So what moments of history matter?

Good question, and that’s not even the extent of it. What moments of history matter and we also could have something interesting to say. Two criteria to fill. Many options. When first thinking about the idea I was inspired quite heavily by the phrase “When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.” (Burroughs, undated) The idea that something pre-existing can be cut into, re-arranged or remixed, if you will, into something of the future in a form of divination. However I thought more about spinning it the opposite way. If you cut into the present, does the past leak out? I chopped up pieces of newspaper from today to created the headlines of the past. For example;

But then the interesting thing that could happen. How about you take the newspaper headlines from these big historic moments, cut them up and make a new truth?

“Marilyn found dead in suspected suicide” can become “Marilyn suspected dead”.

Suddenly it is questioned whether or not the fact she is dead at all becomes a conspiracy. Either way we decide to look at it it is important we pick big moments. Moon Landing, 9/11, Watergate, the coronation and so on. Moments that are not only well documented and commented on, but moments that could potentially have other elements otherwise unseen.

Works Cited.
Burroughs, W. (undated) When you cut into the present the future leaks out. [online] Available from http://coilhouse.net/2012/02/when-you-cut-into-the-present-the-future-leaks-out-william-s-burroughs-b-february-5-1914/ [Accessed 23 May, 2015]

It’s kind of funny when old ideas find a way to stick around.

We spent a lot of time looking at surveillance and some big overpowering being that watches everything a person does. Think George Orwell’s 1984 on stage and you pretty much have our original plans. But this new idea that I came up with, about looking at history in a new light… well it sort of harks back to that G.O.D idea. The idea the hidden moments of history plays heavily with the prospects of the “manipulative possibilities of the media.” (Freiburg, 2010, 77) Along with the ‘media’ meaning news channels and the ability for them to tell stories in specific ways, the ‘media’ can also mean how the camera is specific in what it views and how that can choose to see certain things. The whole point of technology and media is observation, may it be through a screen, a camera lens, or a phone – it sees things that happen in the world, but not necessarily the whole image.

This is what comes out in our performance looking at history. Everyone has seen sections of history through the eye of the lens but not necessarily the whole picture. When you combine theatre with the mediated image you have the chance to see more. The extra bits. ‘Reading between the lines’, or the pixels, as it were.

Works Cited.
Freiburg, J. (eds.) (2010) Gob Squad Reader. London: Gob Squad.

The inevitability of failure at the moment is something that is clouding my mind constantly with this module. Working together is hard when you only see 7 people each rehearsal. How are we expected to make something when each rehearsal idea is tossed around and shot down and new ones brought in simply because there isn’t a consistency of people who attend who can all shape one singular idea.
Everyone keeps saying ‘It will all work out in the end’ and honestly, I’m not sure it will.

The most recent direction we’re taking, and hopefully sticking to, is one that I came up with about a week ago. (I know, it’s too late for this…) To do with History and looking at it from a different angle. Marilyn’s backstage area, the gunman who shot JFK, the hidden speech from the moon landing…
A good idea, and something that if splitting off into smaller groups to put together scenes would make production quick and effortless with this all taking place so late in the game.
Bryony asked me to take over a rehearsal to go through ideas and run the tasks of the day, and honestly we got a lot of work done with the people who were present. We had outlined scenes we could do and thought about what kind of things technology wise, made a list and assigned roles and tasks to have done by the next rehearsal.
The next rehearsal the ideas developed further, we laid out exactly step by step each of these scenes should go. Queens coronation focusing on her breathing and shaking hands as we hear the audio through a radio, JFK’s assassin putting together a gun centre stage as car noises surrounded… What was wrong? It was too disjointed and meant nothing. A fair statement, there wasn’t anything this production meant other than ‘look, we can show history’ – so we developed a narrative. The idea of two or three people becoming ‘History artists’ as it were. Taking these moments and shaping them for the audience in silence, letting the recordings bring the story to life. Think ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ but with more tech. We thought ‘well, why are they presenting these moments of history?’ which led us onto Conspiracies. 9/11, Marilyn Monroe, the moon landing, Roswell. Moments of history that get questioned because of government intervention.

