Cooking up a new dish with old ingredients

In his comprehensive study of pop and rock's apparent obsession with the past Retromania, Simon Reynolds sketches the present of music that is obsessed with its heritage. Aside from the inevitable problems faced by a music that is based on youth and innovation as it matures, Reynolds identifies the internet as enabling a massive archiving of previous trends and encouraging the mix and mash approach of much contemporary music. 

Theatre and performance, however, has always had a less ambiguous relationship with the past - the idea of classic rock might be a problem, and an immensely tedious cataloguing of worthy white male music, but classic theatre is far more easily assimilated into the performance process. The prevalence of Shakespeare, even Greek tragedy, or Chekov in the listings reveals that theatre's past remains part of its vitality.

With the Traverse looking back on fifty years of "new writing" by

selecting fifty contemporary playwrights and Sell A Door touring an adaptation of Orwell's 1984, artists still use the past as a foundation for experimentation. The longer time scales of theatre's history allow a company like Rapture to revive The Sash - originally written in 1973 - and point to its continued relevance, and when David Greig wanted to explore that most pressing modern anxiety, Scottish national identity, he went back to Macbeth. Theatre itself may be seen as old fashioned - certainly, both cinema and television are more immediate - but this allows it to consider the present in a wider context. 

For director Michael Emans, The Sash is as important today as it was at the time of its premiere. The story of a father and son, torn apart by the values that once brought them together - and dealing with the still intense sectarian divide in Glasgow - The Sash is sometimes mistaken for a relic of an early age. "The issues are still key today," says Emans. He regrets that  "it has been sucked into the void that is inhabited by plays like Still a Bigot that take a more politically incorrect view of these things." For while many of the plays that focus on Glasgow's religious conflicts go for the laughs and are conservative in their reading of the city's culture, The Sash is far more personal.

"It is set in 1973 at the height of the troubles in Ireland," Emans admits.  "1972 had been one of the most violent periods in Ireland: when Hector MacMillan wrote it it was immediate and raw, and that power comes across. But it is also about a family, and the Orange Order is still prolific and a lot of people are part of it."

 "It has a lot of emotional and political clout: how the family unit can be destroyed by destroyed by belief," Emans explains. Insisting that it is "a neglected contemporary classic," he points out that "it could be about any father and son who are driven apart because of entrenched beliefs - whether they are religious beliefs or not."

Emans' case for The Sash implicitly invokes the power of theatre to tell both a specific story - this one revolves around a father's traditional faith in the Orange Order against his son's more progressive - and erotic - desires - and examine its underlying metaphysics. Emans is resisting the temptation to update the script.

"It is still very glasgow," he admits. "The action is still set in the early 1970s, before punk rock and rave exposed intergenerational conflict more clearly but he is delighted that the nature of the dramatic conflict is universal. "You can connect to the politics or the intellectual idea of the play. It's a real ride of a play and we are very excited about it."

"It questions how you reconcile a tradition with the aspirations of your children," he continues. "That obsession where people hold onto things because it gives them a sense of belief and consequently alienates other people. If you are stuck you can loose the thing that you want to nurture, that you are prepared to forego a relationship with your family. " While Reynolds ponders the problems of pop's increasing obsession with the past, bemoaning, amongst other things, how the museums of rock'n'roll give more space to the 1960s and 1970s than to what is happening now, Emans has recognised that the past isn't as distant or different as it might appear.

Meanwhile, Gob Squad are bringing a different reading of past glory to the stage: Kitchen restages Andy Warhol's film as a live performance. But this version is a very long way away from the kind of reverential musical that transforms Priscilla Queen of the Desert into a star vehicle for Jason Donovan. In the spirit of Warhol's movie, there's plenty of improvisation, waiting and questioning. 

