Tonight: half a dozen mature autograph seekers were sitting in the hotel waiting to leap upon us and fetishise the inherent & delineated meanings of
Now, a prime rule of performance life, and possibly even first on the list: protect your space. Level One performers often discover this to their cost, particularly in Argentina where the power supply is not always reliable. So, one more time:
Protect the performance space.
One particularly striking feature at the venue yesterday were 4 young guys who, nominally, were part of the house production team. Actually, they had nothing at all to do with it. I'm not sure quite how they attached themselves to the event. Perhaps they lived upstairs as part of the acting troupe in residence for the Warsaw production of Peter Pan. Perhaps they had a friend on the house team who blagged them in. The characteristic which each shared, and reinforced in each other, was this: they weren't there. Not only were they not "there", or manifesting an absence of presence, but they manifested the presence of absence. This made them dangerous: they opened "holes" in the performance space which made it vulnerable. To slightly bend Barthes:
The presence of absence is an entry into loss.
And, to emphasise the point to anyone not preternaturally sensitive to presences, whatever we did to move them to front of house and out of the defined & protectable Crim space, they wouldn't leave. Three attempts later, and the four young guys were still lolling around and drawing down the energy. At which point the Raging Heartless One became engaged. This is interesting for me, to stand back and look at Fripp in role as Fripp (and that is another story). The four young men left our space at that point.
Why, I wonder, this strong a presence of absence? Generalising, two things spring to mind: youth and drugs. In nominally mature people, a frequent cause of basement dwelling (dangerous basement dwelling, where there is a separation from conscience) is drug related. A larger number of people than I would wish to be the case, in my personal & professional acquaintance, have never quite returned.
But returning to a theatre in Warsaw: the presence of absence backstage undermines a performance. This is a variation on "the quality of our thinking affects what is being thought nearby". It is always reassuring to see John Sinks on stage: he is present with attention engaged, and this supports our work as players. If this strikes anyone as too "preternaturally sensitive" speak to someone with an accredited background in martial arts: one responds not to the physical movement, but to the thought which precedes it. And a real master responds to the intention which precedes the thought.
The performance: overall, good. I had to stay "on" while surfing the crest, or would have lost it. Good acoustics, and a minimal violation sufficiently constrained by the event's energy.
06.22
To breakfast.
09.15
A young man pounced on me for an autograph as I left the breakfast room at 09.03.
Called the horse in Brummytown. She is about to leave for Glasgow. We are looking forward to having time together in July.
10.30
Saunerised, swum & 90% packed. If I lived in this hotel, Warsaw would be a great city to have as a home. Otherwise
15.50
Freedom is a fierce discipline.
23.42
Hotel It Should Be Modestly Acceptable But It's A Downer, Prague
Currently battling to go online. This is an anodyne modern American chain hotel which, even on its executive floor, is unable to provide me online access. Own up Europe, east & west: America is where this revolution is happening.
We arrived in good spirits from Warsaw. Arriving at the hotel was a bummer. The large, clean vacuum is just that little bit too far to walk to the central area and is not, of itself, a place to spend a day. In this town, that's a disappointment. But the Crims & Laurie went off for dinner in the centre, then for a walk around. Now back to the vacuum with a bed in it, plus a computer which can't get online.
"Let us find clean and cheerful friends."
