Drunken Madness
Drunken Madness presented the audience with the spectacle of tables and chairs suspended by wires, one above the other. Performers were seated at the tables, two others were in harnesses and counterweighted against each other: as one rose the other fell. So long as those seated remained still, the column remained stable, but as soon as one moved, the shifting weight tipped the table over, threw it out of line. This was a self-contained world hanging within another, more randomly composed one: a dirty abattoir, a bridge anchorage. At rest it was an immensely simple apparatus, obvious and incomprehensible; in motion it could be terrifying, producing real dangers for its inhabitants. As part of its functioning, bottles of drink were distributed and consumed, the ensuing drunkenness throwing the balanced mechanism into chaos.
with Dave Goulding, Klem Jarzabkowski, Julian Maynard Smith, Miranda Payne, Alison Urquhart
and Jonathan Davis, Anna Kohler, Fiona Templeton
“Superb visibility: we are presented with an immensely simple apparatus that both openly demonstrates its functioning and remains incomprehensible, a shock….
The performance affords the spectator the exquisite pleasure of watching dream process consciously, allowing the shift, the sudden dis/appearance of meaning, the random ritual repetition of unconscious language. Laughter measures these shifts, marks moments of transition, the audience blurting, stifling its nervous shrieks and giggles.
Anxiety fuels the pleasure of watching this dangerous machine.”
Leslie Dick, Performance Magazine
-
London, Waterloo Studios, 1981
Brooklyn Bridge Centenary, New York
Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, 1983