Homing in on an earlier decade than The Sash, and a more radical location in New York, Kitchen does poke at some of the same questions, mostly around the theme of change. Undoubtedly, a revolution was happening in Warhol's Factory, but its nature is not yet clear. Gob Squad have a crack at discussing those issues that are still in ferment today (feminism is a major concern for the actors in 1965 and 2013). 

Unlike The Sash, however, it has the anxiety of being hip and trying to work out what it means to be ahead of the pack. 

Kitchen takes Warhol more as a foundation than a fundamental text, and plays hard and fast with the original film, even adding in elements from his other movies and boasting "modern haircuts." There's a clear acknowledgement that this is a reinterpretation. If the 1960s produced much of the most exciting music in pop, there are broader cultural changes of the same period which are still being felt today. The rise in hipster fashions reflect Warhol's influence on art culture, and the performed amorality of Warhol himself (he remained a devout Catholic benrath his apparently superficial persona) echoes in the dry superficiality of much contemporary art - which itself might be a game or front.

The contrast between the two pieces elegantly emphasises the complexity of theatre's history. Gob Squad are themselves an avant-garde company, in the sense of using a more informal process of creation than the script, yet they find themselves casting glances back to an earlier period for clues. Warhol's films are perhaps most dated by those things, like not learning lines, that made it so now in 1965. The Sash maintains its philosophical energy through the old school techniques of script and direction.

Both The Sash and Kitchen might come under the theatre banner, and has some overlap in themes, but they are as different in genre as The Velvet Underground and Wylie: if theatre is more comfortable with its own past than popular music, it has a similar diversity of style, which is sometimes obscured by the conformity of critical approaches. In the example of the Traverse's Fifty emerging playwrights, or the various performances that visit Summerhall (from zomble infestation immersive, scientific theatre to French clown tales of Russian writers), it's possible to imagine a variety of voices that specialise as much as the independent music charts. 

But for Emans there is something that connects all great theatre. "I am interested in plays that can transform people - that an audience come out of it thinking different things -  it's almost therapeutic," he says.  "The name of my company,  Rapture means a heightened state of awareness. Spectacle  is wonderful but if the substance can move people that is more wonderful." And above all, Kitchen and The Sash are connected by their willingness to provoke both questions and this intense experience.



The Sash On tour across Scotland until June 
Gob Squad's Kitchen The Arches 3 May, 7,30pm 

Introducing Matt Posity talkin' with his Gob

Five of the 10 top selling books on Amazon in Britain are colouring books for adults.

Gob Squad: Trying to get to grips with a Blown Mind...

Gob Squad: Western Society: first thoughts

Trust me, I am going to musing on this production for a while.

There will be a review up on The List's website.

I have to spend some time thinking about what I have seen.

There is little enough, scraps only, to talk about if we are thinking

plot. Gob Squad found a short video (of A Party in California). Nothing happens... nothing dramatic. This isn't, as they say, one of those good videos where a cat falls in a toilet and the internet rejoices.

It's just some people who aren't really communicating with each other, but having some cake. There is a dancing grandmother. 

Noting her energy:age proportions, they briefly consider whether she has a good contact for pharmaceuticals.

Gob Squad have some familiar strategies, which they used in Kitchen. They get members of the audience up on stage to do the acting. They also film the acting and project it onto a screen.

Their ambition is to recreate That Party. They get the audience to join them to be the guests at That Party.

Then they interrupt to ask each other questions, all game show

tension and vacuous dualities.

Is this film or theatre?

Is it live or mediated?

Theatre or ritual?

Lady Gaga or John the Baptist?

Void or Meaning?

Trust me, I am going to on here a cat falls a toilet this production for a while.

 dancing grandmother will be a review 

I have to  John Baptist? what I have.

There is enough, contact for. only, talk about if we are thinking. Gob Squad found a short spend time thinking about(A Party in California). ... proportions dramatic. This isn't, up on List's website. as they say, one those good videos w and the internet rejoices.

just some people who they aren't really with each other, but having some. There is a. 

