An Introduction to Theatre, Performance and the Cognitive Sciences

John Lutterbie

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781474256827
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Subtopic: Schauspielerei & Vorsprechen

This is the first textbook designed for students, practitioners and scholars of the performing arts who are curious about the power of the cognitive sciences to throw light on the processes of performance. It equips readers with a clear understanding of how research in cognitive neuroscience has illuminated and expanded traditional approaches to thinking about topics such as the performer, the spectator, space and time, culture, and the text. Each chapter considers four layers of performance: conventional forms of theatre, performance art, and everyday life, offering an expansive vision of the impact of the cognitive sciences on performance in the widest sense. Written in an approachable style, An Introduction to Theatre, Performance and the Cognitive Sciences weaves together case studies of a wide range of performances with scientific evidence and post-structural theory. Artists such as Robert Wilson, Societas Raffaello Sanzio, Ariane Mnouchkine, Bertolt Brecht, and Antonin Artaud are brought into conversation with theories of Gilles Deleuze, Shaun Gallagher, Alva Noë, Tim Ingold and the science of V. S. Ramachandran, Vittorio Gallese, and Antonio Damasio. John Lutterbie offers a complex understanding of not only the act of performing but the forces that mark the place of theatre in contemporary society. In drawing on a variety of scientific articles, Lutterbie provides readers with an accessible account of significant research in areas in the field and reveals how the sciences can help us understand the experience of art.

1

Landscapes

Looking at a landscape from a fast-moving train, let alone a plane, is to miss the complexity of the vista. It is best seen head-on, while taking time to savor the complexity of what is before you. For anthropologist Tim Ingold, this difference is between transport and wayfaring. The first focuses on getting from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. For the wayfarer, there is a wealth of information to be gleaned as you breathe in the view.

For the wayfarer whose line goes out for a walk, speed is not an issue. It makes no more sense to ask about the speed of wayfaring than it does to ask about the speed of life. What matters is not how fast one moves, in terms of the ratio of distance to elapsed time, but that this movement should be in phase with, or attuned to, the movements of other phenomena of the inhabited world. (Ingold 2007: 101)

Hiking in the deserts of Tucson, Arizona, the wayfarer is immersed in a world of sun, heat, and sand (see Figure 1). It is a lesson in survival. Looking at art or watching a performance is about wayfaring, being attuned to the world around us. It may not be about survival, but you don’t go to the theatre only to see the curtain call. The events on the stage are selected to give you an experience over time. They are highly compressed moments that are rich in information that can be seen, heard, smelled, and felt.

Figure 1 Tucson desert (photograph by author).

Landscape artists, like theatre practitioners, capture only a small slice of all there is to see. Photographs and paintings present a fraction of the world before them; most of the landscape never gets into the final image. It is the same when writing about theatre. Every performance contains an almost infinite number of elements, making it impossible to be all-encompassing. The author, like the landscape artist, selects only those elements most important to communicating his or her vision. Just as artists use their aesthetic judgment in creating a work of art, a scholar has a point of view when looking at the theatre. The perspective I use to explore the landscape of performance is that of the cognitive sciences. For most theatre practitioners, historians, and theorists, this is a very strange approach to the creative arts, but one I hope to show opens new and exciting approaches to understanding performance.

By cognitive sciences I mean those disciplines, empirical and philosophical, that look at how the brain, situated in the body and embedded in the world we experience every day, works and that strive to understand how we act, feel, and learn to be the people we are. The neurosciences, psychology, linguistics, computer science, and philosophy are the primary disciplines that fit this rubric. Each of these is, of course, divided into further areas of research, not all of which are useful for this project. As we move forward with the exploration of theatre and performance, it will become clear which areas of study are most relevant. This is not to say that the others are any less valuable, or that they will not become significant at some future horizon. Rather those cited here reflect how my interests and understanding, of theatre and performance intersect with current approaches to cognition.

Science and theatre are strange bedfellows. Scientific experimentation takes place in the laboratory, with results that are published in disciplinary journals. It is only when there is confidence in the results that the scientist shares them with colleagues. Theatre practitioners present the results of their experiments to the public on opening night confident only that the production is as close to perfection as time allowed. Moreover, science is a reductive discipline, seeking to eliminate every unnecessary variable in order to give the discoveries maximum credibility. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons published research in 1989 claiming that they had succeeded in achieving cold fusion, the ability to generate a nuclear reaction at room temperature (Taubes 1990: 1299). It was subsequently shown that their proclamation was premature because the results could not be reproduced. Unaccounted-for variables skewed the data, rendering conclusions that could not be substantiated. The arts, on the other hand, glory in ambiguity. Art would be uninteresting if all the variables were eliminated from the performance, that is, if every production strove to reproduce exactly the one before it. Theatre in particular is as messy as life itself: complexity is where it finds its power.

