Now that site-specific work is on the increase, David Wheeler offers an approach to working in unusual spaces.
It is not surprising that most purpose-built theatres are very good for presenting shows. An audience knows where to find it, and when they get there, they can all see the stage. Theatres are warm and dry with a box office, toilets, bar and probably a car park. There are dressing rooms, a lighting rig, electricity, water and security on the door. It will have passed health and safety requirements and will have a theatre licence; there are no holes in the ground to fall down or raised stones to trip over. When producing a site-specific show, all these things have to be considered, built, hired, installed and approved ? on top of making a new show. It is expensive, risky and exhausting. So why do it?
Site-specific shows can produce the most exciting and memorable theatre. If it?s a good site, there are ready-made advantages over conventional theatre venues. There is a unique and all-enveloping atmosphere generated when a real location is enhanced with the artifice of theatre. It can create a powerful mixture which is stimulating for the artists and thrilling to audiences. The inevitable neutral starting point of a theatre stage cannot compete with the real thing.
IOU?s approach
IOU was formed twenty six years ago with the idea of combining artforms to make theatre in a variety of contexts. Today, those include main stage theatres, studio theatres, small outdoor touring shows, installations, film, video and digital work. IOU has been creating site-specific work throughout its history and it has always been a particularly fruitful area of work, providing some of the most rewarding challenges.
In a recent show ?Cure? the company looked at the nature of illness: the sometimes fevered distortions we experience mixed with the occasional flashes of clarified perception that visit us when ill. The development of the show is typical of our approach ? devising work through a collaboration between artists working in different artforms. The aim is to extract the central mystery of a theme, fusing fantastic and dream imagery with objects from everyday experiences. All the elements that make up the performance are created by the company: music, songs, text, costumes and mechanical props are brought together to perform shows which have a dreamlike quality, dark and humorous.
This approach is particularly suited to working in unusual spaces. It is liberating to follow an interesting route to making a show without having to illustrate a particular point or part of a narrative. A real environment with surprising features is a welcome addition to the process. Presented within an office and factory complex, Cure used the roofs, buildings and dark underground vaults beneath them. Leading the audience between spaces above and below ground, the underlying ?narrative? of the show was expressed through a journey, the audience following a character descending into the trauma of a major illness. Keeping the theme as open as possible for as long as possible in the devising process allowed the artists to respond to the space, and in this way the location helped to lead the development of the show.
Sympathetic location
The power of the material needs to be in balance with the power of the location. Some logic needs to be found for using a particular site for it to be in sympathy with the theme or artistic material ? and vice versa. Without this, the result can be confusing or artistically hollow. There are some locations which have a powerful identity that can be difficult to use and need to be treated with caution. Using the grounds of a cathedral or a disused coal-mine, for example, could suggest precise symbolic associations between the show and the setting. The setting can be strong enough to attract every element of the show around it like a magnet and the entire show could be interpreted in relation to a single idea or a spiritual or political point of view. For IOU, this would be a problem as the company likes the work to be multi-layered with any number of possibilities and interpretations. It is natural for audiences to search for meaning when they see a theatre production but, without being deliberately obscure, we are happiest when that sense of meaning is postponed for as long as possible ? to the end of the show or a day, a week, a month later.
Details seen in the distance, beyond the physical boundaries of show, can be an exciting and unpredictable addition to a site-specific show. Real houses with lights going on and off, people in windows or walking in the street, traffic, bird song, can all be caught in the web of the show, blurring the edges between what is intended and what is a chance element. In these settings, the audience is inevitably wondering if something is meant to happen ? introducing ideas which deliberately play with that concept is very potent. A speeding car crashing into the middle of the performance has an added tension because it might be for real. Of course, this is also one of the difficulties of site-specific work. Keeping control of the chance elements takes care and planning but some things are impossible to predict. An un-programmed loud argument in the street is likely to be an unwelcome distraction.
Taking up the challenge
Working on any site brings up many issues that need to be resolved on the journey to the presentation of the finished show. Our approach is one of many and there are many companies and individual artists working in many different artforms making work for unusual spaces. The 1970s and 1980s were prolific times for site-specific work. After a long period when this type of work has been very difficult to present, it is encouraging to see commissioners and funders once again taking up the challenge of site-specific work, allowing more artists to explore a rich and valuable context in which to engage with audiences.
David Wheeler is Artistic Director of IOU Theatre. t: 01422 369217; e: info@ioutheatre.org; w: http://www.ioutheatre.org