Another two-show day, so here's your Sunday shot of Orson Welles.
I first saw "cold reading" demonstrated in Derren Brown's Séance, which is also well worth a watch. (Of course, Derren Brown being Derren Brown, I may only think I saw it demonstrated.) As described by Welles to David Frost below, it is "a fraudulent technique used by mediums in the Victorian times" whereby you "warm up the sucker" with facts about themselves that could apply to anyone – I have a scar on my knee! – until they're so convinced by your psychic powers, they start unwittingly volunteering infomation about themselves.
That's the theory. And Welles practised. According to various accounts – and a scene in Love Goddess (tickets available here) – he even practised on his future wife Rita Hayworth at their first meeting. It's never made explicit in our show that's what he's doing, but very little in our show is made explicit, which is one of the reasons I love it so much. And to Welles' credit – and unlike those who began it, or most famously practice it now – he only ever claimed to have "mind-reading capabilities", rather than the ability to speak to the dead. It was a more innocent time. There was a war on.
Coming up shortly another romantic, police-state-themed anecdote, but first:
Let me fill you in on Money.
So yes we're into our second run. It's January - no it's not it's
February, sorry - the snows have departed but Winter's still on us like
the knackering corpse of some giant squid and the "houses" (industry
term) are smaller as a result, but baby we're nailing it. It's so nearly
all there. A-hundred-and-thirtyish shows in, and each one different,
and each one - chiefly thanks to Lou who's sat in on about
a-hundred-and-twentyish of them - zipping along now with a minimum of
anguish (not an absence but a definite minimum). Although the first half
takes place in a waiting room I have finally been talked round to the
idea that JUST LETTING THE AUDIENCE WAIT does not make for a good show -
kills it (industry secret) - nor I now realise does it even lend
authenticity: the audience is in a dream, you never wait in dreams. At
least I never have, surely that would play havoc with your REM.
And external validation has come anew from both The New York Times (I know, what? They can make or break a show, bud! "And I mean that as a compliment." The New York Times) and The Independent (again)
in the first review to actually acknowledge the writing as anything
other than a terrible mistake, which is great because you know, there's
words of mine in there and you know, they're doing a job (even if it's
the same job Chinese newsprint performs in a cocktail umbrella).
OH! And then, last night, Derren Brown came. Because Neil Patrick Harris had
brought him. And they loved it. And it's on twitter. And they lurved
me. ("Staggering" Derren Brown... Now where can I take that?) I am using
short sentences to try and convey the magnitude of this. Awe. "Hi, I'm
Neil." Aw. Yeah you are! And your boyfriend David Burtka's lovely! And -
and Derren's first words to me were "Where do I know you from I know
you I've seen you it's driving me crazy is it a - a play have you been
in a play is it channel four a - a meeting - I've seen you." No. We'd
never met. But look, standing here in front of me is Derren Brown
WRACKING HIS BRAINS. That was a good night (but no seriously where can I
take it?)
And the Lounge?
I don't know. It's opening its doors again to something tomorrow and
I'd like to be there to see what. Maybe I'll be a stewardess. Maybe I'll
have some kind of tiny show to hang from the title "We Should Sh" (good
title eh?) but I doubt it, my baby's sick. I must go to her. I must
find something to call her other than my baby...
And this is a while back now, but we thought it might be romantic to go to the fair, my baby and me:
And
she took me on The Waltzer. I'd never been on one. And I thought I'd
die. I'm thirty-five, I've been in a fire, I thought I'd die. I went
pale and couldn't walk. I was too old and she said sorry. So we left the
fair. And as we passed a news-agent she also went pale and said "Ah!
Can't you hear that?" The shop had a hypersonic Mosquito "youth crowd
dispersal system". No I couldn't hear it. I'm thirty-five. IN YOUR FACE,
YOUTH!
Last night, my assistants sent me drama students, philosophers, and
sex therapists. None of them played the piano. All of the women wanted
to try on my hat. Why? In films, Nazi Germany seems full of parties with
women doing nothing but trying on soldiers' hats. Maybe that's why we
wear them. Actually, I wasn't at my desk much, it gets hot under that
bulb. I hung around the bar and the doorways to lecture halls, quiet and
inherently objectionable. Somebody was presenting a pretty
crappily-prepared argument with a lot of clips from youtube about the
future of privacy ("Here is Tom Cruise's eyes, in the future, being
scanned in GAP, and that is in the future, and will happen in ten...
twenty years, yes") but his central idea – that most of us don't
actually WANT privacy – I found pretty interesting, particularly as I've
just left facebook.
