One Eyed Man Week 3

So, that's a taste of week 2 and now week 3 has come and gone and I’m at the half way point of these initial experiments of the One Eyed Man Project. I write ‘initial’ there because, you’ll be unsurprised to learn, I’m already thinking of possible future applications of this work and ways in which I can carry forward the things I’ve learnt from the offerings so far.

This week the venue was the salubrious locale of the public foyer of the Civic Centre in Swansea. It’s a huge, cavernous space – high ceiling, pot plants, sofas and council paraphernalia everywhere. I was there after the place officially closed for the day and it was infused with the aura that all public buildings seem to have – don’t do that; don’t make noise; don’t miss behave; just ... don’t.

Having said that, the people I met there were all lovely if bemused by what on earth I was up to. The crack teams of internal communication personnel had worked their magic so no-one seemed to know that I was supposed to be there, leading to much judicious and subtle ignoring of the fact that a bloke was ranting and raving at people who had paid to come and see him in the foyer.

All joking aside, it was really fascinating to be in a bigger space and to be doing something that was obviously really out of the ordinary in that space. My main concern was that it would prevent people from feeling safe enough to participate fully and to share whatever they needed to but this didn’t seem to really be a problem. People were still as generous and forthcoming as they have been in the two previous venues – a fact which continues to convince me that I’m on the right track. But – and it’s a big but – it felt less safe. No other way of putting it.  A smaller, more intimate and more contained space like the first two venues seems to lend itself more to enabling people to feel that they can be open about their irritations, foibles and joys than a large, open public space with council employees still moving through it.

As to the offerings themselves, I felt that I made some interesting jumps forwards especially in the last one of the week at 8.30 on Friday night. The audience were particularly open and vocal which encouraged me to let go of structure even more and focus on what was being said in the room. This emphasis that I  have on structure is fascinating me and, obviously, I’ve been quite cagey about it on this blog – not wishing to give anything away.

In short, what I’m trying to do with each offering is take people from a position of being irritated with and potentially hating other people to a place where they can acknowledge that the only way to move forwards in life is to accept that any change has to come from within. Let me emphasise strongly though that I’m not ‘teaching’ or ‘preaching’ – rather I’m exploring my own personal experiences of recognising that all my pent up anger and frustration at other people’s behaviour is about me, stems from me and only I can deal with it – by changing myself. My interest with this project is to talk openly to people about the difficulties and frustrations that I find inherent in daily life when I have to rub up against other human beings. So, the ‘structure’ that I’ve been falling back on allows me to move through this process quite cleanly and rigidly. What I’d really like to be able to do is be more open to what people bring and to let their agendas lead the process more strongly.

Friday night’s show was a case in point – although all three offerings at the Civic Centre worked really well in this regard. The biggest frustration for me at the moment is that of engaging people with the project enough to actually get them through the door. I only did it three times in Swansea – as in Cardiff the previous week – out of a possible six. It’s a tricky area this – I’m funded by Arts Council Wales with a Creative Wales award in order to pursue an experimental process and they’re not particularly concerned with outcomes or product. But the only way I can see to discover the things I need in order to take the work forwards and arrive at a new methodology for myself is to actually do it as many times as possible. And that requires audiences.

The arts are under siege at the moment as we all tighten our belts to save us from the deficit. Arts are seen as being superfluous and self indulgent by many people. The other week I went to see a play directed by my good friend Simon Harris at the Arts Wing of the Swansea Grand Theatre. It was attended by about 30 people. Meanwhile, in the main theatre, 800 people went to see a medium. The laws of capitalism and commerce say that figures like that speak for themselves. Why should public money subsidise art forms that cannot survive in an open market place? I’m not going to go through all the various arguments here because they are being spouted ad infinitum elsewhere on the web. What I will say is that people are drawn to the known. It’s how commerce works. A known quantity – a brand – lures us to continue with the safe and comforting. Obviously what I’m offering is anything but: a performer no-one has heard of offering work that is totally unquantifiable in places that are not usually used for performances. No surprise at all that it’s proving tricky to get people through the door. What I can say definitely is that the people who have come along have had an enriching, enlivening and fascinating experience. But how to communicate that? And should I even try? I’m a great believer in synchronicity – whatever happens is what’s supposed to happen. So, if I don’t end up offering the show on a given night because no-one comes then that isn’t a sign that what I’m doing is wrong – it simply means I have to keep faith with the idea and turn up again the next night. And the next. And the next.

And that’s what I firmly intend to do. This week I return to Cardiff with six offerings taking place in the fabulous Big Little City exhibition at the Old Library in The Hayes. It’s a brilliant space full of rampant and exciting creativity and I hope people will take the opportunity to come along, not just to see me and take part in OEM but to check out the brilliant exhibition too.

