Recently reading Jonathan Kalb’s Great Lengths, his book about marathon theatre productions, I began to muse about the idea of excess. In recent years it has been not only excessive length which has captured the imagination of artists, but also excessive action, excessive volume. In 2007, the live band of Theater of a Two-Headed Calf’s Drum of the Waves of Horikawa provided an extremely loud musical accompaniment. Drew Baker’s 2008 composition Stress Position, written for Marilyn Nonken, electronically amplifies a piano played at ffff in an effort to test and even exceed the toleration of the audience’s hearing. In 2009, John Zorn’s score for Richard Foreman’s Astronome was played so loudly that the Ontological’s ushers puckishly distributed disposable earplugs to audience members as they entered. And recently, Howard Barker has been exploring the notion of plethora in new plays and essays that similarly test the audience’s abilities to construct theatrical and dramatic experience.
What is perhaps ironic about all of these is that in an effort to overwhelm the sense of hearing, they fail, are doomed at the outset to failure — the performer is in the same room as the audience, and what would overwhelm the latter would overwhelm the former. So long as the performer continues at that volume, it remains humanly tolerable, if challenging (though only somewhat; these 50-year-old ears aren’t perhaps as sensitive as they used to be, and you’ll please forgive me if I ask you to speak to me a little louder). In most cases, this just becomes loud noise, loud enough to be tolerated, its extension over time becomes not illuminating but tedious, if annoying.
This kind of extremity, combined with an extremity of duration, design, and gesture, intends to overwhelm the individual spectator, and at the same time dissolve his individual identity into that of the collective of the audience. It is pertinent to ask at this point, then, whether this excess is a genuine insight into the noise-filled urban culture in which it is presented or it is merely a reflection of that culture — if it is art, once again, reduced to being a mirror of the world rather than a window into what lies behind it. The noise, the excess, makes it extremely hard to think — that is the intent behind it; we are instead to experience, as merely one atom in the pool of the collective audience, this monolithic excess, our own personalities erased, reduced to mere hearers rather than individual agents of perception. The experience of nuance is difficult, if not impossible. It is art — theatre and music — as steamroller.
Compare, at the other extreme, John Cage’s landmark 1952 composition 4’33″. In this brief work, composer, performer, and auditor collaborate to shape the impure silence and stillness of the performance space in time, contemplation, and gesture. (The title of Cage’s most important book, Silence, is not ironic.) The experience of 4’33″ is as disciplined for performer as it is for the auditor; additionally, it is impossible for the performer to shape the experience of the individual hearing it. The chance operations involved in the work are the possession not only of the performer but also the audience; the performer cannot dictate, in the end, what the audience is to hear. She can only attempt to shape it as the center of the visual experience of the work, provide alternatives for attention, rather than dictate the eradication of nuance. In recent years, even the stillness and silence envisioned by the piece have become intolerable to some, who have interrupted these performances with, in one case I know of, political statements — as if 4’33″ represented a kind of aesthetic and political quietism; the collective bursts into the experience of the individual once again, interrupting and undermining individual reception.
In terms of excessive length, the most recent example is the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma’s Life & Times. The first four parts of this very long work (which may, in the end, reach 24 hours) can be experienced either as a marathon or sequentially. This requires, obviously, a major investment of time (and in some cases money) for anyone who wishes to experience it as a whole. Because of this, it raises the question whether or not the audience for this experience is composed of a rather peculiar elite: an elite that can afford the time and the money to see it. After all, time spent with Life & Times is time not spent someplace else, at work, with family, or at even another play. Through its excessive vision and practice, is NTOK actually alienating and shutting out that portion of the audience that does not have the temporal or economic resources to attend?
