“Etiquette”

Written by Gail M. Burns - October 2009

Etiquette, a piece of “participatory theatre” developed by the British troupe Rotozaza, is available for you to take part in this week and next at the Lickety Split Café at MASS MoCA in North Adams and then at Tunnel City Coffee in Williamstown (Don’t get me started on how Williamstown is NOT the Tunnel City!)

Two people sit at a table in a public place and don headphones through which they are instructed what to say, how to pose face and body, and how to manipulate the very tiny props provided. The experience lasts 30 minutes. The players, called A and B, cannot hear each other’s instructions. A is the male character and B is the female one, but the actual gender of the players is not important – tiny little dolls to represent you on the playing space (the table top). The table top is also a chalk board and you get to draw, and erase, things on it.

I generally don’t reveal key plot points so as not to spoil the experience for my readers, but here I have to say that I couldn’t tell you the storyline if I wanted to. It had something to do with Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and lines from that play were spoken in what I heard. As I said, I couldn’t hear B’s instructions.

I should start by explaining various choices I made that influenced my experience. First, I arranged for a “press seat” to Etiquette just the way I would to any other show. I was asked if I wanted to bring a partner, or be assigned someone randomly, and I chose the latter. I was the first to arrive, and, upon learning that A was female, I decided to play my own gender. As it happened, my partner was male. I have no idea whether he knew that I was going to write about our shared experience. We shook hands and exchanged first names when we met, and thanked each other and said good-bye at the end. That was the extent of our contact. We did not discuss the experience together afterwards, which was a conscious choice on my part.

I made these choices on the theory that I was replicating my usual theatre experience – I do not know the performers personally and I do not talk about the show inside the theatre – and that by making these choices I was approximating the “average” experience of the piece. I think I was wrong. I think most people chose to experience Etiquette with someone they know and talk about it afterwards.

In hindsight, I should have arranged to experience Etiquette twice – once playing A and once playing B, once with a stranger and no discussion and once with a friend with whom I discussed the experience.

I did arrive early in order to observe other people “performing” the piece, because, according to my standard definition of theatre…

“…take an empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.”
– Peter Brook’

…Etiquette failed to qualify for lack of an audience. I wanted to see a) if there was anything worth watching, b) if there was anything visually provocative that would cause other people in the café to watch, and c) if people actually did watch. The answer was “no” on all counts. Granted, 4 pm is not the busiest hour in the Lickety Split Café, but there were brightly colored flyers on all the tables marketing Etiquette which implied to me that without them people might not notice the “performance” at all.

You can watch it, there’s nothing preventing you, but its not very interesting. Frankly its more fun to eavesdrop on a nearby conversation than it is to watch two people performing Etiquette. Maybe if you sat and watched a series of teams over a couple of hours…well, if you plan to do that order lots of highly caffeinated coffee in advance. Hallucinogens might perk up the experience as well.

But while watching is not a thrill, participating is interesting. The one thing I am absolutely sure of is that it is NOT theatre. It is nothing like being a performer or an audience member. In fact it reminded me most closely of a test of my hearing and/or cognitive skills.

When you perform onstage you generally know your lines and business and blocking, and you know everyone else’s too. You know how the play begins and ends, why your character is in the room, and what role s/he plays in the overall outcome. Everyone is interdependent on the others to say the right line at the right time, enter and exit on cue, take the right props on and off, etc, but because everyone knows what happens next, the possibility exists for remedial action to be taken when a problem occurs.

In other words, theatre is a team sport, and Etiquette isn’t. That’s why its no fun to watch.

But it makes you think, and that is always a good thing. I would encourage you to go and participate. There are a few caveats of which I give you fair warning in the paragraphs that follow.

You do have to make minimal physical contact (hand holding) and eye contact with your partner. Apparently when Etiquette was presented in Japan, where there are strong cultural strictures on such contact, people were very uncomfortable participating.

Each participant is given a glass on water and, as A, I was instructed to drink some of it after a few drops of red food coloring had been placed in it. If this is uncomfortable for you, you can always just mime the drinking – this is the theatre, after all!

A problem for me personally was sound. A bad case of mumps when I was four robbed me of 10% of the hearing in my left ear, a condition that was diagnosed when I was six. I do not wear a hearing aid since I literally cannot remember a time when I could hear normally and have been taught how to compensate. Really the only times when I notice my “handicap” is when I am trying to focus on individual voices in a large space with a lot of ambient noise (like the Lickety Split Café at MASS MoCA) and when I have to use stereo headphones. Guess which two skills are required to participate in Etiquette?

The first thing the headphones said to me was: “This is your right ear. Dizzzrrrr leffeer.” I panicked! Oh my God! I won’t be able to hear half of what I need to hear! I cranked the volume up as high as it would go. That helped a little, but then I also had to listen to what B was saying, and in order to do that I had to HEAR what B was saying, which was nearly impossible in a large space with lots of ambient noise and a pair of earphones on. Thank goodness one of the skills I use in “large room/ambient noise” situations is lip reading.

I am not alone, many people have small to moderate hearing losses in one ear, and so I am warning you that you will not hear the same information in both ears. Also, Tunnel City is a MUCH noisier space than Lickety Split at MoCA, so if you have a hearing problem and want to participate in Etiquette do it sooner rather than later.

MASS MoCA presents
Etiquette
October 3 every 30 minutes from 1-7 p.m.
October 4 every 30 minutes rom noon-5 p.m.
in the Lickety Split Café
$20 for two people. Call the Box Office 413-662-2111 to reserve your spot. Tickets not available online. Advance reservations recommended.

The ‘62 Center’s Off Center Series presents
“Etiquette”
October 6-8* every 30 minutes from noon-6 p.m.
at Tunnel City Coffee, 100 Spring Street, Williamstown, MA
Tickets are free. Reservations can be made by emailing mws1@williams.edu or calling the box office at 413-597-2425.

* Information varies on the dates. Etiquette will definitely be in Williamstown October 6-8, and possibly on October 9 & 10 as well.

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