Noting energy:age , recreate That Party. They briefly little do the acting. They also film acting and project it onto a screen. consider she has a good 

Gob Squad have scraps some video to ask each other questions,

all familiar strategies, they used in Kitchen. They get of the mediated?

or ritual?

Lady Gaga or

Void or ?audience up on stage

ambition is to  the audience to join them to be the guests at That Party.

Then they game tension and vacuous dualities. Nothing happens

Is this film or?

Is it live 

Behaviour: Lippy and Western Society

A New Recipe For Old Scraps

The genius of Gob Squad’s Kitchen is in its ability to provoke radically different interpretations. On one level, it is another formal exercise in testing the limits of the fourth wall: members of the audience gradually replace the players, and the use of a large screen, upon which the actions of the play are projected, highlights the expected division between stage and auditorium. On another, it’s a eulogy to the spirit of the 1960s, a close-up on the moment when the potential of the age was about to become a radical questioning of social and aesthetic values. And it is a complaint about the way in which this energy was dispersed, until the imaginative gestures of Warhol’s art became a series of mannered tropes, replacing the genuine inquisitive approaches with a series of recognisable strategies.

Gob Squad set out their idea quickly. They are going to recreate the filming of Warhol’s film, to get back into the state of mind that allowed the cast and crew to abandon the usual details of creativity – stuff like learning lines, or having a plot. There are several lengthy monologues that fake excitement for this past – usually with an undertow of anxiety and fear – and a couple of interludes that ponder how even getting sexy is fraught with irony, these days. At the height of the performance, the cast wig out, in a horribly rigid way, pretending that they are either at an orgy, or on LSD.

It is so terribly melancholic, with the overwhelming sense that the good times have long since disappeared. Knowing that the same people who were Warhol’s superstars went on to become casualties of their freedoms undermines an unabashed celebration of sex and drugs.

From this very self-conscious foundation, Gob Squad manage to come up with something original. By taking younger members of the audience to play them, they set up a delicious tension between their younger selves and their more knowing present identities. A woman questions her stand-in about the difficulties of balancing “the rock’n’roll lifestyle” with the desire for a stable family life. A man tries to fake hipness, only to have details of his real life beyond the stage revealed which deconstruct his veneer of cool. The constant play between “the real” and “the performed” undercuts both Warhol’s attempt to capture the authentic in art and Gob Squad’s journey back to an innocent time.

Most tellingly, Gob Squad use an apparent exercise in art archaeology to comment on cultural

anxiety. While the 1960s promoted the belief in change, its triumph only replaced one set of expectations with another. In particular, Warhol’s Factory was the nexus for a certain sort of experimentation, a social and artistic experimentation so successful that it became a bohemian establishment. Revolutions, both artistic and political, are exposed as a natural process that might change the surface details but can never depose the tyranny of time, which revolves the provocative into the predictable.

The various speeches appearing to praise the adventure of the 1960s are ironically the bitterest condemnations. Speculating on a future audience, which looks aback at the filmed moments as the origin of a brave new world, Gob Squad emphasis the failure of the experiment. The very performance they present, for all its wit, good humour, generosity and imagination, is, in itself, an almost ritualistic repetition of the past, another attempt to break free of influence, doomed to failure. 

The Past is Haunting Me Like Marxist Language

There is a spectre that haunts the contemporary arts. It whispers dark mockery in the ear of the conceptualist, hobbles the choreographer and detunes the melodies of the composer. Anxiety of influence isn’t merely the late night panic attack striking down the critic as he tries to say something original about yet another rendition of Macbeth. It grows in a straight line from 1913’s Rite of Spring, which both heralded the arrival of the contemporary age and offended a conservative public, through to Andy Warhol and the 1960s, when it became the popular and froze a generation into a series of strategies that replaced genuine experimentation.