And it is perhaps a question of resources. What I am left with, in the end, is a question about whether the theatre should concentrate on doing more with less once again, instead of more with more (or, in the worst cases, less with more). We are constantly reminded of the extent to which corporations and governments are co-opting swathes of land, of money, of natural resources that might be better left to the conservation of smaller groups. When theatre artists attempt to similarly exploit those resources — of sensual tolerance, of attention, of individual agency, of time, of money — is it not just as arrogant, just as authoritarian? Is it not yet another imposition of the collective or the dictatorial artist upon individual consciousness and the ability to make sense of the world? If we are encouraged to conserve our planet’s resources for the use of others, artists should consider conserving these resources for the use of other artists and their audiences as well.
Many years ago I had the opportunity to visit the anechoic chamber at Cooper Union. It was an extraordinary experience: in filtering out all noise, even the echo, one hears the pulse of the self. It is unique, even disturbing — but for all that, it encourages the person in the chamber to genuinely feel and hear the unique rhythms and pulses of one’s own bodied experience. I’m not suggesting that art necessarily attempt to imitate explicitly this experience. But it is an alternative to some art — which, at times, is like standing in a subway tunnel as two screeching, speeding trains collide in front of you in slow motion.
For an alternative vision, see “Theatre as sanctuary.”
Hello George,
I came upon this post through following a twitter link, and must respectfully take umbrage at a number of the points which you make here. I suppose in part, since I was fortunate to just yesterday attend Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s Life and Times, Part 1-4 marathon, and found it to be among one of the most significant experiences I have ever had within a theater. It has shaken me to my core.
1st – I feel we have two distinct questions here, one concerning “noise” work, and another concerning duration work, and while a number of artists you sight have combined these two particular aesthetic strategies, I can’t help but feel they are separate discussions. I’ve been to hour long theatrical, music, and dance works where ear plugs were handed out, as you describe in the Foreman/Zorn work, so I can’t help but feel, the 1st part of this essay confuses two separate aesthetic considerations. Your critique of the noise works, I think is fair – but I’m not so sure about utilizing it to question the validity of durational work. Noise or silence do not equal duration, although both noise and silence have been used as foundational elements within durational work. An example of the latter would be composer Morton Feldman’s 2nd string quartet, which utilizes the string quartet at a barely audible volume over six hours, which produces an experience of “careful” listening among audience members.
2) While Cage’s 4’33″ is certainly the composers most famous and well known work, it was only a small aspect of a remarkable artistic life, that took place over a long and sustained career. On the other side of the spectrum, we have his 1974 work, Empty Words, an overnight 12 hour long durational performance text/event. The simple fact of the matter is that Cage (like his friend and colleague Morton Feldman,) is a central influence for the current interest in durational performance events. Even his interest in Zen Buddhism could be seen as durational, which not only puts silence and meditation at the core of its practice, but rather intensive durational meditation. Zen practitioners don’t just meditate, they meditate for long intensive durational periods of time.
3) Related to Cage’s 4’33″, your emphasis on “brief work” as somehow being qualitatively superior to longer durational works. I can’t help but feel this is like saying since Borges wrote remarkable 2 page “stories” that somehow contradict epic long novels such as Don Quixote, the Russian masters, Joyce’s Ulysses, or Roberto Bolano’s contemporary epic 2666, and are thus not relevant because of the success of the shorter 2 page masterpiece. They are both remarkable achievements, that allow for a wide diversity of aesthetic experiences.