Wednesday 8^th – Friday 10^th June – 7pm and 8.30pm nightly. Tickets free ( £3 suggested donation)

For more details – www.shermancymru.co.uk

Hope to see you soon. Really ...

Phil

Week 2 - no plan at The Plan

So, week two is done and dusted and what a fantastic week it was. I really felt that there was something of a seismic shift in the way the experiments have been going this week and that is inevitably because I’ve been doing it for a while now and my initial nerves have calmed down somewhat – which has allowed me to play and truly experiment.

The tone of the evenings has been really lovely this week – I should say that The Plan is an absolutely perfect venue for performances of this kind and the staff and management have all been incredibly kind and accommodating.

There is definitely something in the way that audiences have reacted to the work has really made me think that I might be onto something really interesting. The experiments present a safe environment for people to share experiences and tell stories – probably because I’m allowing myself to be as open and as honest as I can be – and people really seem to want to share in  a way that I hoped would happen but I wasn’t certain that they would.

There was a really interesting moment in the last show at Noah’s Yard in Swansea which informed so much of what happened last week in Cardiff. One of the things that I was playing around with in the first few shows was wrongfooting people by saying at a certain point that I hated them. This keys in to one of my central interests and obsessions which have lead to this project: how do we manage to get through our lives without killing each other? So, I was playing around with how people would react to this but, of course, I don’t mean it literally. And an audience member immediately picked up on that fact and suggested that I was bullshitting – which essentially I was for dramatic effect.

What this moment showed me is that, in these experiments, in the context of absolute openness and sharing and vulnerability, I simply cannot ‘pretend’ at any point because it immediately jars and feels wrong, like I’m cheating somehow.

So, with that experience fresh in my head, this week’s experiments were much more open, honest, direct and straightforward and all the better for that.

So far I don’t seem to be on the verge of running out of things to say to people and they are certainly not running out of things to say to me – the level of interaction and sharing is total and incredibly exhilarating and exciting.

The question remains as to whether what I’m doing is theatre or not – and I don’t really have a satisfactory answer to that yet. I’m a performer and I have an audience. Together we make a piece of something – call it theatre, art, performance, whatever you like. But something happens between us ... and on the evidence of this week, that something is quite profound and moving. As well as being funny and scary and lots of other things too.

One disappointment this week was the lack of audience – the 8.30 showing each evening simply didn’t happen as no-one turned up. I’m not going to get all wound up about this since I know that I am an unknown quantity to most people and that what I’m offering is also – and we really don’t seem to go for the unknown in our society anymore (if we ever did). But if you’re reading this and thinking about coming along then please do. No need to book tickets, just buy on the door. If you fancy something a little out of the ordinary, something that you may never have seen before, something that offers you a place to talk about things with people in a way that you’ve never imagined ... then this might be the evening for you.

In that light – if you’ve watched the highlights of the 20^th May you will have seen that I offer the audience a day of my life as a random act of kindness. This is the only truly pre-planned element of the work and I wanted to say officially that I will be doing it for all the experiments in this first series. If you want to know why, or you want a chance to take me up on the offer, then you have to come along. But here’s what I have committed to so far:

1) Undertake a day long journey to an unknown destination with Owen (audience member).
2) Spend a day on the streets of Swansea speaking to people with Greg (audience member).
3) Spend a day on High Street, Swansea, speaking to everyone I meet with Elaine (audience member).
4) Spend a day with my friend, Steve, enjoying each other’s company.
5) Speak at a conference on climate change and sustainability about human communication.
6) Take part in the world record skinny dipping challenge on 19^th June at Llangennith beach, Rhossilli. www.midsummerskinnydip.co.uk
7) Go through my student neighbours bin bags and separate the rubbish they could have recycled but couldn’t be arsed to.
8) Spend a day visiting people at an old people’s home who don’t normally receive visitors.
9) Speak at next Ignite event in Cardiff.

24 more opportunities to get me to do something ...

Thanks so much to everyone who has come along so far and given their all to what have been some of the most exciting, fascinating and life affirming evenings of my professional life. Here’s to the rest of them and beyond.

This week: Civic Centre, Oystermouth Road, Swansea – Wednesday 1^st – Friday 3^rd. 7pm and 8.30pm nightly. Book in advance at www.taliesinartscentre.co.uk or simply come along on the night.

Hope to see you soon,

Phil

Experiments 5 & 6

A proper full day off yesterday when I tried not to think about the project at all in any way. I failed, obviously but even the act of trying was worthwhile.

