ARTIFICIAL REALITY

by Katie Smyth


SquareOne Entertainment





Theatrical self-consciousness is nothing new. In Henry V, Shakespeare recognised the limitations of "this wooden O" by inciting his audience to believe itself to be on the field of Agincourt. Later, the advent of Modernism saw theatre throw off its cloak of naturalism and profess its falsity with a greater degree of openness than ever before. Today, gone are the days of entering the auditorium and suspending your disbelief.

Contemporary theatregoers are treated to stripped back sets and characters that often parody rather than play their parts to expose the performance to be nothing more than an act or representation of the real. In its past season Edinburgh's Lyceum Theatre has embraced such self-conscious drama, playing host to Brian Friel's Living Quarters and Pirendello's Six Characters in search of an Author. SquareOne Entertainment spoke to actor Ron Donachie who played the domineering father figure in each production to get to the crux of the matter and discover why drama which declares itself to be make-believe is proving so popular.

Striding into a quiet café, Donachie retains some of the militaristic air of his Living Quarters' character Commandant Frank Butler. His jaunty tam 'o shanter and billowing trench coat evoke something of the fictional war hero. However, open and friendly, Donachie chats freely about the plays with none of his character's brusque reserve.

Living Quarters enthralled audiences last November when the Lyceum staged its UK premier. Based on the Greek Phaedran cycle it tells the story of Commandant Butler's return from a UN peace-keeping mission to his home barracks only to discover that in his absence his new wife Anna, thirty years his junior, has been sleeping with his estranged son.

Such a classic plot lends itself easily to naturalism and a straight performance yet in a departure from his Greek model, Friel wills into being the character of Sir, an omniscient narrator/director who, assisted by a ledger which has captured every word and significant glance, attempts to afford the family clarity allowing them to replay the events of that day. The resulting self-conscious performance where the characters attempt to take liberties with the plot and break the rules of the ledger borrows as much from Brecht as Euripides.

The desire of characters to alter their destiny was taken even further later in the Lyceum's season when it staged Pirendello's dadaist Six Characters in search of an Author. Unlike Living Quarters in which the action is temporarily suspended, the characters actually invade a rehearsal, stop proceedings and beg the director and his troop of actors to tell their stories.

Donachie explains more: "this is a very sophisticated piece and people tend to get hung up on the legend surrounding it. There's a confusion between art and reality." Yet while Living Quarters drew glittering praise, it seems the blurring between stage and auditorium proved too much in the Pirendello.

Reviews varied in warmth and it appears some audience members were still too committed to suspending their disbelief and buying into the drama as real. Young playwright Hana Mackechnie found plenty to criticise in an apparent departure from realism. Having accepted the presentation that the entire plot was a rehearsal with the "characters" taking over, Mackechnie was disappointed when normal theatrical conventions appeared again: "I don't like that they had the curtain call because it was meant to be a rehearsal. Why did they break the illusion?" Donachie puts her confusion and disappointment down to audiences being unable to distinguish the self-conscious theatre it sees on the stage from the naturalistic performance it expects to see. Or to put it his way, "well that's just bollocks isn't it?"

Yet despite the switherings of certain theatregoers unable or unwilling to let go of their grounding in naturalism, the ever-present self-conscious drama looks set to stay at the Lyceum. In the current run of Vanity Fair, Becky Sharpe and chums delight whilst consistently reminding us that they are simply presenting a version of events. Theatre in Edinburgh has never looked more artificial, more stripped back and more aware of its limitations. And perhaps therein lies its strength.

Break the illusion yourself by going to the Lyceum: www.lyceum.org.uk