4) Concerning your discussion of resources, both economic and time; lets begin with the economics. Tickets for Life and Times, 10 hour marathon at The Public, were $70 for a reserved seat, and I believe (although I might be wrong) that all of the seats throughout the theater were priced the same. Earlier in the week I attended Peter Brooks, The Suit, at BAM, which had a 75 min running time, and tiered ticketing prices. Since I purchased at the last minute, I had a choice between a $65 mid-level orchestra seat or a less expensive ticket with a partially obstructed view, I went with the full view… $65 or $70? 75 min or 10 hrs? So far, which one was more bang for the buck is pretty clear! Within main stream (read non-experimental) theater, a $70 ticket is not very much. I don’t go to Broadway, but my understanding is those tickets go for a great deal more. I do love going to the opera, and for a Decent seat, one needs to pay a great deal more then $70. Granted, both BAM and the opera (lets say the MET,) offer tiered ticket prices which provide cheaper opportunities. But if we’re talking about economic disparity and the “alienating and shutting out that portion of the audience that does not have the temporal or economic resources,” I’d say the traditional tiered ticketing system increases economic disparity by making obvious a tiered social economic strata within the audience inside the theater space. For example, I once brought a friend to the MET, who had never before experienced opera, and she was so shocked by the economic disparity made crystal clear within her experience of walking through the foyer, up the stairs to our “nose bleed” section, and all the other cultural aspects of the opera going experience, that she was barely able to pay attention to the actual opera. Her entire experience was of observing (and being pissed off) about the economic stratification within the theater space itself. Most traditional or main stream theatrical productions, are based on the parsing out of economic disparity between the better orchestra seats and the “nose bleed” sections. At least at The Public with Life and Times, we as audience members were all considered to be within an equal social/economic stratification.
5) Is $70 an outrageous price for a ticket to the theater? It both is and is not, I think we can say. Without a doubt, I’m sure that some people were unable to go to this production because of the ticket price. However, other questions this raises (which I’m only going to briefly raise in passing right now,) how do we create an artistic culture that can support living wages for professional artists? What is the economic value of works of art? In fact both The Suit and Life and Times were paid for, primarily by European funding! When we complain about $70 tickets, are we not in part, devaluing art itself and buying into a culture of entitlement? We find this same dilemma within the organic food movement in the US. As Americans, we’ve come to expect cheap prices for food, which has resulted in an industrial food production industry. The fact of the matter is that to produce a healthy grass fed steak is expensive, while one of questionable quality fed corn in an industrial factory is cheap. On one hand, everybody should have access to high quality, healthy food, yet to do so cheaply is simply not possible. This is a dilemma I don’t have an easy answer to – both with food and art – but I’m not so sure confusing it with the question of durational work is accurate or helpful. Economic disparity exists within the arts and the theater – PERIOD – and is a worthy topic of discussion. But as a critique of durational performance works I can’t help but feel it is fuzzy logic.
6) Regarding audience demographics and diversity: Again, I think this is a broader issue that has little to do with durational performance events. Within experimental performance, this is without a doubt an issue. Yet, in the case of Life and Times, I would wager that this production at The Public actually contained the widest audience diversity Nature Theater of Oklahoma has ever had, since past productions of NK’s work have generally been in smaller theaters, such as the excellent Soho Rep (who co-produced Life and Times.) The larger venue of The Public, which also includes a much wider marketing outreach, certainly brought in a more diverse audience then the “rather peculiar elite” who make up the audiences for Most experimental works in small venues. Plus the excellent press for this production, such as a feature on NPR which was a direct result of the durational aspect, likely helped increase the audience diversity for this production, granted likely as baby steps. Once again, I can’t help but feel you’re comparing apples to oranges and confusing root causes. Audience diversity is certainly a problem, but in the case of Life and Times, the durational aspect, which required a larger venue, almost certainly resulted in at least a slightly more diverse audience.
7) Finally… time commitments – is this not an indication of what we value as a culture? For example, at the moment Downton Abbey is the big thing on TV. I wonder how many of the many many viewers of that show, will watch an entire season in a single netflix binge of 7 hours? Not everyone, but I’m pretty certain it’s a hell of larger group then goes see live theater (durational or otherwise.) In fact many TV shows have become a not so different type of experience, than the eventual 16 Life and Times episodes seek to create, an “episodic” experience is you will. Most people I know these days, have at some point, “binged” on a TV show, watching episode after episode, staying up much latter then they meant to. It’s become part of our collective cultural experience. Yet, I’d wager, almost all of those binge TV show viewers have Never been to a live durational performance event, and have little desire to do so. I suppose for me, this simply illustrates what we choose to prioritize as a cultural. 5-10 hours in one sitting of TV for most Americans is not such a big deal, yet the same commitment to live performance certainly is. Hmm… now that says a great to deal…
Pfew! So I hope you don’t feel personally attacked or offended by this much too long response. It’s only because I felt the article raised some interesting questions that I felt compelled to respond in such detail. I will say, that both Life and Times, and ERS’s production of Gatz, are clearly among my most memorable live performance experiences I have ever had. As durational performances they demanded something more from myself as an audience member. They required a commitment of my time, attention, wallet, and physical comfort, that kept me from being a passive participant, and allowed a different type of experience to emerge over the durational event, one that was more akin to the space of a dream.
