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Faculty of English the CONSTRUCTION of SKILL in CONTEMPORARY EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE Giacomo Giuseppe Belloli Queens' College U

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Faculty of English the CONSTRUCTION of SKILL in CONTEMPORARY EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE Giacomo Giuseppe Belloli Queens' College U Faculty of English THE CONSTRUCTION OF SKILL IN CONTEMPORARY EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE Giacomo Giuseppe Belloli Queens’ College University of Cambridge This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in August 2018 i Declaration This thesis is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It does not exceed the prescribed word limit for the relevant Degree Committee. i ABSTRACT The construction of skill in contemporary experimental theatre Giacomo Giuseppe Belloli A concern with ‘skill’ – the embodied process of becoming accustomed to, and getting better at, particular practices – underpins the work of a range of recent experimental theatre-makers in the UK. While Tom Cornford has proposed that the theatre has not experienced a ‘turn to the crafts’ to match the concurrent one in the visual arts, I argue that theatrical practice is caught within this turn. The encounters that occur in theatrical auditoria become sites for the construction of skill, where the skilled practice of performers and audiences can be developed and celebrated, but also where the implications of what that means can be interrogated. Rather than illustrating Richard Sennett’s and Tim Ingold’s theories of skill, these performances develop a critical dialogue with them. Chapters 1 and 2 compare the plays of Martin Crimp and Tim Crouch. Taken together, these chapters reveal how each author negotiates between two different understandings of playwriting within contemporary British dramaturgy: as a distinctive craft producing material with and on which other crafts work, and as one component of a more fluidly collaborative theatre-making ecology that the text documents. I associate these understandings, respectively, with the anthropological models of the trap and the gift. In the indeterminate worlds of these performances, a skill that is both regulated and spontaneous is as feasible as a gift which is both freely given and socially conditioned. Chapter 3 focuses on productions by Forced Entertainment since Bloody Mess (2004), as the company have attempted to reconcile their commitment to avant-garde convention-breaking with a reliable, recognisable set of practices. I argue that they rigorously negate skill, by sustaining a practice in which the coupling of abstract reflection with embodied action continually breaks down. Their performances critique Ingold’s phenomenological approach to skill, by drawing attention to those practices and atmospheres that humans are unable to understand through immediate participation. Chapter 4 offers an analysis of METIS Arts’ World Factory (2012-17), and the challenges of making an interactive performance about the unequally deskilled labour conditions of global capitalism. A dialectic of deskilling and reskilling operates across the labour conditions that the production explores, the company’s production process, and actor-audience interactions within the performance. This dialectic offers a critical alternative to much contemporary immersive theatre, figuring performance as rehearsal for action within a networked, postcapitalist society. My conclusion explores the political opportunities that the troubling, or the refusal, of a ‘turn to the crafts’ in the contemporary theatre might offer in the face of systemic financial and ecological crisis. In particular, I consider how a strain of modernist dissidence within my examples might come to be identified and enabled in a wider variety of theatre-making contexts. iii Acknowledgements However satisfying writing is – that mix of discipline and miracle, which leaves you in control, even when what appears on the page has emerged from regions beyond your control – it is a very poor substitute indeed for the joy and the agony of loving. Gillian Rose (2011: 59) One of the arguments of this thesis is that people never know what they’re creating while they’re creating it, and depend on others to tell them what it’s becoming. It’s often felt like a thesis about writing a thesis, and I’m grateful to those who’ve made it possible. I’ve changed a great deal during the process, but Steve Connor has provided everything I’ve needed of a supervisor whenever I’ve needed it: excitement at my new ideas and discoveries, warnings about blind alleys and incoherences, patience (but