After
the Orgy
Reviews
Theatre in Wales
Volcano Theatre Company toured an earlier version of After the Orgy
in 1994. This version is sharper, with an almost wholly different text.
This is a show (rather than a play) that addresses the empty postmodern
world through text, technology and spectacle. The first impression was
of the enormous screen, like that of a television, that acted as both
a barrier between audience and stage and a surface on which a rolling
text was projected. Additional levels appeared behind this almost like
veils on which, or through which, texts and images could be seen according
to the lighting.screamed out the words in his own language. The disembodied/written
text could be read and understood; the embodied/spoken words were obscure.
Words and body, the very tools of drama itself, were set in opposition
though it was clear which was the most authoritative a perfect enactment
of the little man caught within patterns of dominance and language of
the text's declaration that there will come a time when man will no
longer be able to despise himself. The two "actors" Juan
Carrascoso and Gill
Lyon spoke to the audience but neither made any connection. A brilliant,
hard and glittering tour de force, the show explores and explodes the
voyeurism of television though its parody of that medium's stream of
images, each following on the other without narrative thread. A multitude
of different screens and videos, a rock band appearing and disappearing
as backgrounds dissolved into foregrounds through the use of lighting:
all this made the performance a series of visual and auditory events
rather than a linear narrative about character, of repetitions, clichés-
a world lacking a centre was mirrored on a stage lacking depth, boundaries,
duration.
At the heart of the show was an exploration of the voyeur, passively
consuming and exploiting spectacle. This explains the controversial
porn video which played throughout much of the show on a small television
set, suspended, like Carrascoso, above the stage. It also explains the
camera-rape of Lyon (its farcical replay making clear its reference
to Peeping Tom). This incident was the most (only) disturbing part of
the show, the audience drawing into easy identification with familiar
territory, only to be wrong-footed into recognising their complicity
in the exploitative values of the spectacular world.
The use of the porn video was peculiar in its effect. Set in competition
with so many other visual stimulants meant that the fantasy of full
identification with the camera as subject and total domination of the
image as object was impossible. This completely disabled it of erotic
potential. The fat woman fondling enormous lumps of flab in the form
of her overdeveloped breasts just looked ridiculous. In his dark glasses
Carrascoso was a dead ringer for Foucault, "interviewed" by
Lyon so we saw both individual and giant image floating over his head.
The sidelining of the individual was perfectly enacted in the refusal
to engage with the audience even to the extent of refusing definite
closure. The end was left "hanging" (the final word of the
text) as Carrascoso was again hoisted into the air.
The go-go dancer who had danced non-stop throughout the performance
was left dancing long after the two "actors" had bowed to
the camera and left the stage, returned to take their call (again to
the camera) and left for good. They faced away from the audience who,
sidelined bv the process, had no proper end or place to applaud to demonstrate
their recognition of the end of the illusion. After the Orgy
is an unsettling drama as testified by some of its discomfited reviews.
It is no surprise that Nightingale should single out Volcano and Frantic
Assembly in his booklet as "the most imaginatively exhilarating
of all" smaller scale theatre.
Jeni Williams
1 July 1998
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