Yet, science and theatre have at least one thing in common: the objective of increasing our knowledge of the world. When brought together they can offer new and exciting insights into the realm of performance. I do not pretend to have all the answers, but I hope to use what I have learned from the cognitive sciences to pique your interest in further investigating the amazing world of theatre. For my part, I hope to serve as a guide, a wayfarer who opens doors, inviting you to further exploration. Join me going through the portal of the sciences so that we can begin this voyage into the landscape of theatre.

Performance and theatre

Defining theatre may seem unnecessary. In recent years, however, the approaches to theatre have expanded exponentially. The conventional assumption of the audience sitting passively while watching actors perform a play on stage has been exploded. The proscenium arch has given way to productions that happen in factories, museums, or swimming pools. Theatre is used in interventions for people with autism, Parkinson’s disease, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Communities create theatre to deal with divisions of race and class and to educate young people about the dangers of drug and sexual abuse.

In 2012, Connie Hall curated a site-specific performance of Twelfth Night that was billed as a walking tour of the Meatpacking District of New York City (Anonymous 2010). Audience members were told to meet at various locations around the area where different characters guided them through the performance providing a history of the area as they proceeded. Characters from Shakespeare’s play spoke from the windows of a hotel to other characters on the street; Olivia was found on the twelfth floor of a hotel bemoaning her outcast state; and the performance ended on the High Line with cake for all. No audience member had the same experience, and each saw the play only through the eyes of the character that led them through the district.

The British company Punchdrunk has taken over three abandoned warehouses in New York’s Chelsea District and dubbed them the McKittrick Hotel, creating an immersive theatre event called Sleep No More. Audience members are given masks and bundled into an elevator that lets each group off on one of five floors. Each level has a different theme linked very loosely to Macbeth with references to Alfred Hitchcock’s films Vertigo and Rebecca. For instance, Lady Macbeth’s madness is marked on a floor designed as a lunatic asylum. Actors appear (without masks), briefly enact a scene and then vanish, seemingly into thin air. The audience is left to roam from floor to floor, piecing together a non-existent narrative in what becomes a tantalizingly dream-like experience.

Theatre makers and psychologists at the University of Kent are developing “Imagining Autism,” a program that uses improvizational, interactive environments for children with autism. Practitioners engage with the young people, allowing them to determine directions and experiencing for the first time perhaps a validation of their creativity, while learning skills in socialization. At Stony Brook University, students gather true stories from their peers about experiences of alcohol and sexual abuse. These are turned into a fifty-minute documentary performance structured around elements of hip-hop and improvization. The performance is followed by a talkback with health professionals about making positive choices. Petra Kuppers developed “the Salamander Project, an eco-performance project by The Olimpias, a disability culture collective. In the project, disabled people went swimming together and explored themes of stricture and freedom, access and play, biodiversity and border creatures, hanging out together in the wild” (Kruppers 2015: 1). These are just a few examples of applied theatre.

This expanded view of theatre raises many questions about the limits of the art form. Is anything that wants to call itself theatre, theatre? For people who prefer a concise definition based on conventional forms, these projects may have theatrical elements but do not qualify as theatre. For those who are excited by the potential of emerging forms, these unconventional approaches are welcome additions to the medium of theatre. For the purposes of this exploration, the more inclusive definition will guide the discussion, acknowledging that this blurs the distinction between theatre and other kinds of performance.

Performance is an even more complicated term that includes music performances, dance, and performance art as well as theatre. These are only the forms that fit the classification of the arts. Richard Schechner, a leading light in the 1960s American Theatre avant-garde, has developed a complex taxonomy of performances that extend to virtually every aspect of life. “Theatre is only one node on a continuum that reaches from ritualization in animal behavior (including humans) through performances in everyday life—greetings, displays of emotion, family scenes and so on—to rites, ceremonies and performances: large-scale theatrical events” (Schechner 1977: 1). So expansive is his definition that it can seem that every aspect of our lives is a performance. There are some who go to this extreme, but then the word loses all significance. A possible, but not completely satisfactory, definition is that performance includes an aspect of self-conscious awareness. While this does little to define what performance is, it does identify times when we are not performing, as in non-dream sleep and other unconscious states. Another possible parameter is that performances involve a relationship between self and other. This, too, becomes complicated when asked to determine if looking in a mirror involves a relationship between the self and another.

Task 1

In small groups, challenge each other to define times when there is no performance. Be critical in determining if there is a relationship between self and other in each example, if there is an element of self-conscious awareness of what is taking place. For instance, is there a self/other relationship when I look at myself in a mirror? Is that a performance or not? What does this task tell you about the limits of performance?

