Catching the train so I can do some work.
Probably already told you all that.
Anyhow, I wrote the Convergence chunk today which took me somewhere else. It took me to a place where theatre (and by this I mean co-location in a non-digital setting) reigns supreme.
Again, not that it's better than anything else, but that is distinct. A recording doesn't cut it. A broadcast doesn't get there. Online interactivity still misses the mark.
There is something bigger and much simpler than any form of mediation. Non-mediation.
Not just in the sense that we're both there, we're all in this together, blah blah blah get it into your heads that we're in the twenty-first century.
It is the ability to touch, the most intimate thing in the whole world. I can stare into your eyes until the cows come home - and I can do it from Ghana, underwater or in space.
What I can't do is touch you. I can do it emotionally, but even this isn't the same as brushing my hand against your cheek, breaking your nose with my elbow, pulling a splinter out of your finger.
I can touch the screen and it does things. I can touch the same screen you do. In no way does this replicate the truth of the exchange.
In the theatre, protocol often dictates we don't touch - but that doesn't change the fact that we can, and this is (as yet) the one place media can't remediate. It can set up a series of very close approximations, but the simple sensation of two people touching can't be replicated.
It's really funny. As a somewhat brave actor, I've kissed other performers, simulated sex and appeared naked in shows but I never took into account the power of touching someone for real. The fourth-wall sets up a lovely, neat barrier that lets me do this stuff away from you, the audience. Character acting allows me to put up a barrier between me and you, the other performer.
I did a show two years ago that had no characters - we all played ourselves. I told a story in a sentence ("For a minute there, I thought I was going to be a Dad.") followed by a wordless scream. It was one of the toughest things I'd ever done because it was absolutely real - and screaming without noise is far more taxing because it offers no release.
My brother and one of his friends came to watch the show. His mate said "that's some good acting" and Liam, who I hadn't told, replied "that's not acting". The next thing that happened in the show was me rejoining the performing group and playing childhood games and night after night someone different would come to me and touch me, on the arm, a hug, a shove, and I'd be less alone.
I can't fuck you or hit you or smell you through a screen. I can simulate it, share elements of it, but it isn't it unless we can feel it, physically feel it. No matter how intellectual, our brains are trapped in bodies and bodies learn through touch. Helen Keller anyone? And for once I'm not being a smart arse.
So I'm off to touch my two oldest friends for their 30ths, because I want to feel the dirt that makes them real. Mediation, no matter how intricate, just won't cut it this time.
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