2) By using the 'found' space, Shunt switches the focus from interaction between audience and performers, to all of them sharing an experience within the space. Tropicana was described as having such an impact because people are taken out of their comfort zone (where exotic dancers perform as though in a circus; but are really on top of a hearse), completely transported to a 'strange unsettling world' (Time Out).
Posted by Hayley Brunsdon
1) Shunt is a group comprised of 10 artists who create large scale performances in unexpected places. For example “Sightings”, commissioned by the Croydon Clocktower (an arts building including a coffee shop, library, museum and arts centre), as part of the film festival in May 2001, involved performances in which gradually the centre, the performers and the audience were immersed in water. Shunts' way of involving the audience truly leaves them with an experience to remember.
2) The audience provide a key part to the Shunt shows: "However much it's planned, at the core is the relationship with the audience and you only experience that when they are here," explains Mischa Twitchin, Shunt's lighting designer. "The audience never do what you think they're going to do, and what sounds very interesting in a conversation might not be in practice.” Twitchin goes on to describe the thought process involved in creating this kind of show; “The space, and the audience's progression through the space, comes first” (the guardian unlimited). This kind of emphasis on space and audience allows us to see how shunt create such unique experiences, taking us away from the traditional realms of theatre.
Posted by Rhea Mehmet
1) Site-specific theatre companies, such as ‘Shunt’, are influenced mostly by the space in which they perform and rehearse in. The piece of theatre created is only intended to be performed in that particular environment. The ‘Shunt’ vaults are located underneath London Bridge Tube Station and are not easy to find. The entrance to the vaults is through a small and discreet door in London Bridge Tube Station. This makes me think that the company is very much heard about through ‘word-of-mouth’ and has an almost cult-like following.
2) Productions by Shunt have been described as a cross between dark comedy and surreal fantasy. As audience members, being led down to the vaults feels as if you are entering another world. One audience member on a ‘Shunt’ message board compared the experience to travelling back to Victorian times and entering a ‘freak show’. This particular audience member felt overwhelmed by the experience and absolutely terrified of the surreal atmosphere the space has. This surreal atmosphere is probably the exact reason ‘Shunt’ chose these vaults as their performance space.
Posted by Amelia Greco
1) The play 'Amato Saltone' was continually developed, throughout the course of the show running. The play started without an official ending, also as the play progressed the beginning changed as they felt that audience members were not understanding the beginning sequence as well as the development of characters such as the two pigs that appear behind the windows.
2) Shunt aim to break the stigma's attached to theatre, especially in the minds of young poeple. So as a result they try to distance themselves from the mainstream and break the boundaries between themselves as actors and performers and the audience. They intended to allow the audience to become apart of the production therefor making each show an unique performance.
Posted by Siobhan Flynn
1) Shunt's work is very much a multimedia experience collabarating with artists and light and sound designers to create an intense and sometimes disturbing atmosphere. In 'The Ballad of Bobby Francois' (a piece based around a plane crash in the Andes) the company's use of these effects simulates for the audience the confusion and fear of the survivors who turn to canobilism. Areas within the performance space are often highlighted with the use of lighting using it as a means to shift or entice an audiences focus to another part of the site.
2) For Shunt meaning is much less important than the audience's actual experience of live performance. 'if you can say it then why would you bother doing it' comments Louise Mari a member of the company. The peformance isn't something that can be explained you have to be there in the site where it was created to understand. Ideas can come from anywhere and it is very much still a work in progress in performance. For example the swingers theme from the opening scene in 'Amato Saltone' originated from finding a way to stop audience members stealing the keys that were handed out as part of the performance.
Posted by Amelia Sutherland
1) The Shunt Theatre group of 10 artists are as much surprised by the performances as the audience themselves. The performance’s development is improvised by the artists using the lighting and sound; everything runs simultaneously. As Mischa Twitchin, Shunt’s Lighting Designer states, “Shunt’s creative process is a kind of anarchy.” Indeed, the circus acts, the lights and cinematic quality of each performance keep it “alive” and able to be changed. Even though a performance may have been running for well over a month, this does not mean that it may not be tweaked and twisted between each show. This is what keeps Shunt interesting to both audience and artists.