As with theatre, I will use an expansive definition of performance while acknowledging that limits exist. Part of the challenge for you is to determine your definition of performance. The purpose of posing these questions—What is theatre? What is performance?—is to encourage you to think about art forms dynamically. Prematurely closing off your understanding of any form can limit your ability to imagine new forms of art. Whether or not you settle on a precise set of elements, there are others who will continue to test the boundaries of performance, exploring new ways of creating artistic experiences.

Theatre as a dynamic system

It is tempting to see theatre as a closed system with actors performing a text for an audience in space and over time precisely in the same way every performance. It doesn’t take much to realize that this is too simplistic. For example, actors are influenced by the reactions of the audience, adjusting their performance to responses that differ from night to night. Moreover, both actors and audience can be influenced by elements having nothing to do with the performance, such as what they have had to eat and drink or the temperature of the theatre. I directed a production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding, and in one scene we wanted to see the lovers and their pursuers finding their way through fog. Unfortunately, on certain nights the temperature of the theatre was so cold the fog gravitated to the warmth of the audience, leaving the actors to pretend they couldn’t see their way on a mist-less stage. Those who saw the show when the effect worked as planned had a very different and more comfortable experience.

There are also influences that lead spectators to expect a particular kind of performance before they enter the theatre. When Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was first performed in Florida, it was promoted as “the laugh sensation of two continents” (Lahr 2009). Needless to say, the audience was not prepared for the existential tragicomedy Beckett had written, putting the performers at a distinct disadvantage with the audience walking out in droves.

To understand theatre and performance, therefore, we need a more complex model that can include, if not necessarily account for, all the variables one encounters in the theatre, or, for that matter, in everyday life. Sophia New and Daniel Belasco Rogers used GPS to precisely track their movement patterns as they carried out routine trips to the store and other places near and far (New and Belasco 2010: 23–31). The variety in the routes they took attests to the inconsistency of their movements, suggesting that even a daily trip to the store involves deviations from the direct route from point A to point B. If there are unexpected occurrences that cause us to go astray when we go to mundane places, we cannot expect any model to account for all the unexpected events that happen during a performance. The best we can do is identify a perspective that can encompass, if not completely explain, those intangible forces that make live performances so exciting.

Fortunately, mathematics provides such a model: dynamic systems theory (DST). To fully understand a dynamic system, we need to differentiate it from its counterpart, the closed system. Our first model of the theatre exemplifies a closed system. Actors perform exactly the same for every audience, and every spectator experiences exactly the same performance as those who saw the show before them and those who will see it afterward. Like turning on a light switch, the same thing happens every time unless the circuit is broken, in which case there is no light, or no performance. In an open or dynamic system, on the other hand, even subtle changes can require an adjustment.

Looking at the conventional theatre experience, we can identify the elements that make up a dynamic system. Boundary conditions define the limits in which an event can take place. The proscenium wall creates a separate space for the performers and another for the spectators, who are further separated from the performers by the front of the stage. These are architectural structures that are inflexible, as are the seats in the house and the wings of the stage. Control parameters place flexible limitations on what happens. Different plays are performed in the same theatre. Each script identifies different characters and prescribes a set of actions. They are not rigid, however, being open to directorial interpretation, different kinds of casting, etc. Nevertheless, they control what the audience is going to see. Finally, there is the outside force or perturbation, such as unanticipated responses of the audience: an unexpected laugh or the absence of an expected one. The performers need to respond to these changes as they occur. Out of these variables, adaptive behavior emerges that responds to the needs of the moment, such as covering for another actor who gives you the wrong line. These are the four elements central to understanding a dynamic system: boundary conditions, control parameters, perturbation, and emergence.

Neuroscientist J. A. Scott Kelso explores the brain as a dynamic system, insisting that it consists of neural networks that interact with each other across brain regions:

Active, dynamic processes like ‘perceiving,’ ‘attending,’ ‘remembering,’ and ‘deciding’ that are associated with the word thinking are not restricted to particular brain locations but rather emerge as patterns of interaction among widely distributed neural ensembles and in general between human beings and their worlds. (Kelso 2008: 197)

Most of our lives are spent in what Kelso calls a metastable state: “The metastable regime is … a blend of two tendencies: one for the elements to bind together and the other for the elements to behave independently” (Kelso 2008: 192).

An example of elements that bind together is the ability to ride a bike. As we learn to ride, we learn to use pedals to accelerate and hand levers to brake while maintaining balance and steering at the same time. These skills are bound together, allowing us to say: “Once...