Reviewing My Own Past. I am an idiot.

Within an academic context, Radical Subjectivity is a problematic methodology. Having coined the term to describe a range of diverse strategies within my own popular criticism, I adapted its definition to suit any approaches I'd later use within The Vile Blog. 

In one memorably incoherent article, I attempted to discuss semiotics by evoking a couple of productions that I had seen (Slope and Tomorrow) and Honzl, a Czech theorist I must have found in one of my trawls of Marvin Carlson's writing. Although, on first reading, I can't imagine why I thought publishing an article like this on a blog that is supposedly dedicated to 'populist' critique was a good idea, it does represent some aspects of radical subjectivity's style.

First of all, there is the awkward juxtaposition of academic and popular criticism. The focus of the article is Honzl's analysis of theatre semiotics - he observes that any object, placed in a theatrical performance, can take on a variety of meanings. However, the references to Untitled Project's Slope and Vanishing Point's Tomorrow allude to contemporary performances (in 2014) and the process of reviewing. 

The two forms are shoved together shamelessly, with Slope and Tomorrow providing examples of Honzl's semiotic analysis. This suggests both a historical context for the two productions, and updates Honzl into a contemporary context.

The framing of the article also insists on a contemporary context: both the first paragraph and the last (a circular structure, doubtlessly influenced by theatrical performances - such as Robert Softley's Purposeless Movements which ends with the same lines at the beginning and end of the show) discuss the then-relevant threat by Anonymous to publish material that would shame Iggy Azalea. 

This reference, of course, dates the article. 

Then there is the repeated use of humour, often misplaced. This supposedly lessens the seriousness of the material but also reveals the personality of the author (confused and childish, most likely). 

Elsewhere, I place my methodology within a tradition of reader response theory. 

It's Awards Time!

Quick! Before it is the New Year! The Vile Arts presents...

the vile arts awards for 2014.

Having got distracted and never completed my Fibonacci sequence listing of theatre events, I thought I would make up some specious categories and pretend that people might be able to use them on their funding applications.

The Ancient and Modern Award
goes to Matthew Whiteside, for his project to bring back the viola d'amore (spelling provided by M. Whiteside) and compose a work for the baroque favourite and electronics. The album will be released in 2015.

The Hot Guys in the Scud Award
And it's Slope that gets this one, specifically for the interlude in London. I still feel deeply insecure about my physicality now.

The Pantomime Award
For consistent breaking of the barrier between stage and audience: Dominic Hill for The Libertine, which had a stage upon the stage and the protagonist was back stage on stage. Beat that, Barrowman!

Butoh Award
Congratulations to Paul Michael Henry, who is on a crusade to bring back butoh to Glasgow. Workshops, solo performances, arranging a festival. He does the lot, and as a fan of the only art-form that cuts to the chase of the human condition, I approve.

The Mañana Award
Once again, this goes to Gareth K Vile, who may or may not do another list of awards, depending on his ability to get up before midday.

Madness in his Method

After they have realised that they won't be able to get me to just shut up, people often ask me why I bang on about methodology. Following the latest debacle from Anonymous - the one where they said that they had stuff on Iggy that would make Bill Cosby look like an innocent (implying that they have material on her that is worse than drugging and raping women) - I am all the more convinced that, as The Fun Boy Three reminded me, it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it. 

Today's lecture is on theatre as semiotic system. You can jump to the post in which I talk about face sitting now.

Honzl, one of the Prague Linguistic School (once again, thank wikipedia), pointed out in 1940 that 'stage space need not be spatial... and scenery can be a text'. Apart from the obvious implication that radio plays and post visual theatre are now in the game, Honzl is opening up the possibility that the usual gubbins of theatre can be absent, and the performance can still be a play.

Since he died before Andy Arnold staged some plays in the toilets at The Arches, Honzl has to be content with pointing out how the use of sound denoted the stage in The Cherry Orchard before proudly stating 'modern theatre has had the effect precisely of freeing the stage from its previously permanent architectural constraints'. 

He'd love the NTS' theatre without walls slogan.

After a brief detour into cubo-futurist theatre (sorry, can't help you with that), he preempts Goffman by considering the theatre of everyday life, Honzl celebrates the new freedoms of scenography and metonymic scenery. Finally, he gets to semiotics.

My understanding of semiotics is that it is a system of signs that, taken collectively, represent meaning. I emphasis context as a defining quality, and my current attempt to learn French by just reading loads of it in the vague hope of getting the general idea is a holistic effort to use the semiotics of a language. 

It's not working. 

In the olden days, anyhow, the scenery of the stage tried to be complete and realistic: those bloody backdrops, the attention to detail, the changes between the scene in the bathroom and the scene in the garden. 