2) Shunt keeps the theatre “alive” for both audience and artists alike. Their sheer audaciousness means that it remains incredibly different to traditional theatre dominated by proscenium arches, thrust stages, end-on, black box, etc. They are not fazed by the bold and this keeps the audiences returning for it is new, exciting and fresh. Indeed over 27,000 people have visited the Shunt Vault Lounge since it opened. As the Director of the National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner, said about ‘Dance Bear Dance’, “We loved it because they make the kind of theatre we never make. It was strange, wile, beautiful and funny, and it conjured astonishing things out of the darkness.” They are able, with their use of site- specific theatre, their integration of circus acts, etc, to push the boundaries of traditional theatre and redefine what theatre as a form actually means.
Posted by Hannah Riekemann
1) The word ‘Shunt/shunting’ is terminology used in Railway operations which may link to the spaces they use eg. Under the arches in Bethnal Green and under London Bridge. In December 1998 each member of the company contributed £65 per month to the rent and upkeep of the space under the arches in Bethnal Green.
2) 'Amato Saltone' was a devised performance which was part theatre, part promenade in which the audience plays an important and integral part. Some scenes were played out twice, with certain characters emotions changing slightly each time.
Posted by Hannah Witham
1) The Shunt Theatre Company, like many Site Specific Theatre groups, creates performance’s specifically engineered with one main objection in mind; Transformation. Not only in regard to transforming and adapting their working space, but by giving their audience’s the role, as one audience member commented, of the ‘spect-actor’. This fundamental feature of The Shunt Theatre Company’s work blurs the boundary between the actor and the audience, transforming and extending the precincts of the concept of Theatre itself.
2) Labelled by some as the most ‘innovative’ Theatre company in Britain, the 10 member collective that is ‘Shunt’, often express the importance of the audience in regard to their work. They once commented, in respect to the devised performance of 'Amato Saltone', ‘that at the core (of their work) is the relationship with the audience’. The audience have such a huge portion of control over the outcome of their performances that the work doesn’t really fully begin to develop until the doors are opened to the public.
Posted by Becky Clifford
1) What Shunt as a theatre collective presents is the opportunity and desire to explore the space where we as audience exist in suspended disbelief. The audience is allowed to be uncomfortable, push its own boundaries, and step across it if it so wishes to. Having broken down the physical segregation between actor and spectator, the audience finds itself able to directly communicate with the illusion, with touch, smell, sight and sound. This interaction somehow solidifies the illusion. Hence, there is perhaps a crossover, a kind of transformation from illusion to reality.
2) In Shunt, the site is the art. There is no division between performance and its vessel. It is as much a case of ‘the space in a performance’ as ‘a performance in the space’. The play or event upholds the vaults, presents it to the audience as a piece of art. It is as if the actors are curators of an art gallery, carefully pointing out the various aspects of the art piece. While actors show off their space through performance, the site in turn gives a unifying factor to apparently disjointed scenes. While Shunt does not necessarily move towards a narrative, (as Mari once stated, “If you could say it, why would you bother doing it?”) the site gives performances a natural flow, acting as a dark blanket, all-encompassing. It is a symbiotic relationship, where meaning becomes less important than experience.
Posted by Pru Winter
1) “The Tennis Show” commences with the audience having to exchange money for a candle in order to buy drinks at the bar. Sex and game-playing are the main themes explored during the production, and as the audience are split into different rooms according to their sex it helps to create a intriguing and disturbing atmosphere for the entire audience.
2) “Dance Bear Dance” was based on the Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot and the performers use a combination of humour and terror to keep the audience focused on the performance. The production ironically encourages the audience to try and make the world a better place through drinking, gambling and through the assassination of an unknown target as the evening progresses.
Posted by Sarah Hullah
1) In a review by The Stage of ‘Dance Bear Dance', Shunt were described as having created “an extraordinary piece at once spoof conspiracy thriller, apocalyptic stage poem and twisted cabaret. It displays complete theatrical control while leaving room for genuinely unpredictable interactions”. This idea of truly unpredictable interactions is crucial in Shunt’s theatre, adding an element of risk and danger to the performances- not only are the audience apprehensive about what may happen to them, but with each new audience, the actors must be prepared to respond to their different reactions with each performance. This spontaneity in the productions adds a completely unique quality, resulting in a raw, fresh experience each time.
