Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
December 3, 2009
On Seeing What You’re Not Supposed to See
Stagehands at the Federal Theatre, 193-?
On the Guardian’s impeccable theatre blog, the always-heady performance artist and theorist Tim Etchells writes about his fascination with prompters, stage hands, and the other amanuenses of the theater you’re not supposed to watch.
Part of this may be perversity on my part, attracted as I am by anything on stage that does not ask for my attention. During the longer scenes at school pantos, I’m always scanning the faces of the kids at the back – their restlessness and lapses in concentration make a fine counterpoint to the drama…
Sometimes I think that what grips me in all this is the idea of the figure at the edge of the stage, like something out of a Brueghel painting. Brecht wrote well about Breughel, but there’s another Brechtian thing that really interests me here: the business of work. Watching performers doing tasks like these (the prompter, the reader-of-stage-directions) is akin to watching roadies at a gig. That workmanlike attitude, those functional gestures of replacing a microphone or making sure a keyboard doesn’t fall over play so well, and are such a great foil for the melodramatic performance of your average rock star.
I think this article rises from the same perversely curious spirit that informs the final five minutes of The Mystery of Irma Vep. I won’t give away more than I already have, but suffice it to say that it’s been the most controversial sticking point of our production.
The Mystery of Irma Vep runs Wednesday through Sunday until December 13.
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