rapid response) when I’ve just needed the time to think and write. I’m grateful for Zoë Svendsen’s enthusiasm for my ideas and willingness to ‘open up the process’ of World Factory; I couldn’t have asked for a more fitting final case study. At key moments Drew Milne also offered wise advice, and Robert Macfarlane and Helen Thaventhiran encouragement and reading suggestions. Elsewhere in the Faculty of English, I’m grateful for the help of Anna Fox, Marica Lopez-Diaz, Jen Pollard, the entire team in the Faculty Library – and all the undergraduates whom I made sit through bits of the DVD of Bloody Mess. I am fortunate to be able to trace many of the books that have been important to this thesis to particular friends and colleagues. The project fell into place when Joel Chalfen introduced me to Ingold. Simone Kotva told me about Descola, Emma Mason about Sloterdijk, Jonas Tinius about Roger Sansi and Neylan Bagicoglu about John Roberts. Co-convening the CRASSH Performance Network and the AHRC DTP’s Materials in Practice Reading Group were highlights of my PhD: my special thanks (among those not yet mentioned) to Rachel Hodgson, Paul Merchant and Abi Glen for working with me to make them happen, and all who collaborated on them. I’m grateful for those who listened to, and asked questions about, my work in progress at seminars and conferences in Cambridge, London, Reading, Bristol and Birmingham. In particular, Poppy Corbett and Cristina Delgado-Garcia have been generous in sharing perspectives on Crouch. I thank everyone I’ve worked alongside in various writing groups and study rooms, and the amazing group of friends I’ve made at Queens’. In addition to them, the conversation and moral support of the following friends were particularly important in keeping me going: Mel Berrill and Tim Waters, Aoife Byrne, Vahni Capildeo, James Coghill, Christian Coppa, Sian Eastwood, Sarra Facey and Jenny Harris, Brendan Gillott, Jules Gleeson, Tim Harling, Joe Jarrett, Hannah Johnson, Talitha Kearey, Ayla Lepine, Anna Matthews and the congregation of St Bene’t’s, Laura McCormick Kilbride, Orla iv Polten, Lotte Reinbold, Claire Wilkinson, and David Winters. The prospect of working with Al Barrett and the rest of the community in Hodge Hill, Birmingham next year gave me an incentive to finish. And I owe particular thanks to Julie Greenhough, for believing all along that I would do a PhD and for modelling how to do one. This research was funded jointly by the University of Cambridge’s AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership and the Queens’ College Walker Studentship, and augmented by a Completion Award from the Faculty of English’s Judith E Wilson Fund. For help in securing that funding, I thank Teresa Grant and Elizabeth Barry, Daniel Wakelin and Robin Kirkpatrick. Material from Chapter 2 was published, as ‘Tim Crouch’s transferable skills: textual revision as distributed determination in My Arm and The Author’, in Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts 10.1 (2015), pp.10-28 – my thanks to its readers and editors. As recently as 2014, I didn’t expect to be writing a thesis dedicated to theatre. But it’s a turn of events that has delighted and engaged my parents – and, once I got used to my mum recommending any new children’s show that she thought might be relevant, I’m delighted that this project carries on some of the spirit of her life’s work and my dad’s more casual interest (and deeply serious playfulness). Moving back in with them made the final months of writing a pleasure. This thesis is dedicated to them, and to the memory of my nonna Teresa, in thanks for their love and sacrifice – even though I know they’ll say it has felt like nothing. v Surely all of this living that has gone on that is ours is good in some way, though we cannot tell why: we know only that our sympathy has deepened, quickened by the onrushing spectacle, to the point where we are like spectators swarming up onto the stage to be absorbed into the play, though always aware that this is an impossibility, and that the actors continue to recite their lines as if we weren’t there. John Ashbery, ‘The System’ (2010: 309) vi Contents Introduction: experimental theatre beyond the studio 1 1. A new structure?: the case of Secret Theatre 1 2. Richard Sennett and the history of craft 6 3. Tim Ingold and the pragmatic critique of skill 15 4. The radical critique of skill 27 5. Summary: within the ‘turn to the crafts’ 36 Chapter 1: Martin Crimp’s songscapes 39 1. Between playwriting and theatre-making 39 2. The soundtrack to deskilling 45 3. The horizon of reskilling 52 4. Between traps and gifts 61 Chapter 2: Tim Crouch’s perfectionism 67 1.
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