Interludes

VIEWPOINTS: Space and Perspective Relative to Performance (Part II – Breaking the Fourth Wall, and Then Some)

• By drediman
• March 31, 2014
• No Comments

In the previous installment, I explored how one’s experience of performance can be affected not only by the dimensions of the playing space, but also by one’s physical location within the audience. In this installment, I further explore space and perspective in relation to performance by discussing the theatrical impact of breaking the fourth wall and allowing the audience to enter the world of the performance. I would argue that this act of “walking through the lookingglass” of the fourth wall requires even more engagement from the audience than sitting in your typical proscenium theater. In the latter experience, one can get away with letting the performance happen to you (e.g., the symphony, musical comedy) and have a perfectly good time. However, the very act of entering the world of the performance requires some level of engagement and suspension of disbelief (which is usually accomplished with the help of environmental sound design and moody lighting) by the audience in order to work. If one is unable or unwilling to meet the performance halfway, the whole performance is likely to fall flat, and the resultant experience can be miserably awkward and uncomfortable. Although, if the audience is willing to surrender to the world that they’ve chosen to enter, the impact can be extremely potent, creating a sort of theatrical alchemy much different from than the safe “proscenium” experience. Indeed, at its most potent, breaking the fourth wall can be a most jarring and intoxicating experience with almost limitless thrilling possibilities.

Step one: breaking the fourth wall

There are different levels of immersion into the world of the performance, with each level requiring increasing amounts of engagement from the audience in order for the performance to be effective. The first level simply simply requires the audience to walk through the fourth wall. Off-Broadway, shows like David Cromer’s searing production of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”, Bedlam Theater’s spirited recent repertory productions of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and Shaw’s “Saint Joan”, and the irresistible musical “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812” fall into this category. In London, I had the opportunity to catch a sensationally immersive staging of Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” in which the audience followed the action around a seemingly abandoned warehouse located in an area of London in which the story is set. Ever since Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats”, which brilliantly transformed the Winter Garden Theatre into a playground for felines, Broadway has attempted to break the fourth wall by bringing scenic elements of shows into the auditorium. Examples certainly include other British mega-musicals like “Starlight Express”, “Les Miserables”, and “The Phantom of the Opera”. Recent examples include the likes of “Fela!” and “Rock of Ages”.  Currently on Broadway, the two most successful examples of breaking the fourth wall are the musical adaptation of “Rocky”, which is thrillingly directed Alex Timbers, and the Sam Mendes-directed iconic revival of Kander and Ebb’s “Cabaret”. In “Rocky” (which features a score by Ahrens and Flaherty), there is a much talked-about second act coup in which the audience finds itself transported to the arena of the climactic bout. In the landmark musical “Cabaret”, Studio 54 (at least the orchestra and front mezzanine sections) has been convincingly recast as a Weinmar era cabaret.  Speaking of “Cabaret”, I would also put the experience of attending actual cabaret on the list of performance types that engulf the audience into the world of the performance. In the case of cabaret and even concerts, the audience becomes essential (hopefully willing) props in the shrine of the performer’s ego. The extreme example of this was the xx’s recent memorable gig at the massive Park Avenue Armory, at which there was a maximum of only 40-odd guests in attendance.

The ability to shift perspectives

The next level of immersion into the world of performance is attained by giving the audience the power to choose their perspectives during the duration of the show. By its very nature, all shows feature this optionality. When attending live performance, the audience has the freedom to focus on whomever and whatever is onstage they please from the vantage of their seats. Furthermore, as part of their technique to break the fourth wall, a few of the productions mentioned above (e.g., Broadway’s “Rocky”, the Bedlam productions) make it mandatory for their audiences to move seats during the performance, allowing for different perspectives of the action during the course of the show, which gives the audience the opportunity to engage in the world of the performance in a different way within the same show. However, there have been a recent crop of shows that give the audience the constant opportunity to curate their own perspectives of the proceedings within the world of the performance (as if at a rock concert). The British company Punchdrunk is at the forefront of giving its audience the power to choose their own vantage point from which to follow characters and events, as evidenced by their current New York smash “Sleep No More” (loosely based on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”) and London masterpiece “The Drowned Man” (loosely based on Georg Buchner’s fragmented play “Woyzeck”). To a lesser extent, this ability to shift perspectives at one’s will can be found in the several of the popular “disco” shows, such as David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s “Here Lies Love” (again directed by wunderkind Alex Timbers and based on the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos), Diane Paulus’s “The Donkey Show” (loosely based on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”), and the high energy, rave-inspired “Fuerza Bruta”.

Shades of interaction

The last level of immersion into the world of performance that I want to touch on is accomplished by allowing the interaction of the audience with the performers to shape how the story of the performance unfolds. Again, this optionality is present to some degree in all shows: the level of engagement from the audience usually informs the actions of the performers, particularly in somewhat interactive performances like cabaret acts. However, some shows have taken this approach a step further by relying on audience interaction with the performers to create highly personalized, intimate narratives for both the the audience and performers alike. In order to accomplish this, certain shows have minimized the number of audience members admitted and have adopted a more linear if/then approach (as opposed to the open-ended experience of Punchdrunk’s shows). These shows include Third Rail Project’s soulful “Then She Fell”, Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects’ extremely intimate dance piece “4Chambers”, and the sumptuous “Queen of the Night” at the legendary Horseshoe in the basement of the Paramount Hotel. “Then She Fell”, a riff on the celebrated literary work “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and Lewis Carroll himself, is a lovingly hand-crafted guided tour of an enchanted mental ward in which one’s path is determined by how one interacts with the characters (as well as luck). In “4Chambers”, I allowed my self to be swept up and touched, both literally and figuratively, by the performers through dance, movement, and the exploration of the “heart”. Finally, in “Queen of the Night”, which is a prequel of sorts to the Mozart opera “The Magic Flute”, the audience members are very much characters in the piece and are in fact asked to dress the part (as invitees to Princess Pamina’s debutante ball, which is thrown by her mother, the Queen of the Night) via a formal dress code; as such, the audience is expected to interact with the significant characters.

Those of us willing to fully engage in these levels of immersion are given the key to parallel universes which can inform us as as much as we inform the art form. Alchemy, indeed.