The last two experiments in the first venue – Noah’s Yard bar in Uplands – were by far and away the most challenging and interesting so far. Two big groups of people – 15+ each showing – who really forced me to stay on my toes and keep the ball in the air. Some observations have been bubbling up this morning –

I’m already, after only 6 experiments, allowing myself to fall into ‘structure’ for safety. This is not something I’m beating myself up about, simply an observation. The feeling of panic within me when the conversation and tempo of the room starts to flag and dip is palpable – so I dash for structural support and have found myself repeating stories and ideas.

The way Gareth and I have worked is to sit and assess the previous night’s experiments before going into the next – and we set up a series of things we’d like to try. Every night so far, without fail, I’ve said that I’d like to try being more free and letting moments hang rather than talking all the time and pushing and prodding for a response ... and every night so far I’ve failed to do that and have panicked. This ‘failure’ is not a failure in the sense that the whole experiment is pointless. On the contrary it has flagged up to me, very early in the process, the key difficulty in really attempting to make theatre that addresses the here and now.

If I were to really and truly relieve myself of the burden of structure and entertainment and meaning, what then might happen? Is it possible that a group of people – total strangers – coming together in a room with the focus of a single performer to filter and process their needs, wants, fears and loves – is it possible that said group can dictate and determine their own content and say what they need to say to each other?

It’s a huge question and one that I’m going to continue to grapple with over the coming five weeks.

One of the key issues is about safety. It’s my job to make that group of people feel that they can share their feelings and thoughts with strangers and that they won’t be attacked, vilified or sneered at for them. Thus far I’ve been playing around with the notion of wrongfooting people, of challenging them into seeing things in a different way; of not necessarily laying out in minute detail the rules of what is acceptable or otherwise in that space. This has paid off in interesting ways but has also meant that it’s a scary old ride for me and those in the audience who are less than sure of the value and purpose of what’s happening. Not only is it a leap of faith for me, I recognise, but also for the audience. Is it enough to hold a space for 75 minutes, with whatever content is brought to fill it, and call it meaningful and purposive? Or is it okay that it be meaningless? Can I be bold enough to let it be meaningless? Dare I risk alienating people in that way?

All these fears and issues aside, Friday night was absolutely fantastic in so many ways – people’s level of engagement with what was being said in the room; their willingness to challenge me and prod and probe were just fantastic and life affirming. Indeed, so much so, that my central assertion of finding it increasingly difficult to like my fellow human beings is wilting under the generosity and openness of my audiences.

So, now I have another few days before we move to a new venue and a new city – The Plan Cafe in Cardiff’s Morgan Arcade. The venue at Noah’s Yard was a perfect place to start – cosy and intimate and very familiar.

The Plan is likely to feel very different indeed. Despite my ongoing nervousness and adrenalin, I’m feeling invigorated and enlivened by the experience and can’t wait to do more.

I’ll try to make time to edit together some of the footage of the first weeks experiments but it may take a little while – also, understandably, I’m not super keen to watch any of it back yet. I already feel a healthy dose of shame and embarrassment at what I’m doing – that can only be made worse by watching myself do it.

As always, comments, thoughts and ideas will all be gratefully received.

Hope you’re having a splendid weekend and are not too disappointed about the rapture not happening again. There's always next time, eh?

Cheers,

Phil

Experiments 3 & 4

Another evening, another jump out of the proverbial plane sans the proverbial parachute ...

Small, perfectly formed audiences of friends and the inherently curious have been the order of the day so far which has been a fantastic way to begin. One of the things that I’m very aware of is how my nerves and adrenalin lead me to speak far too much as opposed to far too little. It’s as if I’m terrified that if I and my audience sit in silence for even a moment that somehow the spell will be broken and they will look me in the eye and face me with the key issue that scares me –

“You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”

So, I ramble and burble and prod and probe – it’s fantastic and lovely how open people are and how keen they can be to discuss and tear apart some of the things I say – this project for me is both a personal and professional quest for connection in life. And I no longer want that connection to be mediated by lights and a stage and a script. Does that make what I’m doing theatre or not? I have no answer to that and it would be very interesting to ask members of my audience what they feel on the matter.

For me, the experience of sharing my deepest fears, doubts, hatreds, loves and insecurities and asking people to share theirs in return has already proven to be immensely rewarding and valuable – and has already lead to a number of dropping pennies.

The task for me now is to continue the experiments – and what that means in practical terms is to learn from the previous night’s experiences, change the parameters and jump off the cliff again. So far, I think, a parachute has miraculously seemed to open above me as I fall and if my landing hasn’t exactly been soft, it’s at least been survivable.

