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activate
Title: On Being Audience: Modalities of Theatrical Speech and Listening

Author(s): Rebecca Collins

Source: activate, Issue 1, Volume 2 (Spring 2012). URL: http://www.thisisactivate.net/thisisac_roeham/wpcontent/uploads/2012/06/Collins_On-Being.pdf

Copyright in this work remains with the author(s).

activate is a peer-reviewed electronic journal in the field of performance and creative research. Based in the Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance at Roehampton University, London, it is run by postgraduates as a forum for postgraduate and postdoctoral scholars to publish their work. Each edition focuses on a specific theme and aims to include a range of new critical and performative practices in relation to it. In addition to these articles, submissions are invited that review contemporary books and performances. mail@thisisactivate.net

On Being Audience: Modalities of Theatrical Speech and Listening

Rebecca Collins Man is political because he possesses speech that gives him the capacity to place the just and the unjust in common, whereas the animal merely has a voice with which it signals pleasure or pain. This is Aristotles argument to which Jacques Rancire in Aesthetics and its discontents draws attention. Politics for Rancire is not a struggle for power; it is centrally concerned with the framing and distribution of space and time. Rancire identifies being together in the world through the distribution of the sensible (2004, p.85); a term used to describe how all of the common social world such as objects, forms, places, subjects; all that can be perceived, all that is sayable and all that is audible through the senses, is framed in a particular way so as to exclude and include. This mutually inclusive and exclusive sharing or division of the common generates conflict. This conflict is what Rancire further recognises as politics. Note that the sharing of the common is undertaken by those deemed worthy of acting on behalf of others, namely those who are not slaves to time or work, those who have time.1 Rancire argues that politics only occurs when the excluded deemed capable of only emitting animalistic sounds more closely associated with cries of pleasure and pain become able to emit speech worthy of inclusion into discourse. This discourse disrupts the space and time frame of the distribution of the sensible, calling into question said divides and enabling visibility. For Rancire: Politics consists in reconfiguring the distribution of the sensible which defines the common of a community, to introduce into it new subjects and objects, to render visible what had not been, and to make heard as speakers those who had been perceived as noisy animals (2009, p.25). This reconfiguring can allow for an alteration in sensory understanding and thus a resharing of the common can occur.2 It also follows that the aesthetic regime of art for Rancire has the potential for those excluded within the distribution of the sensible to make themselves heard or seen. An art event, or art encounter can bring about new perspectives on the shared out, the common allowing it to be considered from another position. Alternative ways of sensible being (Rancire 2009, p.10) together can be rendered visible or, more significantly within the scope of this article, can be made heard.
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It is further worth mentioning that in his argument Rancire does not name a specific group of people. I will also therefore resist naming a specific group. In case it is not clear, the common here refers to all that is common in the world, all that man shares; objects, subjects, places.

Rancires concept of the distribution of the sensible and his arguments about aesthetics provide the starting point to the theoretical framework of this article. Both for Jean-Luc Nancy in Listening and for Adriana Cavarero in For more than one voice: toward a philosophy of vocal expression the visual is something relatively stable, a place that you actively seek to look at, to be in front of. In contrast, the sonorous, has no set place, it is essentially mobile and unstable. It can attack, surprise or occur without prior notice. Sound creates the realm of in the presence of (Nancy 2007, p.13) as opposed to a being present. It is a coming and a passing, an extending and a penetrating (Nancy 2007, p.13) where sound essentially comes and expands, or is deferred and transferred (Nancy 2007, p.13). Through its presence, it opens a space that is its own, the very spreading of its resonance, its expansion and its reverberation (Nancy 2007, p.13). This space includes that in-between the source of the sound and the emitter, be it between the mouth and the ear, one interlocutor and another, in-between listening and understanding. Sound engages in a reciprocal arrangement, it creates a leaning to understanding that reveals itself or unravels itself over and through successive moments. As Cavarero states, Sounds are dynamic events, not static qualities, and thus they are transient by nature. What characterizes sounds is not being but becoming (2005, p.37). Thus sonorous perception involves an opening up in-between and beyond words, it can extend and go beyond meaning marking a shift from the epistemological to the ontological. Adriana Cavarero posits the voice as an inner expression of the uniqueness of the human being, a manifestation of the most inner, hidden and genuine part that signifies nothing but itself (2005, p.7) where although speech constitutes the final destination of the voice, it is essentially sound that is emitted, a sound that communicates a being, an essence of being that goes beyond words, no longer concerned with logos. This being is not in isolation, but is in relational communication with the other, as Cavarero notes the sphere of the vocal implies the ontological plane and anchors it to the existence of singular beings who invoke one another continuously (2005, p.173). This marks the coming-into-being of the self in the presence of the other through the voice. It is the communicating of oneself that goes beyond content and to a certain extent is more visceral. It is also concerned with breathing in the same physical space. It becomes more a question of ontology than of linguistic verbal exchange. The voice according to Cavarero is therefore valid as an expression of sounds long before it becomes entangled in the logocentric, semiotic nature of language. It first reveals who a person is through the grain, resonance, timbre and

