LANDLINE: walking with a soundtrack, cellphones and strangers
In 2015, the HPU attended a theatrical performance called Landline by Adrienne Wong and Dustin Harvey of Secret Theatre. As described on the ticketing site: Using smartphones, the audience is invited to take an audio-guided experiential tour while texting live with a stranger in a distant city. Landline is 'a curious exposure to the feeling of being alone together. Landline first premiered in Vancouver/Halifax. This iteration was between Granville Island in Vancouver, BC, and downtown Kitchener, ON, where HPU members Donna Akrey and Taien Ng-Chan participated. More info: http://www.xosecret.org/landline/
We began as a group, getting earbuds and iPod shuffles ready, getting our cellphones ready, entering the number of a stranger who, at the very same moment, will be doing the same thing. We stood in a circle, counted down the seconds, everyone pressing play at the same time. The sounds of a city came into my ears, the sounds of Granville Island in Vancouver, where my unseen scene partner was now listening to downtown Kitchener. We drifted off into the city, each in our own solitude, listening and walking. Every now and then, we were asked to do something: find a spot that reminded us of someone we missed, find something to lean against, text our partner something. The hour quickly passed in a story about memory, loss, and place.
After it was over, we gathered again as a group to find that the organizers had connected the other group on a screen so we could meet visually, over snacks, if we wished. Then we drove home, talking about our experience in the car. Here we attempt to capture some of that conversation:
Taien: The piece ended with such a lovely and poignant mood… the experience was bittersweet and beautiful.
Donna: It was…but somehow manipulative?
Taien: Yes, a bit... in the way that movie music is manipulative, signals a feeling or directs emotion (there was a lot of piano music used, which in movies always signifies "depth of feeling," for instance). A little too easy, a short-cut to emotion, just as being asked to think about "absence" will often produce that bittersweet feeling. The piece was just as much or more about cinema than theatre... we experience cinema in a solitary way. Theatre is more about presence, of the actors, the audience.
Donna: Yes, definitely-very much like cinema. Sound track to walk?
Directed walk/manipulated walk (but in a good way---it could have sucked)
Taien: I would definitely see it as locative cinema in that it connects you to the landscape through emotion and story. I guess it doesn’t matter quite so much what it is labelled as though. There’s too much emphasis on labelling. It was a hybridized experience.
Donna: I was certainly pulled into it – but I committed. I think everyone did. It seemed everyone had shared an experience so it was directed well. We were the actors/participants and we were fed our lines, then asked to improv and collaborate. The narrative was the director. The set was our feet in the space. and our heads – and our cell phones. It did not always synch up as dramatically as the narrative proposed. There was a bit of forcing.
Taien: I liked the connection to a stranger through the texting and felt that could have been used a bit more. But I agree, I think we committed and it worked quite beautifully. It was kind of sad though that the Vancouver people got beer and sausage at the end while we got water and granola bars (trading cultural stereotypes?!)
A very successful piece overall, whatever however it is defined...
The full moon certainly helped add to the atmosphere!
Taien: The piece ended with such a lovely and poignant mood… the experience was bittersweet and beautiful.
Donna: It was…but somehow manipulative?
Taien: Yes, a bit... in the way that movie music is manipulative, signals a feeling or directs emotion (there was a lot of piano music used, which in movies always signifies "depth of feeling," for instance). A little too easy, a short-cut to emotion, just as being asked to think about "absence" will often produce that bittersweet feeling. The piece was just as much or more about cinema than theatre... we experience cinema in a solitary way. Theatre is more about presence, of the actors, the audience.
Donna: Yes, definitely-very much like cinema. Sound track to walk?
Directed walk/manipulated walk (but in a good way---it could have sucked)
Taien: I would definitely see it as locative cinema in that it connects you to the landscape through emotion and story. I guess it doesn’t matter quite so much what it is labelled as though. There’s too much emphasis on labelling. It was a hybridized experience.
Donna: I was certainly pulled into it – but I committed. I think everyone did. It seemed everyone had shared an experience so it was directed well. We were the actors/participants and we were fed our lines, then asked to improv and collaborate. The narrative was the director. The set was our feet in the space. and our heads – and our cell phones. It did not always synch up as dramatically as the narrative proposed. There was a bit of forcing.
Taien: I liked the connection to a stranger through the texting and felt that could have been used a bit more. But I agree, I think we committed and it worked quite beautifully. It was kind of sad though that the Vancouver people got beer and sausage at the end while we got water and granola bars (trading cultural stereotypes?!)
A very successful piece overall, whatever however it is defined...
The full moon certainly helped add to the atmosphere!