Honzl, had he seen Slope, would have rejoiced in the way that a single chair could be used to evoke multiple different things, depending on who was sitting on it/ throwing it across the room/ trying to use the leg as a sex aid. He talks about a plank being used to represent multiple things in those whacky cubo-futurist shows, and the way that Meyerhold used a crate in Tarelkin's Death to represent 'any number of things, but none of them without ambiguity'.

Back to Slope, where Pamela Carter and Stewart Laing used a

from Slope

minimum of props and scenery to represent Verlaine's posh home, a doss-house in London and a bog in a fancy hotel. 

And here's where Honzl gets helpful: it is the antics of the actor, he notes, that provides the context that gives meaning to the scenography. In Vanishing Point's Tomorrow, for comparison, there was no need for hospital beds, institutional walls and nurses in sexy outfits to conjure the ward. The script did the heavy lifting. 

Honzl nails the magic of Meyerhold's allusive, even indeterminate use of objects: it's not abstract because each object has a very clear function. It was 'the actor's actions' that gave the objects their 'representative function'.

Honzl goes on to give a bit of historical context, noting how the revolution in theatre had stripped away the conventions of the nineteenth century, then hits the reader with another whammy. 

It is in the changeability, he says, of the theatrical sign that the main difficulty of defining theatrical art lies. Definitions of this concept either narrow down theatricality to the manner of expression of our conventional drama... or expand it to such an extent that it becomes meaningless.

The latter is exactly what Schechner does with his 'broad school of performance' position. Once everything is theatre, nothing is. 
(That probably needs unpacking, but would require E-Prime to explain.)

In a semiotic approach, this is a pain. The traditional elements combine to create a system, I think. I know I am watching Romeo and Juliet and not a fight in Sauchiehall Street because Romeo is wearing tights and we are in the Theatre Royal. Get rid of too much semiotic context, and I am not sure whether to applaud the fight choreography or stand between the two men wailing on each other.

Honzl starts cutting away the elements that are essential for theatre. The writer goes, the actor - puppets, anyone? - then the director. He concludes that the semiotic systems change in different historical periods, but are rarely fixed to include all the elements - then Wagner turns up.

As always, I'll remind you that I do do funny posts on this blog, too. 

Anyway, Wagner's gesamtkunswerk, Honzl says, gathers together all different arts and makes theatre the sum of the other arts. In an aside, he invents the theory of post-dramatic theatre... which is kind of cool,  but not really for this article. Still, Honzl is the fucking  man.

And he boots out Wagner by mentioning those solo monologues that just have the actor in them.. no sum of arts there, sunbeam. Plus, and this really impresses me, Wagner has this madcap idea that completely ignores the subjectivity of the audience experience. 

He's too polite to say it, but most productions of The Ring involve periods where the audience either nods off or tries to ignore the music and, if they are lucky, focus on the cute woman in the Valkyrie outfit.

He spends the rest of the essay dismissing other ideas, before admitting that he just wanted to make it all a big problem: he compares theatre to the Trinity (out of Christianity) and laughs at its 'protean' dynamism. As it turned out, this article wasn't about methodology, or semiotics, really. It was about the negative capability of definition, or something. 

However, bullying woman is not a good look, Anonymous.

Three Terrible Things in 2014 and Three Great things

It's all personal opinion, but I have to say something...

I am slowly going through the past year, trying to remember whether this happened in 2013 or that happened in 2014... and a few things have come up that I need to get off my chest. I'm pairing them with positives, so I don't end up needing additional medication for depression when I read over them...


The Flaming Lips (Terrible) and Slope (Great)


An interesting combination, but the final Untitled production and the collaborative album made by the Last Living Hippies share an interest in iconographies past. But while Laing's study of French poetic love triangles is a merciless deconstruction of macho romanticism, The Flaming Lips have a nostalgic wank over The Beatles.

Admittedly, Laing's collaborators for Slope helped the seriousness: if he had Miley Cyrus on his rolodex instead of Pamela Cater, he would have come up with something as lame as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, too. But while Wayne Coyne wallowed in the lascivious shallows of psychedelia, Laing used the eroticism of two naked actors to conjure all the awkwardness and thrill of dirty sex, before slamming home a dark critique of alternative culture's roll of fame. 

Self-regarding, lazy and derivative, The Flaming Lips are evidence that while John Lydon is no longer worth a click, his dictum 'never trust a hippy' stands for the ages.

That Producer I met during the Fringe and BHP

It's not just that I enjoy their publications - Laptop Guy is a synthesis of Jack Lothian's clear storytelling and Sha Nazir's increasingly distinctive art - BHP are living up to their mission 'to expand comic culture.' Whether that means getting cos-players to hang out in the CCA during Comic Con (meaning that high art and the performativity of dressing up like Wonder Woman meet, at last), or championing sequential machinics as a valid academic discipline, The Naz, Lothian and Mark B are pushing the boundaries of the old four colour funny books.

