A New Cultural Sector: SCRIPTS IN EXHIBITION

A New Cultural Sector?

SCRIPTS IN EXHIBITION

SCRIPTS IN EXHIBITION, defined – ‘ Sequential display of a script, each page a separate art object, dramatised with art work (text images, illustrations, paintings, sculpture, bas relief sculpture, bas relief paintings, collage or combination of some/all of these) displayed in an exhibition space (interior or exterior) read/viewed by the public by walking through’. This development appeared during the BOOK-DECO project (previous article on www.londoncomedywriters.com) in 1986. The ‘eureka realisation’ was – ‘a page of text is an image, black rectangle on white rectangle of paper’. Little attention has been made by publishers/printers to this, little known, fact. But ALL fiction texts have been laid out in differentiated images. They’re not images a connoisseur would get excited about, even if the book were by Dickens. Black rectangle on white rectangle on page after page, edition after edition. However, images can be artistic if given aesthetic attention.

The text lay-out for the first script (MACBETH – THE FLIP SIDE) dumped the ‘vertically stacked’ lay-out – name in caps on left, dialogue in lowers case and directions in caps on right. I ran on the speeches and paragraphed them. Retained the upper case for characters/directions. I also printed onto variously coloured paper. No attempt was made to create text images. The first lay-out was tied to the Book-Deco Limited Edition. Exhibited in Devon, Paris and Southern Spain. On returning to the U.K. I worked on a full ‘dramatisation’ of Macbeth – The Flip side, developing the concept of the TEXT IMAGE. This has similarities to POETRY CONCRETE I pre-designed each page, on three themes – 1) in the castle, 2) near the castle, 3) away from the castle. Typed the text into pencilled-in images, utilising the paragraph, speech run-on concepts, envisaging each block of text as a colour block. The ‘in the castle’ images were inside different designs of castle. The ‘near the castle’, featured abstract colour blocks located near a small castle (made from capital Xs). The ‘away from the castle’ just used abstract colour blocks. I also ‘dramatised’ the text by using upper case on the key words in sentences, as actors stress them in speaking. In the background laid in linear figurative illustrations – hills, trees, woods etc.. So, each page was visually different from all the others.

I worked onto A4, then enlarged (photocopy) each page from ‘masters’ to A3. In this process, colour could be added – paper of different colours, the colours thematically organised. If I had used a photocopy shop, I could have incorporated coloured inks. The final ‘production’ ran to 84 PAGES-AS-ART-OBJECTS and was given 2 exhibitions in Devon. Each page-as-art-object could be purchased, OR the whole production could be in reproduction. Giving any buyer enough art work to visually enhance his/her whole house (£200 for 84 pages).

The major advantage of this kind of ‘dramatisation’ is that it is VERY inexpensive. (Cuts actors, director, stage, sets, costumes, lights, rehearsals, theatres, props). Typing the whole text onto 84 sheets of A4 paper cost, in ’92, some £2, with ink and eraser, perhaps £5 in total. The coloured A3 paper, 5p per sheet, the A3 photocopies another 10p each = £4.20 + £8.40 = £12.60. Total = £16.60. A COMPLETE, UNIQUE, PRODUCTION PUT TOGETHER FOR APPROX. £16.60! Obviously there were other costs – publicity, venue hire, private view invites. Then, about £50. Approximate total for the whole project = £66.60. A performed production would have cost in the region of £200,000 possibly! If I’d taken the project out of county, other costs would have accumulated – travel, phone calls, more publicity, adverts. I didn’t.

I also ‘realised’ that words are MIND IMAGE creating devices. The image – ‘a black horse cantered across a field filled with wild flowers’ originates in my mind. Is transferred to yours via the words. While reading that sentence you ought to have the mental picture of a black horse cantering across a wild flower filled field. So it is with all sentences and phrases, mind images transferred from one mind to another. What viewers get with this style of production is verbal interpretations of the text as multiple mind images, located within the context of variable text images, against backgrounds of linear figurative images – 3 levels of integrated image.

Art buyers expect art work to be traditionally presented. To most ‘art work is art work and goes in frames’. I made the mistake of not framing each page, the production bombed economically. But since little had been spent little was lost. I’d put on one of the few ORIGINAL productions of a script in 2,600 years (99% of the rest being performed) introduced a new kind of image, a new form of production. If the art work and concept weren’t to the conservative Devonian tastes, tough. It’s an ‘accepted’, by most in the arts, that being an artist in the philistine, archaic cliché loving, war-oriented U.K. is difficult.

However – Text Images is but ONE way a script can be dramatised with art work. Another is to link fragments of the dialogue to related figurative images, as in comics, enlarged to A5 A4 or A3. The ‘production’ displayed sequentially in an exhibition space. In 1997 I tackled Act 1 Scene 1 of Midsummer Night’s Dream in this form. 40 A3 text-integrated illustrations covered it. All the acts or any full length play? The number of illustrations would be in excess of 3,000, so an open air space (images laminated) and a group of illustrators would be needed, adding greatly to the expense. Even more expensive and time consuming – fragments of dialogue linked to paintings; 3-D paintings (combines sculpture, illustration and pottery – another innovation of mine), small table standing figurines or a combination of all of these.

