While looking further into sources to use in my original performance idea I stumbled across a poem by Jeffery McDaniel, The Quiet World. In this poem McDaniel speaks of a world where each person is allocated 167 words per day, in an effort to get people to appreciate each other and the words they use. The poem is as follows:

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more, 
and also to appease the mutes, 
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When she doesn’t respond, 
I know she’s used up all her words, 
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe. 

To fully appreciate the poems meaning and intent I plan to only speak 167 words in my final performance. The challenge therefore will come from choosing 167 words that hold the pith and emotion that I am striving to convey. How will ones impact on the world, on the struggle to avoid being forgotten, be affected when one is constrained to 167 words?

(noun) Fear of being forgotten, ignored or replaced.

I have always found it interesting the lengths that the human race will go to in order to leave their mark behind. Part of the human condition it would seem is this crippling need to be worth something, to have “made a difference” to, to put it glibly matter. It has become such an all consuming thought that even in this here-today-gone-tomorrow flash-in-the-pan society there are websites dedicated to “What legacy will you leave your children?”

It’s a legitimate question I think. No one wants to look back on their life and think “But really, what was it all for?” because to even entertain the idea that your life, though in relative terms it may be nothing but a speck in the great wide cosmos, meant nothing? It’s pretty grim.

Recently I’ve also been looking more at autobiographical performance, with an intent to utilise it for my final performance. And looking back over my life I could consider many of the things and projects I have ventured into and participated in could be considered a personal mission to try and make my life matter. By even beginning to create my piece I am inherently trying to make something that matters. In fact any form of creation, theatrical, literary, musical etc. could be seen as a way to leave a fingerprint on the World. So what difference would me making my solo performance about my life make?

What I need to look at is whether I have lived through something that has a message, something that can touch another person. If not, should I perhaps relish the mudanity of my life? Is there something to be gleaned from focusing on the mundane? Does it need to be a true depiction of my life at all?

An exercise in creating a mood on stage without words, moving into a change of mood and an incongruous element. My contribution is in notmal script, Caroline’s contribution is in bold.

Average black box stage, all on one level equal to the audience. Large tree trunks, thick and not densely packed but thick enough that a person could comfortably hide behind one. Lights from directly above are dappled as though the sun is shining brightly through a thick roof of leaves. The brightness of the “sun” causing extreme contrast of light and shadow, with the light moving as though the leaves are being blown by a breeze.

Thie sound of this breeze is present, though there is no other sound. No birds, no animals, no people, just the breeze through the trees.

The audience can only see the thick trunks before them, insinuating that the treetops are far, far above them. The light changes slowly, transitioning from “bright day” into “dusk”, the qualityof the light turning from dappled sunlight, to sunset orange. the sound of the breeze dips to almost nothing. This remains so for a few beats before a loud crack (similar, but not identical to, a gunshot) rings out in this makeshift forest. The wind picks up again, louder than before.

Previously hidden from view an actor becomes evident in the bumps of one of the trees, camoflaged to resemble the trunk at their back. This actor suddenly peels away from the safety of the tree trunk and lands flat on their face. Whereas his front is disguised to match the treetrunks, his back is covered by a gold glittering leotard. 

A soft spot appears directly above the actor in USL and he lifts himself and stands with his back to the audience. He begins in nuetral, but moves slowly, almost reverently, into the “Night Fever” pose. Whilst moving into this pose the actor is reciting the mythical process of alchemy, of turning metal into gold, spoken to the tune of “Gold” by Spandau Ballet.

A show about one mans struggle to stand out in his home town when there is nothing extraordinary about him. About turning his ordinary “metal” life into “gold”.

Throughout the following show would be a series of spoken sections, detailing the subjects life through extracts of fiction, drawing similarities between himself and inanimate objects, alongisde various somewhat “cheesy” dance poses. The sounds of distant voices would creep up louder and louder, all speaking in different voices the various extracts spoken by the original actor. As the voices get more numerous, and louder, so does the wind, the lights on stage reduce down gradually as though the previously constructed “dusk” have moved into night and the only light that remains, becoming brighter and sharper is the spot on the actor. The speaking of the actor becomes louder, and more frantic, and more repetitive as the background noises and wind gets louder. Nearing the end of the piece the actor finally becomes silent, allowing the noise of the voices to wash over him.

The crack of the supposed gun shot is heard again, and all noise stops. The light on the actor cuts to black.

It is not necessary that you venture out of doors. Stay at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t even wait. Don’t even wait, be completely still and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be discovered, it cannot do otherwise. Enchanted it will writhe in front of you.

Franz Kafka