WHO DO WE CHOOSE TO BELIVE
ONE WOMAN SHOW
PREMIERE: august 2022 at ImPulsTanz Festival
Inspired by materials from the media trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, which I followed along with millions of viewers on YouTube, I check on stage whether telling my own story through someone else’s story, which is known all over the world, universalizes it or – on the contrary – creates distance from it. . I am interested in, among other things, the dissertation as a form of spectacle, a method of presenting one’s own arguments and what is desired among public opinion. Based on my research on the Depp and Heard court case, I understood that the emotions shown by Amber harmed her, were considered artificial and fake, and her performance was considered to be of questionable acting quality. What if it was the other way around? Maybe the other participants in the trial played the roles they had prepared, and only she was honest? Moving on to more general questions, I wonder why showing emotions is still considered weakness and why emotionality is synonymous with femininity. I would like to disarm these two orders.
WHO DO WE CHOOSE TO BELIVE is a theater of embarrassing, sometimes considered unnecessary, emotions. Recreating situations drawn from personal experiences is intended not so much to show a fraction of the truth, i.e. the body’s brutal memory of what happened, but to examine what this truth is and how it differs from „one’s own version of events”. It is also an attempt to collect evidence and materials „in the case” live, in front of witnesses. The evidence often contradicts itself, so the audience must decide for themselves what is true and what is confabulation. For the moment of the performance, the spectators take on the role of the court bench and at the same time emancipate themselves – they will know that they can take photos, record videos during the performance, or leave at any time. They may or may not believe the proposed version of events. What is important is that it is told on its own terms.
Review // Recenzja
„On the border” by Marcin Miętus
ENG
A woman in a black jacket lies in the center of the stage, her face towards the floor. The tongue sticks out of the open mouth, the eyes are half closed. Her body seems paralyzed, even though she just talked about visiting the church. What is fiction and what is truth here? The answer lies with the viewer.
The audience gathered around the actress is a bit helpless and largely exposed. Skipped, called for a response, manipulated(?). However, the limits of the viewer’s comfort are not exceeded, the performer does not touch anyone in the audience, she rather has little interest in them. Thanks to the circular seating, we can watch each other. He immediately creates a panopticum of gossip and speculation, asking „Who to believe”.
The irregular, seemingly structureless (at least in the classical sense) narrative is tied together by the famous trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. At one point she immediately admits that she worked with this topic, apparently it was there that she found her story. Is this an autobiographical story? We don’t know, everything that’s happening on stage is basically blurred, blurred, obscured. The Blindfold of Justice is dangerously close to newspaper images of arrested or convicted people with a black rectangle on their faces.
The tabloid nature of the story is emphasized by the presence of a cameraman following the actress, recording her monologue and the audience’s reactions. Is the performer lying on the ground playing a drunk or high Depp? When she says that she would like to have this particular face, is she showing Amber Heard’s face or her own face in this performance? Who would she like to work with and whose photo did she show to one of the viewers? Is the balcony story true?
You can get lost in this multitude of threads and question marks, as they are not always clearly connected. However, they are connected by the figure of the performer and her presence, which is created anew every moment. We have the feeling that she herself does not know what will happen next, which creates a specific kind of tension. Her stories seem to be close and distant at the same time – we know these situations from real life, but WE don’t make a performance out of it. The question about the ethicality of these actions remains open. The actress plays with our habits, derails them and takes us on a rather strange journey during which we don’t know what will happen. However, this trip on the border between truth and fiction says more about reality than many performances shown at this festival.
PL
Kobieta w czarnej marynarce leży na środku sceny, twarz ma skierowaną do podłogi. Z otwartych ust, wysuwa się język, oczy są półprzymknięte. Jej ciało wygląda na sparaliżowane, mimo, że przed chwilą opowiadała o wizycie w kościele. Co jest tu fikcją, a co prawdą? Odpowiedź leży po stronie widza.
Zgromadzona wokół aktorki publiczność, jest trochę bezradna i w dużym stopniu obnażona. Pomijana, wywoływana do odpowiedzi, manipulowana(?). Granice komfortu widza nie zostają jednak przekroczone, performerka nie dotyka nikogo z publiczności, raczej ma do nich małe interesy. Dzięki kolistemu usadzeniu, oglądamy siebie nawzajem. Natychmiast tworzy panoptikum plotki i spekulacji, zapytując Komu wierzyć.
Nieregularną, pozornie pozbawioną struktury (przynajmniej w klasycznym znaczeniu) narrację spina wątek głośnego procesu Johnny’ego Deppa i Amber Heard. Natychmiast w pewnym momencie przyznaje, że pracowała z tym tematem, widocznie to w nim odnalazła swoją opowieść. Czy jest to opowieść autobiograficzna? Nie wiemy, wszystko co dzieje się na scenie jest w zasadzie zamazane, zblurowane, przysłonione. Przepaska na oczach sprawiedliwości znajduje się tu niebezpiecznie blisko gazetowych wizerunków aresztowanych lub skazanych osób z czarnym prostokątem na twarzy.
Tabloidowy charakter opowieści podkreśla obecność kamerzysty, śledzącego aktorkę, nagrywającego jej monolog oraz reakcje widzów. Czy leżąc na ziemi, performerka odgrywa pijanego lub naćpanego Deppa? Czy mówiąc, że chciałaby mieć taką, a nie inną twarz w tym performansie pokazuje twarz Amber Heard czy swoją? Z kim chciałaby pracować i czyje zdjęcie pokazała jednemu z widzów? Czy historia z balkonem jest prawdziwa?
W tej mnogości wątków i znaków zapytania można się pogubić, nie są one zawsze ze sobą połączone w jasny sposób. Spina je jednak postać performerki i jej obecność, która co chwilę stwarza się na nowo. Mamy poczucie, że ona sama nie wie co się za chwilę stanie, co buduje rodzaj specyficznego napięcia. Jej historie wydają się być bliskie i dalekie zarazem – znamy te sytuacje z życia, ale przecież MY nie robimy z tego performansu. Pytanie o etyczność tych działań pozostaje otwarte. Aktorka gra z naszymi przyzwyczajeniami, wykoleja je i zabiera w dość dziwaczną podróż, podczas której nie wiadomo co się wydarzy. Ten trip na granicy prawdy i fikcji mówi jednak o rzeczywistości więcej niż niejeden spektakl pokazywany tym festiwalu.