In any way one needs…

Recently I had the privilege of attending a performance of 'Kin' by Gecko Theatre. The show explores the challenges in the life of two immigrant families. In particular,  it shows the struggle of  being accepted for who you are and the impossibility of changing yourself to fit in a culture different from yours. It reflects upon diversity and the contrasting way in which it is perceived; it does that in a delicate, at times ironic way. The show counts for very little text which leaves more space for appreciation towards its music and visual elements, despite offering moments of exquisite beauty through physical sequences. Being the actors immigrants themselves the very little spoken words in the play are in their mother tongue,  which makes the piece even more powerful. 

Seeing this show prompted me to reflect upon a project I had a lot of fun doing at the University of York. During the last term of my master’s degree, I agreed to act in my coursemate’s final project: a piece of devised theatre in the form of physical narration. The project’s aim was to create a show which described feelings that are difficult to express. In particular, we wanted to represent the feeling of ‘missing’ as in our director’s first language, Japanese, there are no words to describe it. This per se was a factor of fascination and reflection on how language speaks about one’s culture and how the impossibility of translating certain words or concepts can turn a piece of theatre into something essentially not inclusive. This was even more fascinating and deeply felt considering the diverse nature of the artistic team. Indeed, everyone involved in making the show was not a native English speaker, which led to various discussions on how our different backgrounds would influence what we wanted to create. In particular, we wanted to make our diversity our strength and focal point of the production.

“…the impossibility of translating certain words or concepts can turn a piece of theatre into something essentially not inclusive…”

 In this regard, it was exciting to experiment with telling a story using different languages. During one of the first workshops, each actor was asked to perform in their own language. Firstly in a sort of Chinese Whisper game in which, at the end, everyone was asked to translate what they said and compare it with what the others understood and, consequently, how the story developed. Secondly, we were given a setting and asked to improvise a scene, each of us using our first language, with a clear beginning-middle-end structure. At first, it was fascinating to notice how every actress felt the relief of the pressure of being understood, allowing them to reach a level of freedom that would hardly be reached when known to be understood. But mostly, they felt relief from the worry of making themselves understood, how so it happens when acting in their second language. In fact, this would usually require a big effort from the actor to focus on each word and their pronunciation, let alone the risk of getting in their heads about the awareness of ‘sounding foreigners’. More often than not, this would limit their ability to perform, making it uncomfortable and impossible to even consider acting as a career when living in a country different from their own. Moreover, it was interesting to notice how the use of different languages did not result in making the actresses unable to communicate with each other. On the contrary, it forced them to rely on different forms of communication, progressively creating a new world with its own set of rules in which language had a very different meaning from the one usually covered in theatre. It became a way to physically express emotions through sounds and mannerisms (not really used where performers were forced to speak in English) that were suddenly brought back to life when the performers spoke in their own language. This made us reflect upon how many elements form part of our communication and light the interest in pushing it even further. By experimenting with telling a story without using a single word, we wanted to discover whether or not we were still able to communicate with each other. At this point, it was clear that by removing the verbal element, we needed to find new ones to rely upon that would allow us to communicate and keep telling the story. 

This research process towards new forms of communication brought us close to the practice of the Gecko company and introduced us to the concept of ‘complete art’. Richard Wagner first explained this concept, which observed how the lack of verbal communication in the Opera forced this form to rely more on other elements such as music and visual art. By bringing those arts together and valorising them, Wagner identified the Opera as the most complete of the arts. Similarly, Stephen Pritchard points out how by removing the importance of verbal communication, the work of Gecko resonates with this concept. It allows more space for exploring music, lights, and movement. However, the concept of ‘complete art’ is not new to the theatre world. In the early 20th century, in his book ‘Theatre and its double’,  Antonine Artaud proposed a “concrete language of theatre”, inspired by Wagner’s idea. It consisted in combining all the elements that theatre has to offer to serve the audience’s senses. He called it ‘Total Theatre’. It is interesting to notice Gecko’s artistic director, Amit Lahav, vision of this concept. For him, total theatre means that “one is equipped to tell a story in any way one needs”. 

“…total theatre means that “one is equipped to tell a story in any way one needs”.” 

This sentence resonated deeply with our approach. Indeed, by eliminating the verbal aspect, we intuitively searched for those elements in the hope they could help us discover a story to tell and help us tell it. We started by experimenting with sounds, trying to find new ones in the things surrounding us. Objects were no more things to refer to but things that could speak for themselves. For example, a water bottle became a bird singing, and a pencil case turned into the sounds of a train leaving. All these new sounds we were creating were in conversation with each other and with us. The visual elements became even more important, encouraging the search for beauty as the starting point for a deeper meaning to emerge. This forced us to explore different tools, such as projection and light effects, discovering their own potential in telling a story. Searching for new tools led us to focus on the human senses with which we explore and know the world around us and provided us with a structure for our story. However,  as Stephen Pritchard points out, a clear structure in a show without words is not enough for an audience to understand. We needed rules to define the world we were creating and help explain it, at least to us. In fact, a type of nonverbal communication puts most of us in the same position. It is a new language for everyone in the room, and as with each language, it has its rules which need to be taught to the audience in the clearest way possible. 

In this regard, it is interesting to quote Amit Lahav once again. In describing the journey of a show from its rehearsal stage to the performance day, he explains how he knows a show is ready when the “language of theatre becomes fluent, and the spoken words become less important”. This level of Fluency in the “language of theatre” was probably the trickiest part of the devising process. To reach it, all the people involved in the creative process needed to be on the same page regarding how the world of the play and our physical language worked. In fact, it wasn’t rare to spend an entire rehearsal just sitting in a circle, asking each other as many questions as possible about the world we were creating and struggling to find answers. However, this process was crucial for creating coherence in the show. By taking more time to find that Fluency, we hoped to prevent our audience from feeling confused instead of intrigued. It was fine to not give all the answers and leave aspects of the show up to interpretation, but we needed to be careful not to allow confusion to overcome the fascination. We didn’t want our audience to frustratedly wonder about what they saw and ask themselves whether a meaning to the story actually existed. Fluency and definition of the rules prevent this confusion from happening. They allow the creation of a language that anyone can learn while simultaneously having their own way of reading.The theorisation of a 'language of theatre' and the need for it to be fluent is a concept new to me and deeply fascinating.  The process that brings fluency to a show is extremely complex and full of challenges similar to actually learning a second language. But the possibility it opens is what draws me to it even more. Being an immigrant myself, I am blown away by the power that this form has in bringing people together. I plan to keep exploring  this even more through my practise as a theatre-maker in the future. I am fascinated by how movements can be both universal and so inherently linked to a certain culture at the same time.  In this sense, physical theatre puts its entire audience on the same page. It allows the audience to be transported into a new world at the same speed and intensity. Moreover, by creating a new language which uses and accentuates elements outside of verbal communication, physical theatre blurs genres, making it hard to define whether we are in front of a piece of theatre, dance, or mime. It overcomes language barriers, expanding opportunities for actors on stage, creating diversity and including/introducing to the theatre audience that otherwise would be left out.

Arianna