That producer, on the other hand, told me that all critics ought to be shot, because they damage the reputation of his restaurants by pointing out their failings. I guess he has the same attitude to those Health and Safety Inspectors who insist that the chef shouldn't add Winner's Sauce to every dish on the menu. I asked him whether I ought to change the label on my business card to 'cheerleader'.

The Eye and Scottish Hip Hop
I am rather hoping that someone will explain why Scottish hip hop is more than just an embarrassing meeting of The Proclaimers and Vanilla Ice... that's fucking scathing, and I have spent the year trying not to be rude about Scottish hip hop but...


I'm not mentioning any particular artists by name, because Scottish hip hop is an emerging art form, and some of the people involved might well be nice people (although I have it on record that at least one rapper acts like a proper arse in the club). However, the main reference point for too much SHH is The Streets and the attempts to adapt Chuck D's proclamation that hip hop can be 'the black CNN' to Caledonia has encouraged lumbering raps that are either naive or confused. 

There is interesting potential in the appropriation of African-American culture by Scottish rappers, but it would be nice if they appropriated the aesthetic values as well as the surface. I'm talking creative use of beats, flow and personality in the voice, production polish - the glitchy tunes and clumsy rhymes might be a dramaturgical choice, but the dramaturgical consequence is... it sounds shit, mate.

The Eye, on the other hand, is the latest work in process by Jack Wrigley, Robbie Thomson and Emilia Weber, and the last vestige of Untitled. Expect something sensual emerging in 2015. 

Slope @ The Citz

Slope @ Tramway

If Rimbaud were alive today, he'd be throwing televisions out of hotel windows.

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED 15 JULY 2006

Director and designer Stewart Laing has been working on projects at Tramway for nearly ten years, and his latest work, 'Slope', a dramatisation of the love affair between the French poets Rimbaud and Verlaine, is the finale of the summer programme. Beginning with Rimbaud's dramatic arrival in 1870s Paris, and ending with Verlaine's shooting of his lover in Brussels, the play explores the tension and passions of two men in revolt from society, exploring the extremities of sexual, political and literary experience.

Coming from an art school background, and known for his work in opera, Stewart Laing is enthusiastic both about the intimacy of this production and Tramway's approach to theatre. As we sit in the Hidden Gardens at the rear of the building, he explains to me the attraction of Rimbaud's approach to life, the contemporary relevance of the story and the challenges of exploring history on stage.

"Slope is about the four or five years that Rimbaud was involved with Verlaine," he begins. "He arrived in Paris when he was so young, and he had to have certain experiences to make his work. He deliberately pushed to the extremes: alcohol abuse, drug abuse and tortuous relationships fuelled the work."

It seems that poetry is not associated with wild behaviour these days. In what ways does Rimbaud speak to a modern audience?

"Pete Doherty identifies himself as a poet," says Laing by way of example. "He came to prominence as a teenage poet. He went on tour with the British Council to Russia, promoting him as an example of the best of British.

"In terms of rock music, Patti Smith was obsessed with Rimbaud. Jim Morrison from the Doors, David Bowie and indeed Pete all quote Rimbaud as a champion - not only in terms of the work but the rock and roll lifestyle. If he were alive today, he'd be throwing televisions out of hotel windows."

Tramway is promoting 'Slope' as adult entertainment. At the heart of the play is a homosexual relationship which would be controversial even today: "When he met Rimbaud, Verlaine was married and his wife was pregnant. Then these two men started having an affair and ran away to London, exploring the seamier side of life. Even now people would sit up and listen.

"They lived together as a married couple. They shared one room. They were incredibly forward thinking, in terms of modern gay life. But they were always worried about what people in Paris thought about them. Verlaine would write letters to his wife, saying 'we are just studying here'. Then you read the poems and they are all about men's arseholes and cocks.

"But they were not 'gay men'. If any modern label could be fitted to them they were both bisexual: they were seeing women at the same time that they were lovers. You can't contextualise them as 'out and proud' in terms of Victorian society."

Is it possible to understand a nineteenth century love affair in terms of modern attitudes?

"Well, we are not trying to do something historically accurate - the language isn't," says Laing. "This isn't 'authentic' in that sense, but adapted to be interesting to people today: rather it is suggestive. There is a Victorian framework.

"Homosexuality was still a medical condition. The word 'homosexual' was a medical description of a disorder. They were interested in everything that life had to offer, anything subversive: politically, artistically, lifestyle and sexuality. It is difficult to think how radical two men living together would be in that time."