Tonight, for the first time, I have two audiences of fairly sizeable numbers – and I’m not expecting any body amongst them to know me personally. So, with that in mind, I feel as if tonight is where the experiments really begin. If anything, I’m about to jump off a higher cliff ...

I’ve been videoing the experiments so far – asking audience members to hold the camera and get what they can – and I’ll edit highlights together in time for next week’s showings in Cardiff. So far, I haven’t watched any of the footage myself – can’t quite bring myself to see it and it’s probably no bad thing.

So, stay tuned for more revelations. I hope who reads this is ready for the rapture starting tomorrow. I’m not expecting to be taken to heaven in the first wave but, you know, I see no reason why I should get left behind ...

Cheers,

Phil

So, it's started then ...

Two experiments down, thirty four to go. I’m kind of numb this morning – not sure what I’ve done or what I’ve begun. It was like being at the centre of a whirlwind or, actually, a close approximation to jumping out of a plane without a parachute. The people that came to the two offerings were warm and generous and open and kind – and I fear for my ability to stay bitter and angry at the rest of the human race if this is going to be my experience over the coming weeks! Not, I hasten to add, that I’m desperate for someone to come along and be nasty to me ...

The venue is a perfect place to start – warm and cosy and intimate – and Gareth and I are already aware that we will be moving to other spaces – bigger and less easy to manage. But we have two more nights and four more experiments at Noah’s Yard yet to come.

I’ll blog every day so hopefully my thoughts will coalesce a bit more but here’s some initial concerns and worries and ideas:

How nice is too nice? How open is too open? How much do I talk about what is happening whilst it’s happening? How honest should I be about how I feel? How much should I perform and how much should I let that go? Is it that important that people should feel comfortable throughout? How will I cope with genuine anger and disagreement?

It’s very hard to hang on to the lesson I learnt with John Dawson about expecting blank faces and assuming support – I need to manage my adrenalin better which I suspect only doing it more will deal with. I feel I need to be able to let things hang a bit more and leave space for people to engage and share – I also need to worry less about those people who seem quiet and unengaged. Last night, after sitting silent for a good portion of time, one of the audience spoke up and shared something incredibly personal and profound. People need their own processing time and thinking time – and if they don’t want to engage with the work openly then that is absolutely fine too.

The thing that strikes me the most about what happened – with very little hindsight – is how my initial belief that offering a space for people to talk about issues and concerns in life using theatre techniques and practices is something that people can and do want to engage with.

The experiments now continue and I’m sure will evolve and change and grow. If this blog makes it sound very po-faced then nothing could be further from the truth – there was much laughter and joy to be had in the small room above Noah’s Yard last night. And I’m sure there will be tonight.

Now if only I could calm down and enjoy it ...

As ever – thoughts, ideas, responses – all welcome. Everything’s allowed.

Cheers,

Phil

Latest video blog now online

What, where, how, why?

Hello and welcome,

For anyone who has found their way here via the lovely Western Mail article -

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/showbiz-and-lifestyle/arts-in-wales/2011/05/13/interview-deep-cut-playwright-phillip-ralph-on-his-daring-new-experimental-project-91466-28685045/

You may be wondering how you can get tickets to see this cockamamie (there's a word too little used ...) scheme and where the experiments will be held, etc -

So, here's everything you need to know -

Swansea - tickets available via Taliesin
www.taliesinartscentre.co.uk - box office - 01792602060
18th - 20th May - Upstairs at Noah's Yard, Uplands
1st - 3rd June - Civic Centre Foyer, Oystermouth Road
15th - 17th June - Junction Cafe, Blackpill

All tickets £3 - experiments begin at 7pm and 8.30pm - running time 75mins

Cardiff - tickets available via Sherman Cymru
www.shermancymru.co.uk - box office - 02920646900
25th - 27th May - The Plan Cafe, Morgan Arcade
8th - 10th June - Old Library, The Hayes
22nd - 24th June - tbc (Fancy a showing in your house? Contact Sherman Cymru!)

All tickets £3 - experiments begin at 7pm and 8.30pm - running time 75mins

There you go - other things you might want to know -
Twitter - @manoneeye - follow me for updates and pre and post interactions #oneeyedman
Facebook - The One Eyed Man Project

There'll be regular updates here and I'll try and post videos of experiments as fast as my little laptop can edit them. Only a few days to go now and the experiments begin in earnest.

I'm genuinely looking forward to it - I know that might be hard to believe but it's true.

Mind you, if you come along on Wednesday at 7pm you may well see a man explode due to an overdose of adrenalin and fear ...

Have a splendid weekend.

Phil