Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

ooh look it's an art critic...

In case you didn't know, that's a quote from the sainted Monty Python.

I have had a curious return to the wonderful world of the performing arts, strange enough to make me wonder if someone is trying to tell me something. The show I am doing at the moment features only two performers; one comes on dressed as a skeleton and tells the story of the show you would have seen if you'd been there the night before, the other comes on later, and spends much of the rest of the show dieing on the floor in theatrical agony.

Tonight, to mark my return to work we were joined by a third performer, with his female and far from silent sidekick. From the start, an audience member, seated in the front row, persisted in joining in; laughing artificially at funny bits, groaning along with the agony. He was apparently Eastern European, in a Borat kind of style, and when he was finally asked to shut up, complied, albeit grudgingly. After a while though, he started to join in again, and eventually got up on stage with the performers. He gave us a rather lame and rambling tirade, then he dropped his trousers and defecated on the stage. Scooping up his excrement, he then smeared it all over his face. He was invited to vacate the premises, and did so, pursued by a very quiet and polite british chorus of boos, and get outs. Apparently he is a known miscreant, having disturbed lectures and performances at various Arts venues throughout the UK.

I feel for the performers, they had to cope with a very large and aggressive man, who might have been a loony, instead of someone pursuing some sort of distorted artistic idea. The fact that he might have been some sort of performer (there was a moment in his exit rant when he mentioned Stanislavski, which to be honest is never going to get you very far with an English audience [unless you happen to live in Ealing of course, which rather bizarrely contains a theatre that is still holding a torch for the method]), doesn't remove the utter selfishness of his action, I guess if you have something to say as a performer/artist then you should have the courage to stand up and say it, and not waste our time trying to hijack someone elses audience, just because you couldn't get your own.

I remain confused, and I have to confess that I might have cocked up a few lighting cues, the script wandered a bit too. Definitely one for the show report, I reckon.

Oh, and in case anybody was wondering, my poor mutilated ankle is doing fine, although I am not a great fan of cobblestones.

posted by Lampy @ 3/06/2009 10:42:00 pm