For the public, a Text Image Production would be a VERY different set of experiences from the traditional ‘script in performance’. He/she can – A) Walk through the production, so it is an active not passive set of experiences; B) View the images/read the text; C) Take his/her time over each image; D) Go back to previous Pages-as-Art-Objects, re-reading/viewing them. So, move backwards in DRAMATIC TIME. E) Jump FORWARD in dramatic time, to read/view pages further on. F) Read/view in any order, fragmenting dramatic time. G) Experience the work BACKWARDS, REVERSING dramatic time. H) Break at any time; I) Chat to friends at each page discussing the immediate image/whole work. J) Enter at any time, take as long as he/she wants to read/view. K) Go out and return as many times as he/she likes. L) Sit down and study any page at length. M) Chat to/up other members of the public. N) Afterwards purchase – single pages; the complete work in reproduction; the complete work half size or miniaturised at reasonable prices. 0) By buying the complete work obtain enough art work to visually enhance his/her whole house (at the kind of price they might pay for ONE painting in an art shop). Such a production can also be backed by music. Certainly, Performance Productions are/have been LINEAR, with a beginning, middle, end. That is also the archaic convention.

With exhibited productions the line is deconstructed, the experience INDIVIDUALISED, everyone takes away a different impression since each can take it in the images in different orders – page 1,3,6,2,7,10,30 etc. and fit the story back together in his mind like a jigsaw. We do, after all, live in societies where the FREEDOM OF THE INDIVIDUAL and INDIVIDUALITY is supposed to be important. Yet, with theatre, film T.V., books, newspapers, magazines we are regarded as aspects of the MASS, de-individualised, faceless, identikit ‘punters’ and served up with standardised, cliché form fare.

However, the Text Image production would give the attending public a set of experiences which aren’t that alien. We walk around exhibitions of paintings/sculpture. ‘Read’ the art work, tuning in to the artist’s ideas. So, reading/viewing exhibited text images would not be so strange. It would also be less expensive (gate fee charged) than attending a performance. Though if artistS put together a bas relief painting dramatisation, costs would escalate, thus prices for admission rise. A Text Image Production can be mounted by any writer with a few bob in his pocket, a developed design/visual sense, access to exhibition space. In 1993 I financed the ‘Macbeth’ project on INCOME SUPPORT (I was registered disabled, indeed, still am).

If theatres throughout the country adapted F.O.H. spaces to hold EXHIBITIONS of scripts, they could – A) Provide themselves with two contrasting forms of production (performance on stage, exhibitions F.O.H.). B) Open up broad new opportunities for playwrights (exhibitions changing every month). C) GREATLY increase script production throughout the country (one West End theatre putting on 12 scripts-in-exhibition per year would VASTLY increase production in its venue). If extrapolated round the estimated 200 or so theatres in the U.K. it could mean an increase of 2,500 new scripts displayed in the public domain each year! It is doubtful, currently, given the selection procedures in place, whether there are 300 new scripts put on each year in the U.K.. The tired, expensive ‘Greek Idea’ being the only one theatre folk, internationally, have for script dramatisation.. D) Give themselves a DEMOCRATIC method of selecting performable scripts, the public VOTING which scripts in exhibition they would like to see performed. E) Give the public a totally new set of aesthetic experiences – TWO contrasting types of production, OR, a selection of ‘performance or exhibition’. F) Offer CHOICES – 1 performance only; 2 performance and exhibition; 3 exhibition only, at different charges. G) Open during the day for people who want to attend the exhibition only. All this, basically, at the initial cost of adapting a F.O.H. space. The production costs of the exhibited scripts could be eliminated and down to the authors to realise (£50? No sweat!) Costs to run such shows would be on – F.O.H. staff, extra publicity/adverts, exhibition space lighting, heat and maintenance. Financial feedback from – gate fee; percentage on sales of pages-as-art-objects and complete productions, attraction of the ‘NEW STYLE THEATRE’.

Obviously, in this capitalist society, where money is king, the economic aspect of the projected sector will weigh heavily on any potential backer’s mind. Fundamentally, as I see it, production costs will be LOW, after the initial F.O.H. adaptation, and income from the SEVERAL attractions HIGH. But what will it do for U.K. cultural life? 2,500 + NEW SCRIPTS COULD BE OUT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN PER YEAR! It would be the largest explosion of pent-up creative energy in U.K., European history! The ‘log-jams’ set up by the restricted thinking and traditionalism of theatre personnel blown away. But, if it is all too much of a shock for the elitist, culturally reactionary, traditionalists of theatre, eternally fixed on their monopolistic, very hackneyed (worked into the ground for centuries) Greek concept, exhibition space is available elsewhere. France, Spain, Germany, China etc. and outside the theatre world. Il y a plusiers mondes autrepart. As a character in a play by some copyist-of-Aeschelus playwright said in another language. Will wasn’t that original, he lifted the whole structure of playwriting/theatre from Aeschelus/Euripides/Thespis. The West acclaims a COPYIST as its greatest playwright, and all other playwrights have to copy that copyist. ‘Cept this one!

Tony welcomes your feedback and he can be contacted here.