Speechlessness in Three Artworks

Speechless, adjective

unable to speak, especially as the temporary result of shock or strong emotion

I am faithless, but sometimes, when confronting an artwork, I feel as if I'm in church.
On, sadly, rare occasions I enter a gallery and experience a moment of stillness so pure it feels transcendental: my heart races, my head spins, I stop breathing for a moment - speechlessness descends as a gift to someone whose life contains little quiet.

It would be nice to think that we all find moments like this in our lives: times where we connect with something greater and more beautiful than ourselves. Times of quiet. But I am not the only person who has to struggle to escape everyday noise.

At different stages in my life, the following three artworks have rendered me speechless, all for different reasons. The were quiet points, where I had the space to think.

1. Turner's Seascapes:

There are examples of Turner's works all over the place in London, but I first fell in love with his seascapes through the 'Turner and the Sea' exhibition at the National Maritime Museum a few years ago. The scale of his late seascapes, stripped of all unnecessary detail, was immense: I felt as if I could be washed away. Turner's courage to pull back details means that you end up with huge, almost abstract canvases, and being surrounded by them is very tranquil.

2. Van Gogh's 'Wheat field with Crows':

I don't remember when it was I fell for Van Gogh's work, but when I had a brief stopover in Amsterdam for a wedding, I took great delight in going to the Van Gogh museum. The highlight for me was 'Wheat field with Crows', which is a huge canvas that seems to perfectly capture a ripple of disturbance in a field, causing the birds to rise and fly off. I stood staring at the tiny brush strokes, following the movement, until my partner hurried me along. My mind stayed with the painting.

3. Rothko's Seagram Murals:

 My love for Rothko was late in developing. When I studied art at college, I was one of those foolish, pretentious teenagers who thought they had the learning to dismiss abstract expressionism out of hand. Many years, and much maturing, later, and sitting in the room containing the Seagram Murals at the Tate Modern is about as close as I am able to get to a religious experience. You sit in the darkened space and are absolutely surrounded by these massive, abstract canvases. It's well worth waiting for a quiet moment to get in there and claim bench space. It makes me feel small, yet incredibly safe.

What artworks have given you pause? Which artists?

It seems like I don't just look for a single thing in an artwork. It is more a feeling of scale. What I'm looking for, maybe, is something with the scope to put my own life in perspective. Whatever the feeling, it's beyond words.

Review: Blasted

Styx Theatre is a small North London venue, new to me, and, it turns out, a cool and quirky little space. They are currently running a 90s Season, so I finally had the opportunity to see Sarah Kane's Blasted on stage.

Blasted originally opened at the Royal Court Theatre in 1995, directed by James Macdonald. The story plays out in a room in a hotel in Leeds where Ian, a racist, misogynistic journalist, first attempts to seduce, and then later rapes, Cate, a young woman. The fairly naturalistic opening quickly gives way to a representation of a city at war, where a soldier appears in the room and describes the terrible things he has witnessed and done. The final section deals in scenes of rape, cannibalism, and other forms of savagery. All told, the play is brutal.
The version playing at Styx is stripped down, and some interesting directorial choices give rise to a lot of questions about what is stageable, what is acceptable, and what you can pare away from Kane's work without it losing its impact. The end result is a fantastic rendering of Kane's earliest play, and some of the non-naturalistic choices actually heighten the wrongness of the work, rather than shy away from it.
The stage is black, with minimal setting and use of props. For some of the earlier graphic scenes, the stage directions describing the action are projected on the wall instead of the actors performing the acts themselves. At first I wasn't sure if this was an act of cowardice, but as the play gets more graphic, and moments like Ian's rape are staged, what we actually see realised is a series of contrasts and disquieting tensions. Everything is unnatural, yet plausible in the context of war: you might be disgusted by the soldier, but his story is not necessarily surprising.
The themes of conflict and the extremities of violence have taken on a new significance in this era of war and human displacement. As a consequence, Blasted seems to act as a warning of what happens when humanity is stripped away: it is sadly a play of startling relevance for our contemporary moment.