Thank you, Mathew, for your thoughtful and considered response — and I certainly don’t feel personally attacked or offended by those who disagree with some of my considerations. But before you take umbrage, please be aware that I deeply admire many of the artists that I discuss here, including NTOK — an admiration which is reflected, I think, in the writing I’ve done about these artists over the years.
That said, I do believe that there is an impulse towards sensory and temporal expansionism recently which is not limited to sound and duration. Caryl Churchill’s latest play, Love and Information, featured 16 actors playing 100 characters over 57 scenes in a play which ran slightly less than two hours. More broadly, there were the extremities of onstage violence and movement, not to mention language, in the In-Yer-Face movement of the 1990s. It is notable that Sarah Kane’s last two plays demonstrated far more restraint in terms of both language and violence compared to her earlier work; and the movement itself appears to have burnt itself out, though its influence continues to linger.
In part this is a question of the Aristotelian concept of “magnitude,” the general shape and form of the play or production under evaluation and whether or not that shape and form matches the expression. Perhaps, in this culture, it is necessary to exaggerate and extend to garner attention, but once again this has to do with an issue that I alluded to in my post: whether this art is a mirror or an insight into this culture. We see it too in criticism, which is certainly more full of superlatives, of “hype” (the Greek root of which means “over” or “above”; it is itself derived from “hyperbole,” exaggeration), than I remember from only a few decades ago.
Unfortunately the same lack of time that prevents me from enjoying Life & Times prevents me from responding at greater … ahem … length. But again, thank you for doing so. And your points about Cage and Feldman (the latter of whom I consider the better composer anyway) are well-taken.
George, you claim that very loud music collectivizes the audience. This has not been my experience. Rather, music played at Stentorian volume (or nowadays, far louder than the herald of the gods could have managed by himself) atomizes the audience into a loose collection of individuals. The volume makes verbal communication impossible. But under such a sonic assault, even gestures are hard. The body’s natural response to very loud noises is retreat (in prehistory, loud noises meant danger). So people generally withdraw into a defensive psychological shell when exposed to sustained loud noise. Again, in my actual, lived experience as opposed to whatever anyone’s stated artistic intentions might be.
Another problem with loud noise as art is simply the physical limitations of the human ear. We can’t process sound beyond a certain decibel level. Instead of melody, harmony, rhythm, or tone quality, the sound waves just mash together into sonic mud, with no distinguishing characteristics. And that to me is not art.
Maybe “pulverizes” the audience would have been more accurate. As you mention, Dan, the individual retreats into the self — but this is far from an active interplay between the individual consciousness and whatever is happening on stage or in the ear. All that said, Penderecki’s “Threnody” is a major and moving piece of work, even as it opens with a dense and loud complex of sound.
George, thanks for your response, and in fact I do agree with you, at least to a degree concerning a trend towards “sensory and temporal expansionism,” in much contemporary work. Yet, I still feel it is questionable to mix up that particular thought with a critique of durational work as an entity. As I’d imagine it is no surprise, I’m a big fan of durational work, and would argue this it’s a particular tradition that transcends both time period and medium. We are certainly seeing an upswing in interest in long-form work within theater today – which I think it also not entirely unrelated to some forms of “installation art,” – yet is not the greek oral tradition of Homer (meaning the likely conglomeration of bards that we take for Homer today,) potentially an early historical durational work?
