A challenge we have recently faced whilst creating our show, which has now been titled Exit This Way, is how to end it. As the show has developed, we have become aware that it can be classed as postdramatic or postmodern. By this, I mean to say that our show fits into the theatre that Hans-Thies Lehmann ‘identifies as postdramatic [as it] […] focuses on exploring the usually unacknowledged anxieties, pressures, pleasures paradoxes and perversities that surround the performance situation as such’ (Jürs-Munby, 2006, 4). For this reason, we were adamant that the ending could not be generic. For example, an early idea for the ending of our piece was to have Rob and Brodie switch the lights off on stage and then start cleaning the stage space. When we became aware that our piece was showing aspects of postdramatic theatre, we knew that our ending needed to change. This is when we had a discussion as a company where everyone had their say on how the show should end. One of these ideas was to have every member of the company interviewed about how they think the show should end and for these interviews to be played on the TV screens that are scattered around our stage as part of our set. Hearing all these ideas from the ten different voices of our company coupled with this idea of interviews is what formed the ending to our show.
We wanted to ensure every member of the company played a part in the ending so I organised for a friend of mine, Jack Kirsop, on the Media Production course here at the University of Lincoln to film the interviews for us on Sunday 7th May which he then edited for us too. Here is an example of one of the interviews.
Video of my interview that played at the end of Exit This Way (Workman, 2017)
We thought that to just play the interviews one after the other would get repetitive and boring, but also that it seemed too final. For this reason, we decided to have some of the interviews play through, then start having multiple interviews playing on different TV screens at the same time which would end in a cacophony of our voices which the audience would then walk out to when the house lights would eventually come up, with the interviews still playing. This fits in with the postdramatic feel of our show as it is us, as company members, talking as part of the show, about the show. We feel as though this is a ‘deep and thoughtful ending to a metaphysical piece on the world of escapism and human nature’ (Anthony and Atkinson, 2017).
Works Cited
Anthony, R. and Atkinson, B. (2017) Exit This Way [live performance]. Performed by Fragment Theatre Company. Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 19 May.
Jürs-Munby, K. (2006) Introduction. In: H. T. Lehmann Postdramatic theatre. Oxon: Routledge.
Workman, L. (2017) Fragment Theatre Company Interview – Lucy – Exit This Way [onilne video]. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie6I4YAQJaI [accessed 29 May 2017]
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