rhythm that resists against the plurality and generality of language. However, through its ability to be a phone semantike (Cavarero 2005, p.190), a signifying voice is still other than the cry of the animal. The above forms a methodological framework and outlines the philosophical positions for this article that aims to investigate the ontological significance of the voice, speech and act of listening within a theatrical context. The following paragraphs will analyze two performances using the above as a lens through which to read them.

Giulio Cesare Socetas Raffaello Sanzio performed Giulio Cesare in 1999; of particular interest here is the performance of Mark Antony. The actor, Dalmazio Masani had had a laryngectomy and speaks throughout the performance with the help of a voice box. A microphone directed at the hole in the actors throat amplifies the sounds that emanate from his body. The gaze of the spectator is consistently drawn to the mouth to hear the words that are spoken in Italian. The words are immediately rendered secondary (to non-Italian speakers), although there were subtitles in the original stage version, attention focuses on the grain of the voice, the resonance. The sounds, essentially guttural come from the innermost chambers of the being in front of you. It is a voice stripped of manipulative emotions through the use of a mediatizing device; there is a reduction within the acting continuum3 and a noted absence of persuasive rhetoric that is particularly characteristic and expected of this speech from Act 3, Scene 2.4 The hole in the throat is perceived, the tracheotomy is clearly noticeable however, attention is gained through listening to a sound that becomes words which then fizzles into noise, teetering on the edge of understanding. The voice box draws attention to the bodily emission that in turn has a bodily response from those subject to hearing it. Nancy draws our attention to how Sonorous presence is an essentially mobile at the same time, vibrating from the come-and-go between the source and the ear, through open space, the
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Despite being an actor on a stage in a theatre which on Michael Kirbys continuum of acting to not-acting renders it as complex acting (1972, p.8). The inability to manipulate the voice reduces the actors ability to act and his use of persuasive rhetoric. It is the scene that comes after the death of Caesar. Mark Antony, after entering with the body, then proceeds to deliver a funeral oration that questions the nature of Caesars ambition when he was alive. He reads Caesars will and shows Caesars wounded body.

presence of presence rather than pure presence. One might say: there is simultaneity of the visible and the contemporaneity of the audible (2007, p.16). Within this collective contemporaneous moment, a gap opens. This gap distances the spectator from the content whereby through exposure to the mechanism of the voice, the spectator steps out of the fictitious situation and becomes more aware of him/herself in the receptive moment. This awareness not only draws the spectators attention to their own subjectivity of experiencing the performance in the moment, furthermore, the spectator becomes aware of the individuals subjectivity. This goes beyond Mark Antony, beyond the fictional play of Giulio Cesare, it transcends the present moment and becomes what Nancy notes as a listening to the beyond-meaning (2007, p.31). The unexpected sonorous emission exposes a manifestation of being that generally goes unperceived: as Nancy suggests, we never hear [entend] anything but the already coded, which we decode) (2007, p.36). The words are rendered secondary, yet there is something beyond that we can tap into; something is still communicated or transmitted. Every moment marks the coming-into-being of a voice that is experienced as a being-inthe-presence-of a particular subject. The sonorous supersedes the visual as each different sound (communicated via sound waves) is experienced through the difficulty with which each consonant or vowel is released from the inner body. These enunciations mark out a rhythm that is other than that found within metered speech. Nancy (2007, p.36) reminds us that the speaking of a text is the unity and distinction of both rhythm and timbre where timbre is the resonance of sound: or sound itself (2007, p.40) according to Nancy, it therefore follows that resonance is at once listening to timbre and the timbre of listening suggesting a reciprocal act of communication through the act of listening. To further explain Nancy focuses on resonance that is at once that of a body that is sonorous for itself and resonance of sonority in a listening body that, itself, resounds as it listens (2007, p.40) suggesting embodiment and something that goes beyond the body at the same time. There is an echo or a reverberation within the listening subject where Nancy notes to be listening is to be at the same time outside and inside, to be open from without and from within, hence from one to the other and from one in the other (2007, p.14). I become aware of myself as a listening subject as the words resound in me and as I become the place of resonance (Nancy 2007, p.17), I am like a drum with skin stretched across. Through timbre and resonance found in the voice, the subject listened to and the subject who is subjected to listening open out to each other, gradually bringing about an understanding and in turn co-creating a meaning.

