I hadn’t planned to see a penis this afternoon, but there one was.
Unpreparedness was my own fault, in retrospect. The penis belonged to the actor James Norton and on it hangs a national conversation. Contraband photos of it are why there’s a debate about whether even highbrow theatre audiences can be trusted to behave, though I somehow failed to register any connection. It was only as an usher patrolled the queue putting stickers over phone cameras, Berghain style, that I remembered there would be a penis in my immediate future.
The play was A Little Life and full-frontal nudity is its objective correlative. Like the book it’s adapted from, it’s an extravagantly long study of how trauma causes seismic faults. Unlike the book, it skips characterisation in favour of torture scenes monotone in their excess. For nearly four hours the suffering is lurid, relentless and mostly pantsless.
Endurance theatre is nothing new, but once meant duration only. An eight-hour reading of The Great Gatsby toured successfully in the early 2010s and Tantalus, a Greek mythology soap opera, broke the 10-hour barrier a decade earlier. The Royal Shakespeare Company has been challenging bladders since at least the 1970s while on the fringe there’s usually something happening that consumes an entire day.
What’s newer (or at least noticeable to an occasional theatregoer) is the likelihood that actors will suffer in other ways too. Remembering all those lines is no longer enough; roles must be arduous, unpleasant or embarrassing. We especially want to see struggles if there’s a movie-famous name involved, like Paul Mescal, Ruth Wilson or Daniel Radcliffe. Giving their all to the process demands jumping around to the point of exhaustion, or getting mucky, or dancing awkwardly, or taking their clothes off.
By making each performance an ordeal, each curtain call becomes a celebration. “Imagine doing that eight times a week”, people say as they file for the exits, much as they would after a circus sideshow. Meanwhile, I’m often wondering what I’m meant to be feeling other than relief to be let out.
I ask theatre people if I’m a philistine. Most are too polite to reply. One who isn’t is Ameena Hamid, a fringe and West End producer.
“There’s a sense that audiences must feel like they’ve gotten their money’s worth,” she says. “With plays at the moment it seems like that means length.”
The play’s the thing of course, except to ice cream sellers, for whom the interval’s the thing. In tough times sprawling epics can seem a more bankable prospect than a lean single act.
Endurance also serves to turn up the intensity, says Dan Rebellato, professor of contemporary theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London. He compares recent trends to how Hollywood responded to TV by making big-screen blockbusters that were to be consumed as shared events.
Duration alone has little novelty left in the age of the boxset binge so producers need other ways to heighten the moment, he says. Drawing attention to the contract between actor and audience, to amplify a sense of privilege that a performer is performing for your entertainment, is one.
Add in pushback against naturalism and an adopting into the mainstream of the type of body art that splatters blood on gallery walls. Having Rebellato explain all this confirms that I am indeed a philistine.
“Because truth is complex, art is also complex. It cannot be smashed to fit the timetable of trains,” said the playwright Howard Barker. “One day a play will be written for which men and women will miss a day’s work. It is likely this play will itself be experienced as work.”
He has a point. In art, as in work, toil has value. Though for most people, work isn’t routine sadomasochism.
Spectacles of endurance have always drawn a crowd. Allusions to religious ritual intellectualise the brutality in A Little Life, while at the other end of the cultural spectrum, there’s an unbroken thread that connects TikTok prank videos to dance marathons and medieval tournaments.
But performative discomfort alone doesn’t make art. Rather than heightening the moment, gimmicks often lower the tone — and if that describes your afternoon, why not sneak a photo? Actors are paid to suffer but audience endurance has to be earned. Because when it’s been hours in the stalls and there’s a naked celebrity flapping around for no good reason, sustaining reverent appreciation just isn’t part of the contract.
Bryce Elder is city editor, FT Alphaville
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