2) Shunt currently use the London Bridge Vaults as their working space. This is a space comprised of over 70 000 square foot of railway arches under London Bridge Station. This labyrinth is an ideal setting for Shunt’s work. The feeling of entering a new world, that they are completely unfamiliar with, adds to the surreal atmosphere of the experience for an audience. Within the productions, the audience are made to feel disorientated in a number of ways- as they are constantly forming part of the spectacle themselves, the actors often lead them into various new settings. As well as this, the viewpoints and perspectives are constantly changing. Therefore, the audience are never sure where the next stage in this experience they are undergoing will take them.
Posted by Helena Gullan
1) Shunt Theatre Company have been known to have moments within their shows that make the audience question what is real and what is planned. An example of this is in Shunts production “Doublethink” when all the lights turn off and the actors pretend there has been an explosion in the lighting box: “the two operators are sort of scurrying around and eventually they come on stage and just keep the thing going by whispering the instructions into the guest performers’ ears. It then slowly becomes clear that they’re actually fictional characters”. Another example of this is shown in there production of “Grace”. This was performed in the upstairs of a pub and subsequently they directed a man to interrupt the play by stumbling in holding a pint and asking for were the toilets were. Then returning and asking if he could watch. He then spent the rest of the play commenting on whether he enjoyed the action.
2) Shunt used a guest performer element in there productions “Romcom” and “Doublethink”, this idea originated when cast member Anthony Hampton went to do some work with his non-performing friend: “I thought he’s never going to agree to rehearse a show with me; he won’t want to assume the responsibility of being a performer, because he’s not like that at all, he’s never been on stage and he’s not at all extrovert. On the other hand he has the ability to just speak into a microphone, for example, and yet remain within his own world. So all these things made me want to somehow create a strategy to nevertheless have him on stage and I thought if we create a list of instructions for him and that he agrees to do as well as he can for everything and he trusts that we’re not going to ask him to do anything embarrassing, because his friends were going to be there, it could work. I think he understood very well what we had in mind and, bravely, he said yes.”
Posted by Rosanna Vize
1) Shunt’s use of lighting certainly adds to their unique performances. Being set within the vaults of an underground tube station near Bethnal Green, there is obviously no natural light, however, instead of using simple and plain lighting throughout, Shunt revel in their use of quite eerie and shocking effects. Flickering lights, red floods and ultra violet lights are just a few of the numerous effects Shunt have imaginatively explored with in recent productions.
2) The audience’s role within a Shunt production is crucial. Unlike the Stanislavskian approach where the audience are simply expected to sit back and watch quietly, Shunt insist that the audience play an active role throughout. There is not simply one stage on which the actors perform. Instead they make use of their unique setting of the underground and perform numerous sketches throughout the tunnels. In order to communicate to the audience where they should be, the company often use lighting to direct them. Candles lit in a long line or a black out with one light shining along a passage are examples of ways in which Shunt guide them through their journey.
Posted by Joanna Ritchie
1) Site- Specific theatre is a performance that uses the qualities, meanings and properties on/at a given site; be it a room, a building or a city. This form uses these properties to place more emphasis on particular events, images and stories to show the intense relationship we have with the physical environment.
The Shunt Theatre Company definitely uses this form to its full, and by exploring the site’s history; the information found often determines the direction of the performance, leaving the event open-ended, ambiguous and reflective of multiple meanings depending on the spectator.
One great example of this is the show 'Amato Saltone', a piece that begins at the London Bridge and a long walk down a tunnel into the vaults. In this case, the performance space doesn’t look like the conventional theatre, thus the site does effect the audience’s impression on the event and allows them to interact with the environment, to ‘feel’ the borders and literally touch the set.
2) Shunt tries to perform or re-create issues to bring the audience out of their comfort zone and make them if not experience, at least think about things that at some point in our lives has crossed our minds such as the performance ‘The Ballad of Bobby Francois’ based on the true story of the American Rugby team crashing in the Andes. Shunt really uses aspects of Black Comedy to inject humour in the horrific situation of cannibalism. The main point through out the performance is the natural human rituals, that even in this situation we would follow; such as the irony of the safety announcement, the almost bizarre character of the airhostess trying to offer drinks and even when reduced to eating each other to stay alive we do it with table manners. Its been reviewed as clever and very disturbing.
Posted by Leona Friar
1) The audience play a very important part in Shunt theatre. The company aim to create an experience for the audience. Amato Saltone is a devised performance which is part theatre, part promenade and in which the audience play an integral part. This in turn means that every performance is unique depending on the reactions from the audience, different people will have different reactions. "However much it's planned, at the core is the relationship with the audience, and you only experience that when they are here” ( Emma John – The guardian)
2) Shunt creates sight specific performance that eschews audience passivity in favour of a more inclusive approach. Their work has been described as Dada meets Kafka meets Dali meets the Chapman Brothers. I found a description of someones first experience of a performance. They describe how the experience starts. It gives quite a good indication of how they use light, sound, spectacles and audience participation.