There is no direct intention in the vocal manifestation, no intent to manifest a particular reaction as resonance brings about a co-communication of meaning which can be further understood through Nancys theory of sharing, where communication is not transmission, but a sharing that becomes subject: sharing as subject of all subjects. An unfolding, a dance, a resonance (2007, p.41) it becomes a sharing of subjects as, Listening opens (itself) up to resonance and that resonance opens (itself) up to the self: that is to say both that it opens to self (to the resonant body, to its vibration) and that it opens to the self (to the being just as being is put into play for itself) (2007, p.25). There is an opening and sharing of subjects, of the person who is in front of the audience performing and those who are watching. It opens up a shared space, a gap, an inbetween. A different type of understanding starts to take place, as Nancy states, Sense is first of all the rebound of sound, a rebound that is coextensive with the whole folding/unfolding [pli/dpli] of presence and of the present that makes or opens the perceptible as such, and that opens in it the sonorous exponent: the vibrant spacing-out of a sense in whatever sense one understands or hears it (2007, p.30). The meaning created or given is that which is brought about into understanding by the act of co-presence, a sense of meaning or sense of wanting to communicate something is received. Meaning is created in the co-present moment of sonorous revealing exceeding the signified. In this sense it becomes more like music than speech where within the world of resonance it moves away from the arrangement of objects and subjects (Nancy 2007, p.67). Returning to Rancires arguments as discussed in the introduction, the reciprocal resonance of voice and the act of listening as analysed in the performance of Mark Antony alters the framing of time. The disruption of the rhythm of speech and the experience of contemporaneity marks a coming-into-being of meaning and subject that engages in a sharing out, or re-sharing out of the distribution of the sensible that evades semiotics and psychological, emotional responses. It is an opening up of perception through the ontological and phenomenological, valuing that which cannot necessarily be given a name within logos.

Dominio Pblico Dominio Pblico, directed by Roger Bernat is an audio performance piece created in 2008 designed to take place in outdoor public spaces. On one side of the square is a sign that contains the word left and on the opposite side the word right. The audience responds through a movement or a gesture to an identical series of questions and instructions that are listened to via wireless headphones. The individuals response to the question may involve moving towards the right or left side of the square, however, it may involve moving the hand to cover the mouth or any other combination of movements. The piece begins with music from the 6th scene of the second act of Mozarts The Magic Flute. A voice welcomes the participants and asks Now, would you mind if I ask you some questions? Further questions range from enquiries such as Do you have financial problems? to Do you still lick the lid of your yoghurt pot? In general they relate to the way you behave in the world, to things you have done or that have been done to you. At certain stages during the piece those who were born abroad are told to collect a yellow jacket. Rifts of Mozarts music resume as the jackets are collected, then the previous question format resumes where participants respond as stated above. Later in the piece, those born in the city in which it is performed are told to take an orange jacket. The question and response format resumes as above and finally those who were born outside of the city are told to collect a blue jacket. At some points, the opening music resumes and participants are invited to dance in the centre of the square. The question format resumes until at one point roles are distributed related to the colour of the jacket; orange jackets are prisoners, blue jackets are police and yellow jackets are workers of The Red Cross. Instructions are then given according to your role; prisoners move away, police form a group, The Red Cross move behind the police. A fictional situation proceeds to be played out through a choreography of movements of the group members. An escaped prisoner is singled out by being the only person who has tried a particular brand of cola. Names of individuals are read out to determine who gets shot. This continues until several participants are lying dead on hypothermic blankets. At this point they are told to stand up, move their arms up and down and head towards a different indoor space. All other participants then follow depending on whether they paid to see the show or they got in for free. The piece continues in a different space where participants watch a large projector screen on which a film of small figurines depicting the police, prisoners and Red Cross workers carry out actions very similar those the participants have just done. Participants observe the film

