Reckless Sleepers “share the agenda of Forced Entertainment in their rejection of the processes of ‘proper theatre’ or ‘big theatre’ that attempts to present ‘realism in an unrealistic way” (Tomlin 2008, p.361), and their piece Last Supper does just that; mixing real life final words, with those which can be imagined to be true, while all over a last supper. Sat at an elaborate dinner table themselves, “the Last Supper is a performance piece where we invite our audience to dinner, to eat and drink with us” (Reckless Sleepers n/a, online), creating an unconventional performance space within which we currently think of theatre.
http://vimeo.com/64879300
Interestingly, “it…gives voice to the voiceless” (Gardner 2004, online), despite the fact that the performers then go on to eat their own last words. These last words exist in a liminal space; taken and then imitated on stage from actors for whom the words will not be their last, and then being eaten, digested, as though they had never been there in the first place.
“While you might wonder why it’s worth doing, I am inclined towards the view of Timothy Leary who, staring death in the face in 1996, reportedly declared: “Why not?” ” (Gardner 2004, online)
Our performative experiment is dealing with food and eating, so to disregard Reckless Sleepers’ performance of The Last Supper would be unwise. Their intimate setting mimics that which we are hoping to create. Generally you don’t invite a large number of people round for tea, let alone strangers, and this becomes less likely when the topic of conversation is something highly personal. To reveal the last words of those who have died, either factual, fictional or imagined is something highly personal. Often those words are only said to loved ones, or to themselves, and not broadcast for the wider population to hear.
The notion of hosting a dinner party is not something private, and is indeed considered a social event. So to mix a private and public medium within their performance is interesting and thought provoking. The juxtaposition of the private and public is something which we are hoping to showcase within our performance of Feeder. The Feeder/Gainer fetish is a highly personal and private engagement when enacted within couples, so to host it in a similar style to The Last Supper, and framing it for an audience is unusual and adds another dynamic to the established task of the performance. With a contrast to The Last Supper, whose performance came alive by the use of words and language, our performance will have none.
Chewing.
Gagging.
Clinking.
Crunching.
The ominous and deafening silence will have its own underscore. However, this will not be from anything prepared, but from organic noises created by the piece itself. With the silence, the audience will be unwilling forced to focus more on the sounds and noises which occur naturally, therefore drawing them further into the performance. Though this might make some audience members uncomfortable, I personally feel that any other addition of sound would detract from the live performance, thereby giving the audience some form of escape; but when a performance is as intimate and personal as ours aims to be, the option of escape or distraction should be minimal. Our performance wants to push not just the performers’ limits, but the audiences’ too.
Works Cited
Gardner, Lynn (2004) ‘The Last Supper’, The Guardian, 19 November:
Online: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2004/nov/19/theatre1 (accessed 27 November 2013).
Reckless Sleepers (n/a) The Last Supper, Online: http://www.reckless-sleepers.co.uk/project.php?id=7 (accessed 27 November 2013).
Tomlin, Liz (2008) ‘Beyond Cynicism: The Special Imperative and (Future) Contemporary Performance’, Contemporary Theatre Review, XVIII (3) August: pp. 355-369.