Audience members that attended the one night only RWCMD showing of Dancing Bear, Dancing Bear by Gameshow, may well have felt quite confronted as they walked through the doors of the Richard Burton Theatre. As they take their seats, the audience are greeted by two men on stage, stark naked.
Prior to coming in they had been given headphones to wear through the show. In this sense the performance began in the foyer at the RWCMD and what we heard was a woman telling us of what she was experiencing at a train station.
Then we were beckoned by the front of house staff into the theatre where we were met with the aforementioned nakedness.
These unclad men (Matt Ryan and Matthew Evans) initially stand proud on the stage proving, by virtue of their very nakedness, that they are men, at least in the biological sense. Then the disembodied female voice (Hannah Ringham) in the headphones tells us that while she is not onstage she is in charge.
Throughout the performance she is the only one that speaks as the men wrestle, dance and fold clothes in silence. There are points in the piece where the men in turn, turn into women. It is important to note that they did not change their gestural performance, they did not ‘perform’ being either male or female – they are just changed by the context given by the voice over. This is where the piece is clever in showing its audience the influence of language and how powerful it can be in how we think, feel and construct our own narratives in terms of gender, sexuality and humanity.
The show is probably best described as performance art, despite its theatrical location and aesthetic, as it lacks any plot or scene structure. It has a fine art quality and could work as an installation in a museum.
Some regular theatre goers may be aggrieved or confused if they were expecting a ‘well-made’ play that they may be used to seeing in at this venue.
This performance, however, suited the location in its physical use of the space. It also has a particularly anti-patriarchal sense in its exploration of gender roles and perhaps they are deliberately challenging established convention of how we view theatre spaces.
The males’ performance stuck to a simple brief of emotionless physical interaction that avoided storytelling. Ringham’s voice performance was deliberately more expressive in tone and was often quite humourous.
The performance was approximately an hour long, and by the end of the hour it had lost me a little. I felt half way through that we got the point and it gave me enough to think about by then – I think some others may have felt the same as some left the performance early.
If this was set as a museum piece, as I have mentioned earlier, it would perhaps be more palatable. As it stands it loses its punch and waters down the initial qualities of the performance.
This show provides an interesting concept, and is thought provoking in terms of gender and the power of language. I do feel the setting may need to be thought through again.