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German version: Karen Witthuhn/ Transfiction
Creative production: Katja Timmerberg
It also says 'quietly'.
Quietly?
That’s what it says. At the top
It could be the title.
I don't think so. It's in italics. Doesn't that mean we have to do it, not say it?
Maybe they guessed. That we were likely to be speaking quietly. That's why it's written there.
But we might be very extrovert.
I don't feel particularly extrovert.
Me neither.
Especially not right now.
Background:
In 2007 Gert-Jan Stam, in a shift away from his work in visual arts, wrote a play. At the opening, after the show, a woman approached him and asked for a copy of the script. When asked what for, she explained that she would like to go home and perform the play with her family.
Astonished and intrigued by this request, Gert-Jan started trying to write a play which anyone could do ‘in the comfort of their own homes’ and, crucially, without rehearsal. He was chosen for MAKE 2010, a residency programme in Ireland giving 15 artists the chance to develop their work under the help and guidance of three mentors, one of whom that year was Ant Hampton. After MAKE, Ant suggested they continue working on the piece together within the Autoteatro context. In March 2011, as part of his festival 'The Game is Up!', Tom Bonte offered Ant and Gert-Jan a residency at Vooruit (Ghent, Belgium) in order to develop the piece further. This was also made possible thanks to financial support from Project Arts Centre, Dublin.
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OK OK
A minimalist comedy performed by the audience themselves. About 45 minutes. For 4 at a time.
The seated participants simply read, out loud, the words hi-lighted on the scripts they hold. By 'just saying the lines' all four readers find meaning and intention falling into place (despite no pressure to 'act' or correctly voice anything). Somehow, what's said is an expression of the same doubt, curiosity and anxiety that can be expected of anyone asked to read out loud, in a group, without preparation.
The text seems to anticipate the readers’ thoughts at any given moment. The result is an often very funny sense of the script acting as an uncannily 'live' object; a text, perhaps, being written at the same time as being read. This feeling gently snowballs as the piece develops and unfolds towards a surprising end.
As the first Autoteatro piece to function without audio or headphones, OK OK can be seen to treat printed text as a comparable if far older 'technology' (a pre-recordable, reproducible agency). Unlike the work with headphones however, the strategy is completely transparent. Everyone can read what everyone is saying.
OK OK follows on from Ant's previous collaboration, The Quiet Volume (with Tim Etchells) and explores, out loud this time, the strange potential for written text to gain its own life and claim its own space.
"OK OK is an unpretentious yet sophisticated brainwave... The spectator is entwined in a dialogue with himself, his fellow participants, deja-vus and thoughts." - Volkskrant (Netherlands)
“...reminded me of the trailer for that Will Ferrell movie, the one where he hears the narrator (...) It’s a concept “OK OK” toys with at first before altogether dismantling it in a way that creates an eerie sense of manipulation for everyone involved, turning its actors into tentacles of an increasingly self-aware creature.” - Egypt Independent
photos - Richard Lahuis