ABSTRACT
It begins in blackout.
The theatre begins like every other evening begins with the fading of the lights, to blackout, or at least to darkness. We gather in a place, a place for showing. And the first thing it shows us is darkness.
In a moment, we expect the lights to come up and for something to be seen. A demonstration of some sort. A presentation of action, or a representation, if you prefer. But we have understood that we have entered representation because of the signal given by the lowering of the lights, the implied instruction to silence, and to ‘pay attention’, to ‘watch closely now’. The instruction to ‘watch closely’ is conveyed by this darkening. And we will know that we are leaving representation when we see this darkness again—perhaps a darkness, realised more fully, when everything goes black at the end of the staged action. Perhaps, hastily, impatiently, we will not linger there but will rush into applause, returning ourselves to this room not as a representation of a room but as an actual room, where we will rise from our actual chairs and navigate the clumsy actual bodies also trying to leave the room, and go and get some actual dinner.
