observance of silence and listening

in Forced Entertainment's Showtime

If you observe a person or thing, you see, notice or watch them carefully. “Observe”: that's what a theatre audience usually and quite naturally does. On the other hand, if you observe a law or custom, you obey and follow them. A theatre audience does that also. Before, while and after watching a show, they observe – consciously or inadvertently – a myriad of written and unwritten laws and customs. A minute of silence can often be seen in theatre as a part of a staged action. Seldom, though, do theatre spectators witness a minute of silence that is supposed to be observed “for real” on both sides of the “fourth wall.”

Yet, it is precisely the observance of one minute of silence that is imposed on the audience as a community and on each spectator separately that occurs at the beginning of Forced Entertainment's Showtime. One minute of not much to be seen, nor heard on stage. One minute of nothing but an actor-cum-administrator (of this strange paratheatrical ritual) just standing and looking at the ground in a pseudo-contrite way. Haven't they taught you, you forced-action entertainers, that one minute of stage time spent in vain can cost you dear?

All right, I agree. One minute, it's not a big deal. (Are they sure it's gonna be only one?) "So, a minute… silence," says the guy. All right. But what am I to do? Observe? What exactly? I could just sit pretending to do what everybody else does (what, as a matter of fact, does everybody else do?). I could probably think about somebody who's important or dear to me (that's what's being suggested, but I really don't think that anyone in the audience is right now offering their thoughts to their loved ones). I could hold a minute of silence in respect for the victims of a tragedy or catastrophe (but I somehow doubt that it is as a community in prayer for the strength to heal and recover that we spectators unite in this particular moment). I could use this minute of silence to think about the things I did today or about those I am to do after the show or tomorrow (I am too lazy for that, I came to see the show precisely in order to avoid my quotidian preoccupations). I could meditate (if only I knew how to do that). I suppose this solemn moment is the perfect time to say a prayer or two (if only I felt the slightest impulse to do that). I've got it! I could watch other spectators and spy on them indulging in their little passions for pity and terror. That's what I usually do when I'm bored in theatre. Except this time, I am stuck since forced by decorum not to move my head – not even my eyes – during one minute full of humbleness and self-effacement. Oh, this minute seems to curiously bother me more than numerous hours of boredom that I have so far endured in theatre! But look, this minute of silence is dissolving right now into laughter!

Soon I am to discover that this rather motionless minute, with or without laughter, continues throughout the evening. Too often I start watching a person (or the dog) who is delivering a stage speech only to become aware that my attention is immediately being drawn to another person (or the dog) who carefully, respectfully – and silently – listens to the former. I can look at either of the two (I am persuaded that I am able to choose which one to focus my gaze on), I can look at both of them consecutively, I don't have to decide (we're not at the movies, I don't have to observe dogmatic laws of shot-countershot sequence), but I am somehow constantly forced to watch the listener, to observe listening itself, rather than to watch or, for that matter, listen to the speaker. I become so deeply absorbed by this seemingly modest sight of listening that I keep losing track of what's being said. And finally I give up. After all, do I really care about what's being said? As long as I can see – as long as I can observe – that somebody else is there listening and arguably hearing.

It seems that in Showtime the usually coordinated and complementary stage actions of speaking and listening interfere with and obstruct one another. Their relation is one of constant compromise and supersession. Listening is here by no means caused by nor subjected to speaking. It often starts before any word is pronounced at all. The listener seldom looks at the speaker. The speaker’s text is governed not so much by a coherent meaning, but rather by the visual composition of conversation (loud or silent) and particularly of listening. And while one might say that by emphasizing on-stage listening one impedes the effects of theatrical imagery, it is much more the speech itself (i.e., the logos bearing the meaning) that is desemanticized and deconstructed by the visually striking listening. Although the speaker's answers to the questions (sometimes posed by the listener) seem fairly logical, it is the questions that are posed without recognizable motives and coherence in the first place. Taken together, questions and answers paradoxically appear not to belong to this universe of listening. And since the speech competes with the scenic action of listening, which is often paired with the questioning, there is no end to questions. The more insatiable the listening, the more resistant the speaking (and not vice versa as we are used to).

It is by a palpable fusion of the observance of silence and observance of listening that Showtime succeeds in finding a space where to escape from the domination of scenic speech, deemed since the birth of theatre to be of the highest rank in the hierarchy of theatre constituents. As we can see, respectful observance can sometimes lead even to resistance.

Ljubi Matic

April 9, 2005