SeTtle

4
Ideal space for a performance
BATTLE 36
Ambaradam (1936)
A monologue performed by a single male voice and lasting
precisely 59 seconds.
Throughout every part of the action, the warning sound
of a vehicle reversing fills the otherwise silent room.
[lights on]
6 a.m.
or earlier
and still stiff legs
and arms
stiff
hands and feet
still frozen
still marching in order with the thousands here
yawns like screams and angry as fuck…
our sublime cacophony, a composition of sorts
ready for the last supper and scooping for more misery
right at the bottom… scraping…
exhaling warm breath the colour of NOTHING
chewing on sand the colour of dust
and the whole thing reeking of misery and exhaustion…
they can smell us, you know
they can smell us from miles away!
WE ARE the worthless soil you mindlessly pace
you ungrateful bastard
the dirt you kick… carelessly.
WE ARE the land you spit upon
the bush you split open at your passage, the sky befouled
by your drains, your gasses…
and when we move to one side of this long forgotten camp
slowly
the earth beneath us shakes
like a wild animal’s fur…
and when we move the opposite side
a roar!
a quake!
WE ARE the ‘Corpo Regio’ you sonofabitch
WE ARE the people you should be shitting yourself about…
and the cameras are ready to roll
and the lights are ready to shine
on us
the whole thing looking like an idiotic movie from up here
a parody
comically silent when bodies start
falling
heads start
rolling.
[lights off]
6:01
and night falls all over again…
all over you motherfucker.
[silence]
BATTLE 65
Selma, Alabama (1965)
The action starts and ends
in broad daylight. Though its exact duration
its extent
is not specified
as that might well depend on the true engagement of all
the parts - i.e. the actors on the various phases and levels of their commitment to
the cause.
No stage costumes or props are required (or, for that matter,
provided)
except for those few items brought in by the actors themselves
casually
on their way to work that day. In direct response to such
indeterminacy
the exact appearance of the stage at the very beginning of
the action might vary from time to time.
The set smells of tarmac. It might as well be fully covered
in tarmac, actually. Still, for the purpose of the action,
the smell alone will be enough.
The whole surface should be boiling hot, the air stuffy
and humid.
Supposedly set in springtime, the action should be
characterised by this abnormal heat…
thus the issue with the soles of the actors’ shoes
getting stuck into the viscous matter that covers the set
once some weight
(for instance the weight of the very same actor, standing)
is steadily placed upon them.
Consequence: the action will take on a syncopated rhythm
dictated by the actors constant need
for motion. Literary: they will jump from one side to the
other of the set.
At the periphery of the viewers’ vision: bicycles abstractly
parked under the sun
their wheels sinking into the melting pavement.
The clapboard might as well be substituted by a shotgun…
for each take, fired.
Then, the director’s monologue:
“Keep women and children in the middle” he says.
“If there’s a shot, stand up and make the others kneel down.
Don’t start lagging around, or you are going to get hurt.
Don’t rely on the troopers, either. If you are beaten, crouch
down and put your hands over the back of your head.
Don’t put up your arm to ward off a blow.
If you fall, fall right down and play dead.
Get to know the people in your unit, so you can tell if
somebody’s missing or if there’s somebody there who
shouldn’t be there.
And listen! If you can’t be non-violent, let me know now.”
Finally, the action itself:
shit hits the fan…
or so it happens
at least
most of the time.
BATTLE 32
San Romano (1432)
Losers get to be remembered.
Winners, consequently, get to be forgotten.
You might as well call it a privilege - the privilege of being
remembered - even though it is the sort of privilege
the losers themselves would easily have done without.
Or again: usually losers tend to be remembered, yet for all
the wrong reasons - mostly due to their total or partial
annihilation - while winners end up being forgotten,
confused amongst the dwindling ranks of ‘those left
standing’, the ‘still alive’.
Even if, in general terms, the dead certainly outnumber the
living, it’s precisely the living who tend to arouse less
curiosity - or empathy or simply or, for that matter, scorn when compared to the dead ones. Hence their innate
lack of popularity in the history books.
At school - or in the playground - they taught you something
different, true. But I know and you know that, deep down,
it’s always the losers you remember the most.
At times, losers and winners are one and the same thing.
Or better: some losers maintain they are the true winners,
making the winners the losers, or so it seems. Still, the
same thing could be said of the exact opposite. As such,
in the aforementioned situations, it becomes complicated
to decide with a decent degree of certitude who to
remember and who to forget.
Such is the case apropos this action, or performance, or event.
A particular case of collective amnesia. Winners and losers
are remembered, respectively, as the losers or the winners
depending on which side you ask.
Red and silver, black and silver… easy to be mistaken. Possibly
it’s just a problem of tonalities.
Obviously there are times when none of this is possible.
Namely: when the losers are all extinct. Killed off, most
probably. In such cases the winners do indeed appear
to be winners and there is little space for anything else.
Following this line of thinking, if it is the winners who have
been killed, well then they get automatically relegated to
the losers position, so that point number 7 - a form
of tautology - appears to once again be valid.
Mistake: keep in mind how, in such events as the one
portraying winners and losers, dead and living, there might
as well be a mirage effect, a so-called prospectiva naturalis.
That to say, there might as well be more than one vanishing
point to keep in consideration when judging the action.
Mistake: a hare chased by a greyhound might as well be
chased, in turn, by a second hare.
The action ends with both sides celebrating, half-dead,
the future of the half-living.
If interested, take a decision on who exactly to remember
and who to forget. Once done, leave the room quietly.