Opens Space and Playback Theatre

Peter O'Connell Peter at hvrf.com.au
Fri Jun 30 00:25:07 PDT 2000


Dear all
I was fowarding Chris Corrigan's inspired "Story of Strange Things..." to a
friend the other day, and started to write a brief(!!) covering note
regarding an observation I had made about the connection between one  of
the principles of Openspace, and the ethos that underpins Playback Theatre.
 Having just spent a weekend involved (very much as a novice) in a Playback
workshop  what ensued was probably not surprising -- the brief note started
to look like a magnum opus.

And while I'm unsure of the relevance or interest out there in this topic,
in the way of OST I'm putting it up, and am prepared to be surprised.

As a quick precis, Playback Theatre is a form of non-scripted theatre,
presented by a team of actors, a conductor and a musician.  With the help
of the conductor the audience share moments, reflections and stories from
their lives, and the actors and the musician then re-enact those stories
using mime, music, metaphor and dance.  It is truly spontaneous, improvised
and very interactive.

Once the space is opened for a peformance with the audience and the
players,  then everything is already there just waiting for the stories to
be discovered.  Stories that I've read about playback talk about nights
when audiences were very small, but produced great stories and energy.
 This highly participative nature of Playback, where the lines between the
audience and the players becomes blurred (in effect the audience are the
scriptwriters and directors), for me captures the principle of  "Whoever
comes are the right people".

When the conductor has finished "interviewing" the teller about their story
and initiates the playback with the words "You watch",  the players don't
immediately move into the space (first up they clear it) but wait until the
moment "feels" right for them to move into the story.  This can lead to a
situation where the four players are standing there, motionless, with
nothing happening (at least visibly happening that is).  I think of this as
the embodiment of the principle of  "Whenever it starts is the right time".
 From the story teller's standpoint they too must feel engaged before
bringing their story into the space, which may not necessarily happen
during any particular performance.

"Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened" really
captures the spontaneity aspect of playback.  The re-enactment is in the
moment -- there is no going back to polish something that you felt didn't
work -- it is out there for everyone.  And the thing that constantly amazes
me about playback is that often when you think that you got it wrong (and
sometimes you do eg  getting mixed up about which actor is portraying which
character) or could have done it better, you then hear that the storyteller
attributed a different meaning to it, and often your "mistake" is their
most powerful moment in the re-enactment.

The "When its over its over" principle seems like a good one to guide the
performance by -- sometimes you can get caught in the idea that the story
needs to be played out fully to its narrative end.  One of the things that
we did a lot of work around on the weekend was distilling the true essence
of the story and/or identifying its critical point, and to ensure that this
was fully explored or amplified.  Part and parcel of this was the fact that
if this was dealt with, then the teller's story was honoured, and that it
may not be necessary to include all of the remaining details.  The playback
may even end at the critical point without the need to get the to
"narrative end" of the story.

So here endeth my ramblings and rantings on this topic, at least for the
moment.  These ideas are still swirling in my head, and I would welcome
hearing other's thoughts and experiences.
Thanks, and have a great weekend.
Peter O'Connell

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