Who is watching whom?
So many theatre companies have tried to put the audience at the centre of things and incorporate them into what happens on stage. But none have gone as far as Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed, in their show Thanks for Being Here.
In a gentle and witty hour, members of the audience see and hear themselves. Sometimes we appear on an enormous screen, sometimes we hear audio recorded before the performance began. Either way, all we encounter is ourselves.
As in our lives outside theatre spaces, cameras are everywhere. Here, though, they offer us glimpses of ourselves. We share the anxiety of being filmed and watched and we also hear our inner thoughts magnified and presented in public. We see the anxieties of others around us, we hear their voices. They are just as interesting, worried or bold as we are. They are human. It ought to feel transgressive. Instead it feels gentle and playful.
Sometimes the video has a few seconds delay, so we see what we looked like when we were looking at ourselves a moment ago. Sometimes it is a prerecording of us arriving.
In a marvellous theatrical conceit, we hear voices seeming to direct us as we are seen taking our seats. Some of us become stars. Here it was the men in the caps who wanted someone else to join them. “Be a person who has come alone and is wondering whether this will be OK,” a voice says and sure enough, one of us enters the theatre on the screen and appears to play that part perfectly. We are cast as actors, the ideal actors to play out our own drama.
In one scene we hear one of the company speaking on a mobile phone as she goes out into the street to find someone who dares to come and join the audience. This was perfect for Glasgow. A polite dismissal first. Then someone promising to come back and come in the next night as she was busy today. And then a glorious gallus lass was found for whom nothing could have been more perfect in her world than to enter a theatre and be so warmly welcomed by applause. (And after the show she could be found back on the street offering to give autographs.)
There is something reminiscent of Super Night Shot by the Anglo-German theatre group Gob Squad about this. The excitement of live video, the engagement with the street and a celebration of the audience are all found in both. This performance though invites the audience to share an experience of a shared kindness for one another. It is hopeful, sometimes meditative. For an hour, we are invited to have compassion upon ourselves.
The show is technically flawless, and the peace and stillness in the theatre must contrast with the effort needed to produce it. Whether operating the cameras or lip-syncing the desires that members of the audience or previous audiences expressed before the show, the cast intrigue us with our own reactions—not to them, but to ourselves.
This is an homage to an audience, an homage to this audience, an homage to every audience.
We are here together and our emotions, hopes and desires are all here too. We brought everything we needed into the theatre. We leave knowing we performed our part flawlessly. We are the audience and that is enough.
A ticket was kindly provided by the Tron Theatre.
Photo credit – Kurt Van der Elst