Religious Ramble: Theatrical Thoughts

At the end of Performance: A Critical Introduction, Marvin Carlson considers the audience, partially as a plea not to dissolve the study of theatre into a broader analysis of performance in daily life. He approvingly quotes Margaret Wilkerson's assertion that 'theatre provides an opportunity for a community to come together and reflect upon itself,' finding that the theatrical event has always been about 'shaping' community - and the fancy-dan live art that I love is particularly aware of this function.

This frees up theatrical criticism from being purely about the art as performed and created, and to consider it as part of a culture's ability to reflect upon itself. In other words, like Tynan said, all theatre has a political dimension. At the least, it brings people together, and suggests a shared interest in certain ideas and activities. The Big Idea, of communitas, becomes crucial: does theatre build communities?

Although I am not wild about using the term, this lends theatre - and festivals, and the better buskers on
Sauchiehall Street - a religious quality. Unfortunately, this word is loaded. It suggests that performance performs a spiritual and possibly hierarchical function (in a world where religion is often criticised as anti-scientific, or obsessed with power and control), while implying that the Great Religions of the World are just a bunch of guys playing dress-up. Being a smart-ass, I'm talking about the etymology of religion, from the Latin: meaning 'rebinding.' Theatre is religious in so far as it connects together a community, both to itself and the wider cosmos.

Putting aside the image of the artistic director of Puppet Animation Scotland wearing a Pope's hat, its seems that this definition perfectly suits manipulate. Although the festival lasts for longer than a Sunday Mass (and I hear some priests are popular because they get through it in under an hour), it does draw together a diverse community with a shared interest in 'visual theatre.' And given the chance, visual theatre could generate as much explanatory literature as the concept of anatman.

Again, I'm not mad about calling theatre 'ritual,' but I'll admit it is ceremonial. There are expected responses (turning up on time, not playing the bongo drums during the speeches, applauding or booing at the end). The 'ceremonies' of manipulate draw attention to certain ideas but, like sermons, revolve around an over-arching theme.

The mixture of international and Scottish work also fits into the religious format. Torn is shown the day after Duda Paiva's Bestiares. The continuity between what happens in Edinburgh and in Europe is highlighted. And by seeing visual theatre from other countries and cultures, a new light is shone onto the local production.

Bestiares as Theology?

Duda Paiva is a perfect example of how blurred lines are far more acceptable in performance than in pop videos. Paiva was trained as a dancer (in Brazil), arrived in the Netherlands, discovered an aptitude for puppetry and mixed it all together into art that is choreography, puppetry and something beyond the two. A series of shows have developed his distinctive style, which encourages a dialogue between puppet and dancer: like a good post-modern artist, Paiva reveals the way he creates through the way he performs. And while his website boasts that he has represented the Netherlands in many festivals, it is fortunate that manipulate has a wide yet clear remit: Bestiares is unlikely to fit into a simple category.

Bestaires plugs into two competing ideas about the nature of gods and puppets: one I nicked from Grant Morrison's Invisibles, the other from Jurkowski's survey of European puppetry. Bestaires offers an evening's entertainment hosted by the god Cupid - in puppet form - and brings the gods of the classical pantheon back on stage. It's not just that, as a former classicist, I am always pleased to be reminded of things I know a little about. I think there is no better place for divinities than in a performance.

Following Morrison, Bestiares is a sharp reminder of the fiction of theology. While Morrison's post-modern mash-up of paganism, conspiracy theory and action adventure can be difficult to follow, there are repeated hints that the various gods and demons that appear are little more than masks or puppets. When one Invisible is introduced to magick (sic), the question of 'who is wearing the mask of the gods?' suggests that these gods are puppets and the strings are being pulled by people. A dancer and a puppet of cupid would be the perfect visual representation of this...

Interestingly, Alan Moore, Morrison's great rival for magus of the UK/best British comic book writer, has a similar theory. He spent some worshipping a snake god because - and here's the catch - he knew that its original incarnation was as a puppet in a Roman con-man's religious rip-off. The reminder, for Moore, that this was not an animate being, was crucial as a balance against his various encounters with what appeared to be supernatural beings. 

Jurkowski goes the opposite way: noting that the medieval church was a bit touchy about the matter of puppets, he postulates that they held a religious potency - that they represented the divine. While the idea of a puppet as an icon might clash with more familiar religious art, the mystery of the puppeteers art lends the uncanny to their performance. 

Bestaires is the start of manipulate: and what better way to begin than with a ritual that is, in both of these senses, fundamentally spiritual?