Yet, I have to admit, what gets under my skin, and the reason I continue to feel compelled to spend more time then I should responding to this blog post… is the not so subtle critique of durational work, as being faulty because of a lack of time on the part of an audience, in this case yourself. I’ve got to say, it strikes me as a bit of b.s. populism. The fact of the matter is, that it comes down to choices and priorities. Without a doubt, not so many people can take the time for a 10 hour theatrical work such as Life and Times. But these are choices we make (granted to a degree.) Many a young artist 10 years latter is no longer much of an artist because of the simple fact that they are unable to make the time and space that is necessary. I don’t mean that as a moral critique, it’s just life happens so to speak, it might be kids, or work, or love, or any number of things. But without a doubt one of the greatest challenges is the ambition to make time available. Of course one can still be an artist without making the time available for a 10 hour durational work, yet these are choices we make, and choices you have made, and I can’t help but feel it’s fuzzy thinking to confuse a critique of durational work with simply not having the time available.
It makes me thing of the poet Anne Carson, and her recent adventure with Proust. I’m a deep admirer of both Anne and Proust, and while I love durational work, I think it’s safe to say that “In Search of Lost Time” is a particular durational, or long-form work, that I’m never going to make it through in its entirety, never going to have time for. Not so long ago, Anne did manage to finish the work, and I may have the exact facts wrong, but she essentially read the work for one hour every morning for seven years. That’s pretty amazing! And quite the practice, my point here, is that type of commitment, well – it’s as simple as that. Not many people are going to make the choice to spend seven years reading a single work of art. Yet I had the distinct impression from Anne, that the process was remarkable and potentially unparallelled in her experience of any other work of art. I’ll never do this myself, yet I find myself in great admiration, and even yearning, for such an experience. So is Proust at fault for being so long winded? I’m sure Anne could have done many many other things with those 2,548 hours. Personally, I find it to be a remarkable undertaking, and I feel richer just knowing about her Proust morning practice, and the clear choices she made in order to experience this particular durational work. Can everyone spend one hour every day for seven years reading Proust, not a chance. So should we insist short stories are a superior literary form, because of our personal schedules? Hmm… seems a bit suspect to me.
Well, I’ve never been accused of populism, b.s. or otherwise. And I’ve no problem with extended duration work in any medium (I still consider Hans-Jurgen Syberberg’s seven-hour Hitler one of the best films of the postwar period, and Peter Watkins’ films, many of them more than five hours long, are most rewarding). But if there is, as you say, an “upswing in interest in long-form work within theater today,” then we’re also seeing an upswing in the risk of self-indulgence — not limited to the concept of duration, of course, but not immune to it either. As I tried to point out, this is also a question of ecology and resources, not to mention tolerance.
Funny that you mention Proust; I suppose I have a leg up on both you and Anne Carson, since I read the whole bloody Remembrance of Things Past in college, a long time ago when most of my time was my own. It remains one of my most memorable reading experiences, but I’m not confident that I’d be able to pursue the same project today. One shouldn’t make promises — even to oneself — that one can’t keep. But I nowhere insist that shorter forms are superior to longer ones of themselves, by definition.
Yes – without a doubt it’s an age of self-indulgence and resources are also tight. But I’ve always felt I’d rather see an artist who fails spectacularly then an artist who doesn’t take any significant risks, and making a durational work can be a type of risk. Granted, a self-indulgent durational work can be awful to sit through – yet the recent Under the Radar, 30 min Hamlet, by the Iranian Leev Theater Group, felt to me like a torturous 3 hours… Anyway, I think we’re more or less on the same page. That you were able to read Proust in it’s entirely at one point in your life and not at another, simply illustrates how our lives and responsibility change. Rather then a reflection of the quality or potential self-indulgence of the work (and might it be fair to wonder if Proust at time can be a bit self-indulgent?) Thanks for an interesting discussion. M
Indeed. And if anything can be said about Proust, it’s that he turned self-indulgence itself into an art.
And thank you for taking the time to participate so thoughtfully, Mathew. It’s been a pleasure.