another question... and the contact improvisation is working... she talks through Facebook... she responds to my responses...

I have a question though... your next post is titled 'meaninglessness and being'

but in life, as in art and criticism, all of us (intentionally or unintentionally) look for a purpose/meaning

so is art for the sake of art meaningless?

Vulnerable (Top Five)

Today, I am feeling vulnerable. Whenever I leave the office, I am surrounded by posters that are covered in stars. They feel like bullets, forged by critics but used by companies to shoot each other in the war for resources. I don't like it, I don't like reducing a critical opinion to a quotation, let alone the blank, unblinking sequence of stars. I'm a pretentious type, and I like to think that criticism is an art defined in much the same way as poetry. When when the precious words that a critic has forged into linked chains of meaning are deconstructed down to a signifier of cultural worth, I am unhappy.

How can I respond? How about a top five for feeling vulnerable? Works for me...

"This piece combines puppetry with physical theatre, so you've got human actors playing opposite puppet creatures," says Ailin Conant about her show The Fantasist. "I guess it's like some kind of Jacques Lecoq / Jim Henson mash-up."

The Fantasist appropriately expresses the bi-polar experience by juxtaposing two styles of theatre: modestly, Conant insists that the puppetry is something new for her: " I kind of fantasize about the conversations that "real" puppet companies might have in the rehearsal room: What puppeteer costuming will serve this puppet best?  An understated cap or full Bunraku black hoods?  In our rehearsal you're much more likely to hear something like, Is this hood-thingie keeping the focus off my face, or do I just look like a wanker?"

Fortunately, this endearing self-deprecation is backed up by a ken theatricality and an emphasis on using the approaches as means to end - her description of the mash up might suggest what is going on, but it does not prepare the audience for what has been touted by a Skinny reviewer as a highlight of the festival.

Underbelly, 3- 27 August

The critical world is going mad about The Shit, a late night burst of Italian outrage and disgust. Since it has a naked women ranting and howling and screaming - the words aren't so much about their meaning but the sound they make as they scatter and shatter and settle - this is more about vulnerability being portrayed on stage. I can't help but be reminded of some of Kathleen Hanna's (Bikini Kill, Le Tigre) more challenging moments, and there is a huge poster of performer Silvia Gallerano outside Summerhall that is bracing and frightening in equal manner.

Summerhall, 3 -27 August

Songs of Lear is another Summerhall special, and another entry from Poland. It's surprising to see a company associated with a visceral theatre (Song of the Goat are another one of those central European companies who give equal weight to body and word) present what appears to be a choral concert: each episode is introduced by the director - he explains that this is not a version of Shakespeare's Lear but uses the text as "a landscape" and each scene is best read as a portrait - and the company begin in their sunday best black.

Despite the formal beginning, the forces within the text (the ingratitude of the child, the emotional violence of the father, the threat of insanity and the truth spoken as folly) gradually dominate the performers: snatches of esoteric instrumentation, invocations of Coptic song, stamping feet and an incredible, unexpected drum solo interpret the familiar story and tease out the despair and struggle that is lost in versions that rely on text and old school tricks like mere acting. 

By avoiding too much plot, the characters become the focus. Cordelia's lament gives depth to a character that Shakespeare couldn't be bothered to flesh out (she's a dull paragon of honesty in the original; here, she is the victim of her father's immaturity with a series of disappointments reaching back into childhood): Gloucester is less the doddering idiot than a thoughtful courtier, sensing the approaching storms. Lear himself is spoilt, absurd and, ultimately tragic.

The production consciously avoids much of traditional theatricality. The lighting is simply a wash of one colour, the costumes are formal wear, the only props are instruments, the script is broken apart and appears only as fragments within songs. Yet somehow Song of the Goat achieve that beautiful connection with the audience: the standing ovation is deserved and proves that total theatre - using all the tricks - is not necessarily the only way to fulfil the potential of the stage.

Summerhall, 13 - 25 August

Perhaps my vulnerability was caused by seeing Dusty Limit's show last night. When he proudly announced that he is dead inside, my own cavernous interior echoed his words. The Girl with No Heart seems to plug into my own concerns, yet when Sparkle and Dark decorated their venue with origami cranes, the effect was more one of beauty than misery.

The Girl goes back to the nuclear assault on Hiroshima- itself a reminder of how ultimately vulnerable the entire human species is - and has a staging made entirely of paper. Despite the immensity of the subject, they tell a parable rather than a tragedy, and locate the power to build or destroy in the imagination and emotions of a young child.

The paper cranes came about because there is a Japanese legend that to fold a thousand cranes will lead to the fulfilment of a wish. Let's hope the company don't waste that wish on longing for a five star rating...

Bedlam, 3 -24 August