The failure of originality has become a strategy in itself. The current celebrations and reflections on The Rite’s anniversary only underline how this moment in the arts’ history has become a symbol of potential and a headstone for experimentation. Rob Drummond’s Riot of Spring was a sideways look at the way in which Stravinsky’s music has become part of the establishment – the music is now protected by copyright to such an extent that even displaying the score on stage is illegal. Meanwhile, Gob Squad’s Kitchen simultaneously praises the potential of Warhol’s cinema and mourns the loss of the innocent spirit that allowed such bold experiments.

Post-modernism, still a vital interpretative philosophy doesn’t help. The emphasis on a diversity of opinions and its distrust of sincerity can encourage artists towards trivial positions – any grand narrative is fundamentally dishonest. Taylor Mac, as part of his recent show at The Arches, observed that self-consciousness has destroyed the unashamed intensity that drove much of the pop music before the 1990s: the irony that permits the most absurd lyric to be readmitted to the musical cannon also cripples the modern song-writer. The continued distaste for U2 is as much about their brazen sincerity as the predictable sound of their latest album.

Simon Reynolds pokes around in the contemporary confusion in his book Retromania, but the problems he detects are not limited to music. Indeed, although he takes up the story implied in the name of indie-dance also-rans Pop Will Eat Itself, pop music is the art least damaged by the trend towards recycling of ideas.

Even in its early years, rock’n’roll was all about reworking older ideas, and the cult of the artist maintains at least the aura of originality. Drummond, in an interview before his Riot, talks about the impossibility of creating something genuinely new. Like many theatre-makers, he is interested in experimentation. Yet he is honest enough to recognise that he is caught within a tradition, and that “the new” is usually a mere variation on a theme.

Gob Squad are even more explicit in Kitchen. Basing their performance on a series of Warhol’s films – including the one about the blow job, Kitchen itself and his series of screen tests – they are simultaneously sentimental about the freedoms of the 1960s and ambivalent about its social and aesthetic impact. While their Kitchen takes on a diverse range of themes, including the battles between youth and experience, audience and artists, it seems to mourn the last moment in which true experimentation was possible.

The signs of an artistic culture in crisis, a crisis that can only come about when there is a sense that everything has been done, are manifold. Last year, every other production at the Fringe seemed to be a version of Macbeth. Never mind that some versions – Song of the Goat’s polyphonic spree, David Greig’s imaginative sequel Dunsinane – added new readings. A proliferation of Shakespeare hints at a theatre tied up with the past and lacking confidence in the present, or even the recent past. It’s more miserable in that Macbeth has elements that are utterly irrelevant to contemporary life – the plot is driven by a concern about regal hereditary, a matter of interest to Prince Charles but not leaders of terrorist cells.

Then there are the works-in-progress. Again, this isn’t a question of individual pieces relative quality: far too much work is being offered in a tentative, incomplete state. That critics have taken to treating works-in-progress as completed is problematic: there have been five star reviews of shows that are being presented with actors still reading from the script. Combine this with the pieces that explicitly take other works as their guiding idea, and theatre isn’t just eating itself, it’s becoming a middle class version of Two Girls, One Cup.

And the festival is becoming the unit of artistic presentation: plays are clustered together, hiding from individual exposure. All of these strategies are valid, intriguing, and there are good performances in the mix. But taken together, they suggest a certain aesthetic cowardice.

It’s worth saying that no individual work of art – especially those that get mentioned here – is necessarily an act of cowardice in itself. And the strategies being used by the artists don’t imply a capitulation of either ambition or seriousness. Rather, there are trends in art that reflect a cultural malaise. It’s bold to attempt any analysis of this malaise, but sitting through five or six plays that use reproduction of past songs to make a political point tends to lead to grand statements. And if the problem is a lack of ambition, perhaps it is time for a critic to make a ridiculous and large theory, the better to be shot down by artists making work that argues with the contention that “art is being hamstrung by its own self-conscious awareness of the past.”

END OF PART ONE