Thom Pain (based on nothing)
In the shaping of my performance, I have come to realise how much Will Eno’s writing style of Thom Pain (based on nothing) has influenced my performance. In the same way he jumps from talking to the audience to describing events, I have incorporated including the audience and describing the plays which are involved in my performance. In Thom Pain (based on nothing) is an example of this:
(To a person in third or fourth row, to whom THOM has not yet spoken.) Hello, sir. So the boy. Becoming a man, in the puddle. Or, no, we’re farther along than that.
It’s late. He comes home, a dark house. Walks up the stairs, supperless. Something is amiss. Some real thing amiss. Though who could put a finger on it, in it, who could see it and state it plainly, the trouble in the bone-quiet nights in the tidy house on Garden street? (Eno, 2012, Chapter 1)
Here is an example of my script which is similar:
Welcome Romeo to the stage everyone (audience member is invited on stage). Okay no, sit down! Why would I want another Romeo, too many Romeo’s then. I have one for this performance, why would I need another. He sits there. And in this tragic love story is a moment of pure anguish, as the two lovers slowly disappear. Wait there. I want to show you something.
I read Will Eno’s play a while ago and was drawn to the way it moves in and out situations so suddenly. I also liked how he chose to play with his audience, as there is a moment where an audience member is invited to the stage, only to be left stood throughout the performance. My performance differs in ways, as I am choosing to become characters from Shakespeare’s plays. However, in terms of the essence of the performance, Thom Pain’s character has been an influence on the way I have scripted my work.
Media
As my performance is about the intimacies in performance, it is important that I show a distancing. This is why I have used projection, to distort the view of the character and question how close the audience feels to something that is projected rather than live.
I have used a program called ‘Adobe Premier Pro CC’ which allows me to edit my clips. For the clip shown above, where I act out Juliet on the balcony, I have echoed the voice to show how media can distort reality. This ties in with the idea that we as Twenty First Century people so often view things through television and the internet. These are mediums which can so easily be edited to sound as the editor desires. This also questions how close we feel to something that is likely to be unreal. This is where I have found that media has influenced the shaping of my performance.
Works Cited
Beastall, J. (2014) Projection 2. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_osfCchUOgU [Accessed 26 May 2014].
Eno, W. (2012) Thom Pain (based on nothing). [Kindle] London: Oberon Books Ltd.