The bustle of London Bridge underground station appears from the gloom of history-laden Shad Thames like a well-tended fish tank sat glowing at the back of a coal cellar. Within, we join a queue of people waiting to pass through a small door, biding their time with happy Friday night chatter. A few curious passers by ask us as to the purpose of the line, to which I respond “erm, it’s a kind of theatre thing”, and leave it that. Truth be told, I’m really not exactly sure what to expect.
Inside to a small room resembling an administrative room that one assumes must be just like those peppering the entire underground system. A small antechamber contains an actor doing a commendable impression if a bona fide London Underground employee. He puzzles over a jigsaw (puppies) for several minutes before flippantly advising us to make a Narnia-style exit through the door of a nearby filing cabinet. Having done so, we find ourselves in a plush photo-lined waiting room of sorts, and then we’re ushered into one of those massive twenty-person elevators used in London’s deep-level stations, where a lift conductor takes a photo of us all as he’s “never had so many people in my lift before”.
And then into darkness. I make out arches, and lots of them – dusty, musty, cobwebbed, damp. A little way off, a thick beam of yellow-white light penetrates forth from above, punching a misty cone through the pressing dark. Two more shafts of light further down the passage provide perspective in what would otherwise be a space of indeterminable dimensions. And then into each shaft skitters a nymph in Carnival garb, each contorting to the groans and bass shudders enveloping the space, before merging once again with the blackness. (Theatre Review)
Posted by Stephanie Maas
1) Shunt theatre is focused very much on the experimental, demanding an active and not a passive role from the audience. This follows on from the work of many theatre troupes and practitioners, and is similar in many ways to the work of Jerzy Grotowski, a Polish theatre practitioner who redefined experimental drama through his “Laboratory Theatre”. He demanded that not only must the actors be self-sacrificial in their art, allowing the space they work in and the actors they work with to influence them, but the audience must take on a new role, where they, as spectators, go on a “spiritual journey”[1] alongside the actors. This meant breaking down the fourth wall illusion and making the audience a part of the piece, a vital part of Shunt’s work. Experimental theatre troupes such as Shunt are essentially working to define and redefine the boundaries of theatre, especially regarding the actor/spectator and actor/space relationships.
2) The way in which the actors in Shunt allow their pieces to be shaped by audience and space can be seen especially in the show 'Amato Saltone'. Keys and lockers were used to involve the audience in the piece, shunning the passivity of the spectator that is so often a part of modern theatre. Not only this, but, according to Emma John of The Guardian, this idea itself changed hugely as the show progressed. Because the company were trying to stop the audience taking the keys, they introduced the idea of dropping them into a bowl, which soon led on to the idea that this was a swingers party: “That was such a tiny idea that was hardly in the show when we opened and now it's grown and become the whole first scene.”[2] Shunt are willing to adapt a piece even after its first performance, constantly reacting to audience and space; it is no wonder, then, that they are at the cutting edge of contemporary site-specific theatre.
[1] Towards A Poor Theatre, J. Grotowski
[2] Chaos Theory, The Guardian, 25th January 2006, E. John
Posted by Clare Jones
1) As Shunt Theatre is a form of Experimental Theatre it’s aim is to make the audience feel very much a part of the performance rather than purely being observers. For example, in the performance Tropicana, September 2004 to June 2005 there was no seating but involved walking, standing and sitting of the audience. The audience participation is to encourage them to feel and understand through forcing them to experience the situation being performed. I found this especially interesting and quite ironic because shunt theatre is very much against naturalism as a form of acting and yet it still strives for some realism in involving the audience. It makes it appear almost as though it is not a performance but a real situation.
2) As Shunt Theatre perfromances involve the audience, it must be very difficult to predict how the audience may react to the goings on. Therefore Shunt Theatre uses the different staging techniques to their advantage in trying to ‘control’ how the audience may react. For example, in the Tropicana performance in September 2004 to June 2005 the audience was subjected to a very dark space with minimal lighting. Lighting was only used thereafter on specific objects at specific times so the audience saw only what was intended.
