a smith (2011) Gentle Acts of Removal, Replacement and Reduction: Considering the Audience in Co-Directing the Work of Tim Crouch. Contemporary Theatre Review, 21(4) 410-415.

Tim Crouch and Andy Smith in rehearsal for ‘What Happens to the Hope at the End of the Evening’ (2013)

• “Our method is one of gentle interrogation. We don’t cover or smooth over but we excavate. We reveal and extract. We guide the play to production trying to keep things open, in the hope that the audience can come in and meet the work with openness too.” (410)
• “As much as is possible, we are daily audience members, and we want to make sure as much as possible that the position and the presence of the audience are not forgotten.” (412)
• “While rehearsing The Author a phrase we used a lot was ‘untethering’ the audience, untying them from their usual position, from what might feel like an anchored position, and allowing them to float freely for a while. Uncertainty, as long as it contributes to the experience, is a good thing I think.” (413)
• “Then we meet in a room somewhere and we talk. We talk about it. We ask questions: searching questions, what might be intelligent questions and stupid questions, and we try to ask them carefully. We interrogate anything that we don’t understand.” (413)
• “They themselves are often looking to place something somewhere else, something that at first glance looks as if it perhaps shouldn’t be there, but that through this interrogation might begin to resonate and we realise that it absolutely can: no stage, or an audience upon it (The Author), a performer who is standing in front of us but doesn’t know the words or the story (An Oak Tree), a play that has been transplanted into a gallery (ENGLAND).” (413)

My notes:

• “the presence of the audience are not forgotten”: Liveness in contrast to the more dramatic performer-spectator set up with barrier of fourth wall – these barriers are deconstructed
• “untethering the audience”: Audience ‘untethered’ from their usual position, subject to uncertainty
• “We ask questions: searching questions, what might be intelligent questions and stupid questions”: A dramaturgy which is ready to ask more questions than give answers