while a barrage of questions continues to stream through the headphones though there are no instructions given to elicit a response. As Rancire notes political statements and literary locutions produce effects in reality. They define models of speech or action but also regimes of sensible intensity. They draft maps of the visible, trajectories between the visible and the sayable, relationships between modes of being, modes of saying, and modes of doing and making (2004, p.39). Through the formal set up of the questions, the piece generates a format that the participants physically slot within. Set questions are asked and controlled responses are solicited in order to give participants roles and designate actions that generate another layer of narrative to be played out in the space. The audience essentially become the actors of the piece, they shape the action according to their response to the questions. The actions and responses of the individuals present at each particular performance form a unique combination though there are only a finite possibility of combinations within the set choreography. The wireless audio channels an anonymous voice directly to the ear where it is gathered by the participant who becomes immersed in listening throughout the duration of the piece. Unattached to any being, sound is literally mobile in every sense. There is no face, only the voice of another whose whole body is converged into the vocalic. Levinas reminds us that it is the face that prevents you from killing, that prevents you doing harm to the other with who you are in front of or in dialogue with (Levinas cited by Cohen 1984, p.106). Here there is no face attached to the speech, the who has been removed. The lack of physical being to answer generates a relation to the audio that liberates the response to certain problematic statements such as, Do you distrust Arab looking men? Do you fondle yourself when you put your hands in your pocket? The absence of an actual face to answer gives anonymity to those who respond. There are however, the faces of the others around you. This is perhaps what stops any action occurring when those in the role of police officer are told to unzip their jackets as they are going to rape the female prisoners. This marked the only point in the piece where all involved disobeyed the audio instructions. There is a sense of anonymity within the crowd as the majority of answers are manifested through the body, through movement and not via speech or voice. The headphones do not let in any other kind of noise, the usual sounds of the city are sealed off further immersing participants into the sonorous. The lack of gap between receiving the voice and interpreting it becomes important. There is no gap to really consider what is

being asked and what the response might entail, the voice and the act of hearing5 affect those present convincing or ordering them to participate. As discussed at the beginning of this article, for Rancire it is not the content of a piece of work that makes it political but the way it frames or re-frames space and time within which relations can arise and exist. The works location in a public space suspends the space and time of the everyday, not only for those who take part as participants but also for those who encounter the piece. Through the use of headphones, there is a reconfiguration of the relations between these bodies that is out of the ordinary. Following Rancires argument, it can be understood as the suspension of a specific space and time with respect to the ordinary forms of sensory experience (2009, p.23). Through being together in a certain way, there is a reframing of the material; the questions used to a certain extent bring the unsayable or the unsaid into the public sphere rendering it answerable where in other contexts it might not be. However, during the hour-long piece, what is said ceases to take precedence, the voice is rendered redundant, the act of listening is reduced to an act of hearing. Therefore perhaps this piece warrants a reading that is not grounded within speech and resonance but which pays attention to the physical relations to the other and the positioning of the self in relation to the fictional situation occurring in this present moment. Not only this but perhaps a reading of the piece that focuses on the moments in-between, the exchange of glances between participants and smiles, the political, the exclusively human sphere of the world that consists in the inbetween, in what relates and separates men at the same time, revealing their plural condition (Cavarero 2005, p.192) as Nancy (cited by Cavarero) explains we are our dialogue: we are this between-us (2005, p.194).

Conclusion Although the visual has not been discussed here, it is heavily referenced within Rancires discussions of aesthetics and often takes preference over the sonorous. There is undoubtedly a long tradition to categorise and understand the world through visual metaphors. It would seem that within the realm of sound through resonance, timbre and rhythm, away from logos there are ways of perceiving and understanding unique singular
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Nancy makes a distinction between hearing and listening; hearing implies the noise of a bird, or a siren, you almost immediately know what it is. Whereas to listen is to strain towards a possible meaning, one that is not already immediately accessible (2007).

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relations within the plural. These allow a construction of subjectivity in relation to sound, in relation to other subjects and in relation to place via modes of listening and modalities of speech through a coming-into-being, a non-stable state in reciprocity, in dialogue, in relation to the other who we find ourselves in front of. The sonorous has a valid place away from logos in which we can perceive and understand our relation within the plural. A sense that is often overlooked and favoured for that of the semiotic and logocentric perhaps through fear of its relation to animals.

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Bibliography Bernat, Roger. 2010. Domini Pblico. DVD Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2009. Relational Aesthetics, Collection Documents sur lart. Dijon: Les Presses du rel. Castellucci, Claudia. 2007. The Theatre of Socetas Raffaello Sanzio. London: Routledge Cavarero, Adriana. 2005. For more than one voice : toward a philosophy of vocal expression. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Cohen, R. A. 1986. Face to face with Lvinas, Albany, N.Y, State University York Press. Giulio Cesare. 1999. Socetas Raffaello Sanzio. [Video recording] Video held at Aberystwyth: Centre for Performance Research. Escolme, B. 2005. Talking to the audience : Shakespeare, performance, self, London ; New York, Routledge. Kirby, Michael. 1972. On Acting and Not-Acting. The Drama Review 16 (1):3-15. Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2007. Listening. Translated by C. Mandell. Ashland, Ohio: Fordham University Press ; London : Eurospan [distributor]. Rancire, Jacques. 2004. The politics of aesthetics : the distribution of the sensible. London ; New York: Continuum. Rancire, Jacques. 2009. Aesthetics and its discontents. Translated by S. Corcoran. English ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. of New