The social pressures on the couple eventually led to their break-up. Laing explains that "Rimbaud is doing it as an experiment: what is outside this box that we call society. He was academically very gifted. For Verlaine, Rimbaud represented anarchy, his wife comfort. He could never embrace the anarchy alone. Whether it was through alcoholic delusion or not, his idea was that the three of them could live together and bring up his kid. That was his fantasy.

"Both Rimbaud and Verlaine's wife told him that he was insane. They were in something that they couldn't get out of."

Laing has a very clear vision of his protagonist's passions and addictive behaviours. 'Slope' looks at the chaos that Rimbaud caused, in a period of rapid social change. It is both a domestic drama - about a love triangle and the pull of different desires - and a meditation on the process of artistic creation.

Originally Printed in The Skinny: Slope as an action based on Grotowski

'From this radically slanted perspective, they look down on the actors as if watching animals in a ring, or like medical students watching an operation ((also, this detached, downward viewing gives the action a sense of moral transgression)'

Jerzy Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre

Now I know where Stewart Laing got the idea to have Slope performed in a little box above which we watched...

If Rimbaud were alive today, he'd be throwing televisions out of hotel windows.
FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED 15 JULY 2006



Director and designer Stewart Laing has been working on projects at Tramway for nearly ten years, and his latest work, 'Slope', a dramatisation of the love affair between the French poets Rimbaud and Verlaine, is the finale of the summer programme. Beginning with Rimbaud's dramatic arrival in 1870s Paris, and ending with Verlaine's shooting of his lover in Brussels, the play explores the tension and passions of two men in revolt from society, exploring the extremities of sexual, political and literary experience.




Coming from an art school background, and known for his work in opera, Stewart Laing is enthusiastic both about the intimacy of this production and Tramway's approach to theatre. As we sit in the Hidden Gardens at the rear of the building, he explains to me the attraction of Rimbaud's approach to life, the contemporary relevance of the story and the challenges of exploring history on stage.




"Slope is about the four or five years that Rimbaud was involved with Verlaine," he begins. "He arrived in Paris when he was so young, and he had to have certain experiences to make his work. He deliberately pushed to the extremes: alcohol abuse, drug abuse and tortuous relationships fuelled the work."




It seems that poetry is not associated with wild behaviour these days. In what ways does Rimbaud speak to a modern audience?




"Pete Doherty identifies himself as a poet," says Laing by way of example. "He came to prominence as a teenage poet. He went on tour with the British Council to Russia, promoting him as an example of the best of British.




"In terms of rock music, Patti Smith was obsessed with Rimbaud. Jim Morrison from the Doors, David Bowie and indeed Pete all quote Rimbaud as a champion - not only in terms of the work but the rock and roll lifestyle. If he were alive today, he'd be throwing televisions out of hotel windows."




Tramway is promoting 'Slope' as adult entertainment. At the heart of the play is a homosexual relationship which would be controversial even today: "When he met Rimbaud, Verlaine was married and his wife was pregnant. Then these two men started having an affair and ran away to London, exploring the seamier side of life. Even now people would sit up and listen.




"They lived together as a married couple. They shared one room. They were incredibly forward thinking, in terms of modern gay life. But they were always worried about what people in Paris thought about them. Verlaine would write letters to his wife, saying 'we are just studying here'. Then you read the poems and they are all about men's arseholes and cocks.




"But they were not 'gay men'. If any modern label could be fitted to them they were both bisexual: they were seeing women at the same time that they were lovers. You can't contextualise them as 'out and proud' in terms of Victorian society."




Is it possible to understand a nineteenth century love affair in terms of modern attitudes?




"Well, we are not trying to do something historically accurate - the language isn't," says Laing. "This isn't 'authentic' in that sense, but adapted to be interesting to people today: rather it is suggestive. There is a Victorian framework.




"Homosexuality was still a medical condition. The word 'homosexual' was a medical description of a disorder. They were interested in everything that life had to offer, anything subversive: politically, artistically, lifestyle and sexuality. It is difficult to think how radical two men living together would be in that time."




The social pressures on the couple eventually led to their break-up. Laing explains that "Rimbaud is doing it as an experiment: what is outside this box that we call society. He was academically very gifted. For Verlaine, Rimbaud represented anarchy, his wife comfort. He could never embrace the anarchy alone. Whether it was through alcoholic delusion or not, his idea was that the three of them could live together and bring up his kid. That was his fantasy.




"Both Rimbaud and Verlaine's wife told him that he was insane. They were in something that they couldn't get out of."




Laing has a very clear vision of his protagonist's passions and addictive behaviours. 'Slope' looks at the chaos that Rimbaud caused, in a period of rapid social change. It is both a domestic drama - about a love triangle and the pull of different desires - and a meditation on the process of artistic creation.