...and scene.

We got through this week's season of my production of A Second of Pleasure by Neil Labute. The week was rife with challenges, but we enjoyed a fair review in both the The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.

While Stephen and Carla worked throughout the week to solidify text, play objectives and negotiate the space, audiences seemed intrigued, curious, perplexed, and entertained.

Every evening, we had a handful of audience members there "on purpose", and we always picked up an even larger handful of randoms. People would glance as they passed, some rubbernecked, others slowed down and then stopped. Still others passed, but paused the turn around and watch at a safe distance.

Each night someone would stop and ask someone else who was watching, "What's going on? " "Is this real?" I loved watching the reactions of people as they passed to catch their trains. I loved it when no one applauded. It doesn't end on a happy note, and the two actors would leave each other at the end of the scene, each walking in their own separate direction: Stephen (Kurt), towards the trains, and Carla (Jess), back up to the street level.

Many people commented that they felt guilty and voyeuristic as they watched Jess and Kurt end their relationship. "I felt bad for watching!" "I felt a little bit wrong."
The grumpy Metro guy who turned out the lights and locked the roller doors at 7 pm every night watched the end of the show one evening and after Jess breaks up with Kurt and leaves him standing there with a train to catch, he said, "Poor bloke.... I had a lady do that to me last month. I was devastated."
And that's the beauty and the tension of site-generic work. Is it real, is it not real?How real do you try to make it? How performative do you make it?  Does it matter as long as people recognize the moment as one they themselves have experienced?