I hadn’t planned on seeing a penis that afternoon, but there was one.
The unpreparedness was my fault, in retrospect. The penis belonged to actor James Norton and a national conversation is hanging over it. Bootlegged photos are why there is debate as to whether intellectual theater audiences are too can be trusted to behave, although I somehow failed to register any connections. It wasn’t until an usher patrolled the line putting stickers on phone cameras, Berghain style, that I remembered that there was a penis in my immediate future.
The game was A little life and full nudity is its objective correlative. Like the book it’s based on, it’s a whimsical study of how trauma causes seismic faults. Unlike the book, it skips characterization in favor of dull torture scenes in their excess. For almost four hours the suffering is filthy, relentless and mostly without pants.
Resistance theater is nothing new, but it once meant duration only. An eight hour reading of The Great Gatsby toured successfully in the early 2010s and Tantalus, a Greek mythology soap opera, broke the 10-hour barrier a decade earlier. The Royal Shakespeare Company has been braving blisters since at least the 1970s, while on the fringes something usually happens that consume a whole day.
What’s newer (or at least obvious to a casual theater-goer) is the likelihood that actors suffer in other ways as well. Remembering all those lines is no longer enough; roles must be difficult, unpleasant or embarrassing. We especially want to see fights if a famous name from a movie is involved, like Paul Mescal, Ruth Wilson OR Daniel Radcliff. Making the most of the process requires you to jump until you drop, or get mucky, or dance awkwardly, or take off your clothes.
By making every performance an ordeal, every curtain call becomes a celebration. “Imagine doing this eight times a week,” people say as they show up at outings, just like they would after a circus show. Meanwhile, I often wonder what I should be feeling besides the relief of being let out.
I ask theater people if I’m a philistine. Most are too nice to answer. Who is not is Ameena Hamida fringe, West End producer.
“There’s a sense that the audience should feel like they got their money’s worth,” he says. “With comedies at the moment it seems like that means length.”
The show is the thing of course, except for the ice cream vendors, for whom the intermission is the thing. In troubled times, sprawling epics can seem like a more bankable prospect than a lean single act.
The resistance also serves to increase intensity, she says Dan Rebelled, Professor of Contemporary Theater at Royal Holloway, University of London. He compares recent trends to how Hollywood has responded to TV by making big-screen blockbusters that were meant to be consumed as shared events.
Duration alone is little new in the age of the boxset binge, so producers need other ways to heighten the momentum, he says. Drawing attention to the contract between actor and audience, to amplify a sense of privilege that an artist is performing for your entertainment, is one.
Add a rejection against naturalism and an adoption into the mainstream of the type of body art splattering blood on the gallery walls. The fact that Rebellato explains all this confirms that I am quite a philistine.
“Since truth is complex, art is also complex. It cannot be destroyed to fit the train schedule,” said the playwright Howard Barker. “One day a play will be written for which men and women will lose a day’s work. It is likely that this comedy itself will be experienced as work.
He’s right. In art, as in work, effort has value. Even if for most people the job is not routine sadomasochism.
Drag shows have always drawn a crowd. The allusions to religious ritual intellectualize the brutality in a little life, while on the other end of the cultural spectrum, there’s an unbroken thread connecting TikTok’s prank videos to dance marathons and medieval tournaments.
But performative discomfort alone does not make art. Rather than heighten the moment, gimmicks often tone it down – and if that describes your afternoon, why not snap a picture? Actors are paid to suffer, but audience resistance must be earned. Because when hours have passed in the audience and there’s a naked celebrity flitting around for no good reason, delivering a reverent appreciation isn’t part of the contract.
Bryce Elder is city editor, FT Alphaville
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