Recommended, though not if you are easily offended.

4/5: Still shocking, still painful, still human
Styx Theatre
Until 11th March

Review: Ugly Lies the Bone

Written by Lindsey Ferrentino and directed by Indhu Rubasingham, Ugly Lies the Bone is currently running on the Lyttelton stage of the National Theatre. They say:

After three tours in Afghanistan, Jess finally returns to Florida. In a small town on the Space Coast, as the final shuttle is about to launch, Jess must confront her scars – and a home that may have changed even more than her.

Experimenting with a pioneering virtual reality therapy, she builds a breathtaking new world where she can escape her pain. There, she begins to restore her relationships, her life and, slowly, herself.

 Now, there are a lot of interesting ideas at work in the play, but overall, nothing is satisfactorily developed. The dramatic use of video projection could have been a powerful way of expressing the virtual world being trialled by Jess (Kate Fleetwood), but some of the design work incorporated by it is, frankly, a bit naff. Meanwhile, the sliding, minimalist set worked quite well, but was nothing revolutionary. 

Acting-wise, Fleetwood is good, and Ralph Little and Kris Marshall's characters are well performed and pleasingly developed, however, the introduction of Jess's mother towards the end of the play is at best trite, and at worst downright tacky.

I think, more than anything, I was frustrated with Ugly Lies the Bone. It had the potential to be exciting and original, it just doesn't quite make it. It's not dreadful, but it is too much of a near miss for me.

3/5: Interesting ideas, average execution

Lyttelton Theatre:

National Theatre.

London

Until 6th June

Review: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead last graced The Old Vic's stage 50 years ago. This time around Daniel Radcliffe (Rosencrantz) and Joshua McGuire (Guildenstern) take to the stage with David Haig and a beautiful cast of royals and misfits.

The Old Vic say:

Half a century after its premiere on The Old Vic stage, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, the play that made a young Tom Stoppard’s name overnight, returns to The Old Vic in its 50th anniversary celebratory production directed by David Leveaux.
Against the backdrop of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, this mind-bending situation comedy sees two hapless minor characters, Rosencrantz (Daniel Radcliffe) and Guildenstern (Joshua McGuire), take centre stage with David Haig as The Player. Increasingly out of their depth, the young double act stumble their way in and out of the action of this iconic drama. In a literary hall of mirrors, Stoppard’s brilliantly funny, existential labyrinth sees us witness the ultimate identity crisis.

Directed by David Leveaux, and set in the wings of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a clever, witty play, and I enjoyed it a lot. It is unashamedly intellectual in its humour, at a time when so much cultural output is simply aimed at the lowest common denominator. Though I'm not such a culture snob that I would dismiss light entertainment out of hand, it feels good to be able to watch something with a bit more challenge to it.

Radcliffe and McGuire do a stellar job of portraying Stoppard's balance between humour and his exploration of human transience: there are moments of real poignancy as well as points of unapologetic postmodernism. Haig's role as resident deviant is also seedy and well played, providing a knowing commentary on the unfolding events.

The design work - part renaissance, part anachronism - is pleasing too, as is the musical direction. The aesthetics suggest a faded glory around the edges of Hamlet, whilst the meander of the characters gives a life to the incidental details that provide the framework for theatre's big stories. As well as asking 'what ifs' and 'who are wes' Rosencrantz & Guildenstern offers a window on two souls, broken free from their original scripting and trying to find a place for themselves in a wider world: it is sad and beautiful.

I would strongly recommend the Old Vic's production of Stoppard's classic, but not if you want something mindless. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead requires a bit of thinking, but you are rewarded with a narrative that stays with your for days, asking questions, making you remember, giving you space to think.

4/5: Clever and well played
The Old Vic
London
Until Sat 29 Apr 2017