Drowsing in Theatre Performances

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

1 See for example Carr 2011.

2 The word ‘again’ is used here, because before the establishment of an idealized perceptual attitude of silence, stillness and focused concentration, theatre permitted a more diverse set of perception processes that included distracted forms.

3 For example, drowsiness and sleeping are evoked in the following theatre productions: Drangwerk (2015) Schlafout und gewinne Zeit; Jim Findlay (2014) Dream of the Red Chamber. A Performance for a Sleeping Audience; Stefan Otteni (2013) Müdigkeitsgesellschaft/ Versuch über die Müdigkeit; Turbo Pascal (2013) 8 Stunden (mindestens); Duckie (2011) Lullaby; Cie. 29/09 and theaterkonstellationen (2004) Alpinarium_3; theatercombinat (2002) AFgegen düsseldorf; Holger Friedrich (2000) Mittagsruhe in Berlin. In fine arts, there are performative installations that thematize sleep through sleeping performers or participants, for example: Marina Abramović (2014) Sleeping Exercise and (2002) Dream Bed; Tilda Swinton (2013) The Maybe; Xiao Ke and Zhou Zi Han (2013) We Apologize to Inform You; Chu Yun (2006) This is XX; and Andy Warhol (1964) Sleep.

4 The loop is later accompanied – and in rare moments also alternated with – an electronically produced, continuously flickering, high-pitched sound stream. These sounds – evocative of an electric fence or of a container under high pressure shortly before exploding – express the tension of the characters in their precarious situation. Their anger, frustration and despair do not burst out, except in the final scene.

5 This perceptual attitude cannot be seen as merely passive though. In fact, seemingly passive perception can be highly active, as Jacques Rancière has pointed out, whereas a seemingly active, participating audience could be quite passive in a certain sense. Thinking autonomously is not bound to highest wakefulness, but could also take place in a sleepy condition. In fact, the latter increases the probability for unusual associations and meanings to pop up. See Rancière 2008.

6 At first it seems that multitasking and sleepiness do have things in common as both are determined by openness to a multitude of impressions and ‘flattened’ hierarchies as all impressions are of the same value. But then it becomes clear that the essential difference lies in the dimensions of activity/ passivity-ratio, depth and clear demarcations between what belongs to the concept of ‘me’ and the concept of ‘other’. In the concept of multitasking, the subject is conceptualised as being actively in charge and capable of efficiently performing several tasks successfully at the same or within a short amount of time, while in the thinking about sleepiness the subject is considered to be without signs of high activity or efficiency. The multitasking concept is highlighting the subject as being separate from its environment, whereas a sleepy subject is interwoven with the surroundings – they become impulses for dreams. Any differentiation between reality and imagination becomes so blurred that they become one in the experience of the sleepy person. In sleepiness, the ‘other’ becomes a part of that which was imagined – and constituted – as a clearly defined ‘me’ before.