In conceptualising the work in LOVE INTERRUPTED I have found it beneficial to understand that the type of performance making that I am undertaking is indeed post-modern. From this perspective it helps me to understand the mechanics of the mode of this particular production while understanding its place within the wider context of contemporary performance making. Post modernism is something that I feel a lot of people take for granted when creating contemporary theatre. Having an intellectual understanding of the theory behind it allows for a more self aware engagement with the act of making ‘work ‘. This theoretical understanding will hopefully infuse the work on the theme of ‘LOVE INTERRUPTED’ with more scope and potentialities. I see post-modernism and its continuum of meanings as being central to my engagement with this performance although I do not believe this is a shared value I have with Davina which makes working together at times quite challenging as she comes from a more linear narrative focused or conservative understanding of theatre, and I seem to want to deconstruct those modes in my approach – this is where things get tricky - However, regardless of outcome I feel more grounded in myself knowing that I have this as a resource which will hopefully unconsciously and consciously inform the process of making the work and indeed the way I embody it come performance week in October
With the collapse of the modernist boundaries, post-modern theatre takes on pluralism and multiplicity in style, approach and over-all process.
Another important post-modern theatre practice is the use of inter-text, or what Jameson calls a culture of quotations, where various texts could be used to comment on each other – This resonates with me very strongly and I have found Frederick Jameson’s work on post modernism particularly stimulating and his theory of the culture of quotations as being highly informative in the exploring of the theme ‘LOVE INTERUPTED’
“The deadening effect that swallows our highly revered icons of our culture. E.g. .The Mona Lisa – we can’t see past the cultural baggage attached to the imaged – I want to explore the symbol of ‘love’ in context of the way it is ladened with cultural baggage and then sample and remix these images or ‘signs’. Nothing is ORIGINAL –LOVE INTERUPTED needs to be fragmented and pieced together from many different sources so that it gets a its energy from the links and echoes that are set up between the different elements.
I think that the multiplicity and circulating cultural production of the images and meanings associated with ‘love’ have altered any claim to ‘truth’ in terms of its originality.
I have found it a relief to abandon the idea of originality in this process of making work in favor of this ‘shared’ approach – what has not been said about love already??
Perhaps it is in the way I construct or re-interpret these representations or indeed make visible the cultural baggage attached to ‘LOVE’ that I can expose and reveal the potential problematic tendency to adopt any absoluteness of the concept, instead embracing and exploring the complexity and diversity of these cultural representations. I hope this knowledge will mediate any possibility of an over simplification the theme ‘LOVE’. What I am finding important to my process is to embrace multi-dimensionality and simultaneity.
All the theatrical elements in this piece are interconnected. I want to use multi media to show how each signifying element - lights, visual design, music, etc - stand to some degree as independent form me as the performance maker, but also intrinsic to the overall experience. Indeed the way the audience is engaged in a post modern theatre is different from conventional or classical modes of ‘reading’ performance. The challenge is to change the relationship between myself and the audience (as offered by Deborah) - and this is still very important to me in this production. I hope that I can fulfill that challenge in both literal or more symbolic ways. This shifting of audience/performer relationship sits perfectly with a post-modern inquiry as post-modern theatre is required to go through a dialogic process of taking theory into practice and back to theory for it to be able to express itself and so the post-modern audience then is also called to go through this process of meaning-making. Here, post-modern theatre forces its audience to always take on a critical stance in watching. Language-creation and meaning making in post-modern theatre is never a simple one-on-one correspondence mode of cognition.
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