[Questioning Reality]
The Writer by Ella Hickson is a play filled with provocation. It asks questions it can’t reply. It challenges the dominant modes of theatre (and society) whereas nonetheless present inside them. What are we to remove from that?
The again facet of some set items sit on the stage. We can see proper into the wings, the place extra set items sit, alongside tables of props. Immediately we’re plunged into the world of development and artifice. This play needs to attract consideration to the truth that it’s a play. A younger girl (Ash Williams) enters and gazes despondently out on the viewers. She has an impassioned argument with a male director (Matt Whelan) concerning the play she simply noticed – the way it was soulless and male gaze-y, and the theatre is an area for the privileged to indulge laughing at themselves for an hour or two earlier than they go proper again to their regular lives. It is a blazing scene which manifests dominant capitalist and patriarchal energy buildings, and raises the query of whether or not theatre can ever actually ‘change the shape of the world’.
Then the rug is pulled out from underneath us. This scene was not ‘real’, however reasonably a efficiency by two actors of a piece in progress by The Writer (Sophie Henderson). She sits on stage with the actors and The Director (Stephen Lovatt) for a Q&A session, throughout which the ability dynamics between Writer and Director appear to reflect these performed out by the 2 actors – an older man who helps (and maybe wishes) the youthful girl, however thinks he is aware of finest about how issues must be.
Ideas of energy and management run all through the present, because it undulates forwards and backwards between ‘scripted performance’ and ‘reality’, taking us on a wild and unusual journey. The Writer herself is an elusive character, glimpsed by way of her monologues of existential dread and her constructed fantasies. Despite their strained relationship, The Director is the one one who anchors her to actuality. They exist collectively within the ‘real’ house, and he gazes at her from the facet of the stage whereas the set deconstructs round her. Or does he management her? Does he tie her to a model of actuality that she needs to throw off? He needs her to write down historically dramatic dialectics, whereas she needs to subvert theatrical modes and discover her sincere, creative self, as is enacted within the center sequence – a fantasy and sanctuary of the divine female, a liberating queer love, intercourse that’s linked and intimate and sacred.
By distinction, the dialectics she performs are sure by oppressive energy buildings. The Writer argues along with her wet-blanket boyfriend about taking a job she doesn’t need for the cash, and lies limp on the couch whereas he fucks her. But when the scene is between two ladies, these dynamics are virtually reversed. Gone is queer liberation and sacred intimacy. Instead, the younger black girl is closely sexualised (in hot-pants) whereas The Writer appears drawn to play the male, patriarchal function – enacting the male gaze on her companion, afraid of being fucked however very happy to be the one wielding the phallus, pleasuring solely herself in a disconnected and basically violating act.
These scenes present how conventional modes of theatre may serve solely to strengthen the dominant tradition of society, in addition to reflecting the relentless suffocation of that society again to us. But in addition they level to a way of hopelessness, of inevitability. The Writer doesn’t actually appear to be answerable for what occurs on the stage. The set is moved and altered by a workforce of people that seem from seemingly nowhere. A child is introduced on for…some purpose… and she or he laments that it’s not actual, it’s not her child. She can solely stare, helplessly, on the director (the watchful eye of god) whereas others form the world round her. No, we don’t have management over our lives, this appears to say. We are powerlessly located, sure to a society of oppressive buildings with wealthy, previous, white males sitting on the facet of the stage pulling the strings. Even once we shirk heterosexual relationships, we can’t absolutely shirk heteronormative energy dynamics, it appears it say. And so the oppressed turns into the oppressor, and on and on it goes.
The Writer is a play continuously wrestling with itself. It needs to be radical, eschewing custom in its critique of energy buildings and privilege. Yet it fails by its very nature. As is identified throughout the Q&A scene, race isn’t explicitly handled regardless of Actor 1 being a black girl. The Writer (a white girl) is hesitant to the touch the topic. Indeed, that’s the solely time race is talked about within the play. It is current, by way of the casting of Ash Williams, however is it sufficient to have a black physique on stage when race isn’t straight addressed within the textual content? And, after all, the play itself is a bit of commerce. Silo Theatre must recoup its spending, and Q Theatre is a spot solely for many who can afford a ticket. This contradiction asks us if artwork and commerce can ever be separated and, if not, can artwork ever be actually revolutionary?
The Writer is an fascinating alternative for Silo, an organization recognized for programming difficult and subversive works (their most up-to-date being Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner). On the one hand, Silo needs to make use of artwork to impress thought of society, maybe even to vary society. On the opposite, it’s sure by the capitalist system and conventional pay buildings. Indeed, this isn’t simply ‘The Writer’ however ‘The Milford Asset Management Season of The Writer.’ Being within the Q lobby on opening evening solely heightened this expertise for me. There I used to be ingesting my free glass of wine and milling amongst business big-wigs – all of us returned so simply to the comforts of our (privileged) on a regular basis lives.
So, what does it imply to make actually difficult, radical artwork? Does the play itself know? It appears to be about energy and artwork, however what’s it actually saying? There are palpably relatable MeToo-type experiences within the dialogue between women and men. Yet the character of the connection between Writer and Director is unclear. Although he’s in management in some methods (holding the purse strings), he retains a bodily distance from The Writer, stepping away when she strikes nearer. This play (or, a minimum of, Silo’s model of it) appears to eschew straightforward categorisation and gives no solutions to the various questions it raises.Â
This may all appear complicated and high-falutin, and certainly the play is that. But additionally it is extremely humorous, and right here it’s expertly carried out and exquisitely designed. Director Sophie Roberts has subtly shifted Ella Hickson’s UK script to an NZ context whereas managing to make all of it really feel placeless and timeless; virtually dreamlike. Rachel Marlow’s lighting is attractive. Paloma Schneideman’s sound design provides layers of absurdity, whereas Daniel Williams’ set feels life like and surreal on the identical time. It is all impeccable. The Writer is a dynamic, provocative, contradictory piece that asks us to probe deeper into the layers of constructed actuality. In its failure to be actually radical, it factors to the techniques and patterns of thought that stop us from enacting significant change. It is paradoxical, enjoying with concepts of management, energy, artwork and that means, however by no means selecting a conclusion, leaving us in chilling darkness. Perhaps that’s the most effective that theatre (a minimum of, in its present type) may give us. The alternative to ask questions.
The Writer performs Q Rangatira 1-18th September, 2022.