Then I had this idea.
The play is set inside an attic. Messy, cluttered, pizza boxes piled high, tv screens, cameras and laptops around. A man walks in, puts in a DVD of 9/11 footage and rewinds and replays the moment the first building collapses over and over again, searching, looking for something that he can’t see. Another man, asleep on a table remains motionless. The final man walks in, looks at the first man with the DVD, looks at the man sleeping, rolls his eyes then walks to the man with the DVD. They stare. the first man points fast at the screen as the second man looks confused. he rewinds, points again. The second man has no idea what he is talking about. The first man sighs, goes over to a cork-board and pins a picture of President Bush to it, along with the word ‘Liar’. He stands, staring. The second man walks over, he picks up a picture of Roswell, pins it to the board. The first man smiles. Slowly they fill the board, all these different conspiracies, until one man runs off and brings a pile of newspapers in, drops them on the table as the sleeping man shoots awake. He turns slowly, takes it in. Smiles. He grabs one of the cameras and a radio. He places the radio in the centre of the table and zooms the camera in on the picture of Bush.
9/11 news reports start through the radio and the small 9/11 section begins.

It’s an image that I think would look nice, and create a flowing narrative to sew all these moments together, however it was argued against saying that just the ordinary stories would be fine on their own. We shall see.
Either way a decision needs to be made.
The show is in a month and we have nothing.
I’m fed up of looping in circles.

Cut into the present and the . . . past leaks out?

An empty stage, one projection of a live feed video of back stage on a delicate hand slowly moving a pill bottle backwards and forwards. The hand goes to pick them up multiple times then choses against it the whole time the audience make their way to their seats. The lights go down, he begins. “Mr President, on this occasion of your birthday…” 

The camera pans up to show Marilyn backstage in her own world, holding the pill bottle.
“Mr President, Marilyn Monroe…” 
Nothing. 
Marilyn is greeted by panicked looking stage hands on screen. 
“Let me just say… Here she is!” 
She makes her way out of the dressing room and onto the stage…

She leaves, the cameras follow her, she falls to the floor and cries, clutching where her womb would be. She mimes something – we can’t hear what, to the stage hands, they carry her off back through a door. Poor Marilyn just wants a baby.

Imagine a show where we see past the images we’re so used to. Where we can see into Marilyn’s dressing room, or to the men that made Martin Luther King. We can ask odd questions like ‘What does 9/11 sound like?’ and ‘What did the moon landing look like made out of television pixels?’

I have this image of a completely monochrome show, everything in black and white. The set, the live feed cameras, the projection, the costumes. Replicating the ‘Newspaper Pictures’ we see every day. Taking something that has inherently got no technology (Newspaper) and breathing life into them. Moments from history presented in new ways, ways that are only achievable through technology. JFK’s assassination, Hitler’s death, signing of the treaty of Versailles and the end of World War 1,  The titanic, The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ shot, fall of the Berlin wall, Nazi book burn, Bill Gates!

The possibilities are endless, and we can show so much with technology, from recreation, addition, focus on some tiny detail.
Stuff like that will make an interesting show – and entertaining when audience learn what is being shown.

The scene titles can be made from other newspaper headlines to create a sentence or phrase, projected up onto a screen so the audience can read it.
For example, the Marilyn scene can have “Birthday Song by Late Woman” – simplifying events in the word form but overcomplicating them physically on stage by adding so much more.

This composition of a monochrome stage* with images of history is something that just fascinates me, and I think it does exactly what we were asked to do. Show something that can only be shown with technology.

*Also a monochrome stage would look cool if certain things were in colour, for example, one girl in a red dress against a black and white stage would be stunning.

What do you think?