Posted by Pasca Troth
1) The Ballad of Bobby Francois :
*first performed in May and October 1999 at Arch 12a [Shunt's old performance space in Bethnal Green]
*later performed at the Pleasance in Edinborough as part of the Fringe Festival 2000, where it won two awards [a 'Herald Angel' and 'Total Theatre Award']
*re-created again for the International Mime Festival in January 2001 at The Drome, London [a dilapidated cavern behind London Bridge Station].
*the audience and actors both took the part of characters on the plane. The audience then 'died' in the crash and became the dead, observing how the survivors [the actors], coped with the situation.
- Interesting that they were able to adapt the piece to three different sites
-A review in The Independant on Sunday said : "Their storytelling can be expressionistic to the point of obscurity. And with dialogue, they barely engage with the conflict between chronic hunger and the taboo of cannibalism. However, this company as thrillingly inventive and their bleak picture of the universe has a lasting impact.
2) "Dance Bear, Dance :
*'based on the gunpowder plot and other less successful acts of terrorism'*began as a set of improvisations around Antonia Fraser's book on the gunpowder plot
*May 2002 - August 2003 at Arch 12a*director David Rosenburg said, "A big part of our work is about being in a space with a group of people."
*he also says, "In all our work, the themes are quite macabre, but humour is an important element. Whatever disgusting, grotesque situation the characters are in, they're still people, with eccentricities."
*the audience were : participants in a secret conference/casino gamblers/church worshippers/the crowd at an execution
*designer Lizzie Clachan said, "Participating is quite a barrier to cross. The aim is to put people in an environment where they feel they can cross it if they want to." [There was one recorded instance in which an actor demanded, "Who put this money on the table?" to which an audience member preemptively responded, "I did!"
*the piece explored what happens when the act of witnessing a murder ceases to be shocking and becomes mundane. By allowing the audience to decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to witness the executions, they created something more unsettling than simply being confronted with horror.A review in The Independant on Sunday said :"... what 'Dance Bear, Dance' lacks in searing political analysis, it makes up for in head-spinning unpredictability."
Posted by Laura Russell
1) Many of Shunt’s pieces contain strong themes of voyeurism and also of paranoia, and yet the company have often been criticised that their work “goes out of its way to be abstract…almost impossible to pin down meaning in their shows”. Yet even within the company there are conflicts of the desired outcome, as Rutland has said: “there are some of us who are really looking for a much more narrative-driven, character-based show…knowing how to market ourselves is a problem. It is not theatre, it's something else.”
2) Shunt is described as a ‘fringe theatre company’, and also as having a “desire to create a new experience” created from their perception of the stigmatisms attached to the theatre. Shunt, as a company are dedicated to create a distance between themselves and mainstream theatre: “it’s partly to do with the hierarchal nature of the way theatre is described: The West End, Off-West End; Fringe.” The Fringe Theatre Network was created to support companies like Shunt, in order to keep these sorts of companies in contact with one another because the members were not based in public houses.
Posted by Suzy Nutt
I have picked out a couple of key quotes that I found very interesting from a review of Amato Saltone by Andrew Eglinton, written November 2006.
1) The relationship between the individual’s gaze and his/her knowledge of the surrounding world is removed and subverted through the imposition of darkness. It may be that it was a conscious decision to put the audience through this initial ‘test’, however it is arguable that through Shunt’s repeated use of darkness/blackouts to achieve this disorientation/alienation effect in the main body of the performance, the impact of the subversion weakens as it becomes a recognizable and controllable pattern. Once aware of the pattern, the experiential/environmental artifice of the performance begins to crumble, prompting the search for a ‘coercive’ narrative or a new pillar of meaning underpinning the performance. Michael Billington touches on this point in his review in the Guardian newspaper: “I would like to see Shunt move beyond sensory titillation and show they can rise to the demands of narrative.”
2) Andrew Eglinton also comments on the way that seeing a Shunt production not only affects you whilst in the performance space, but also gives you a lot to think about for some time to come.Visually ‘maimed’ and debased of power, the audience leaves the Shunt vaults to step back out into the ‘reality’ of a busy London Bridge station. I was immediately drawn to the voice of a woman speaking over the station’s Tannoy system: “To ensure customer safety and security measures, CCTV is in 24 hour operation on these premises”. There was a chilling sense of irony in these words and the feeling that the performance is to a degree, never-ending because somewhere somebody is spectating.
Posted by Hannah Ward
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