(Heather
made these out of industrial concrete, using sex dolls as moulds.
They've been removed now to make way for the People's Republic.) Quite
early into this second evening of interviews, I realized I had to make
more of an effort to curb my automatic impulse to GENUINELY engage with
the interviewees. There has to be a distance. So I introduced a little
monologue from a later draft from "Iago's Little Book of Calm" about
confusing the need to weep with the need to pee – just threw it into the
interview, like the kind of thing Derren Brown might hold your
attention with while making you forget your own name. And two of the
interviewees started weeping. Not sobbing, just weeping, and they smiled
as they wept. But it wasn't really the pay-off I was looking for... I
don't know what I'm looking for. I should probably read the KUBARK files
for some tips, although I'm beginning to doubt their authenticity – Oh!
By the way! Googling "kubark" and "hoax" (good Martian law firm:
Googling, Kubark and Hoax) I found this: another crappily-assembled
non-argument using a lot of clips from youtube, but stuffed with
esoteric government goodies for those of you who like that sort of
thing, particularly the CHARMING Russian cover of "Let It Be" at the end
(the more astute might recognize the humming lady from Ken Campbell's "Brainspotting"):
When I got home, there was was a late-night movie I
hadn't heard of before, called "The Final Cut",
in which Robin Williams in his underrated "wrong 'un" mode, plays a futuristic funeral director
charged with splicing together compilation reels of dead people's
memories, using footage from the cameras implanted in their heads at
birth by rich parents. It was good, and made me think some more. Then I
bunged on Christopher Hampton's mainly not-good adaptation of "The Secret Agent",
in which Robin Williams turns up again, uncredited, as a greyish,
Victorian suicide bomber. He's the best thing in it, which is one of the
reasons I want to see it remade (I'm also keen on the idea of steampunk
brainwashing). Here's some more of Heather's concrete sex dolls, now
destroyed:
Hello again. I haven't been here in ages. Obviously I lack motivation. There is a cure for this though. I will come to it.
I
haven't really been writing for Laurence and Gus either which is bad,
there's going to be a read-through on Monday... It's just every time
I've sat down to write since receiving the commission I've always seemed
to end up returning - like Grendel - to a tired squall of my own making
on Chris Goode's blog "Thompson's Bank Of Communicable Desire" (all
hinted at in my last post - blimey - two weeks back!... It's been going
on that long. Well it's over now, and actually it has a happy ending. If
you're interested to know more, cut and paste this little honey:
I come in about half-way down and then never shut up. Actually I might try a summing up in my next post. No, come back.) Anyway, yes, so as I was saying to the producer over a risotto, I am obviously phenomenally unmotivated. What
does Derren Brown suggest? Well now I know because I've finally got
round to reading his book (not to motivate myself, no, that was not the
idea, no... nor to find out if he uses stooges. He states unequivocally
in the book that he doesn't though. I'm a little disappointed by that. I
think it's fine if he does. I didn't want to know.) Anyway he suggests
"Playing with Pictures". Visualizing the writing of this blog, according
to Derren Brown, means that I should picture it from a FIRST-PERSON
perspective (ie not looking on at myself writing this, my first clear
mistake) and big like IMAX (like the one in Hertfordshire where Miss
Meikle and I saw Beowulf - "MONSTAH!" - after driving through the first
snow I've seen this winter. Actually, yeah, good thing I didn't stay in
London that evening and get some writing done, I'd have missed the snow)
I should "make the colours rich and intense", turn up the brightness,
bring it in closer, in my face. And finally I should "add sizzle". Thus:
And it works!Later
on, Derren writes about the "Monty Hall Problem", and it's the following
episode played out today at lunch (and slightly reminiscent of my
conduct in the Thompson's squall) that I am actually here to record:
Me - Jess, do you know about "the Monty Hall Problem"? Jess (with whom I work, and who is American) - I know about Monty Hall. No. Me
- There's three closed doors, and behind one is car and behind the
other two there are goats, and you have to choose a door. Then I open a
door behind which I know to be a goat. Okay? Now I ask you if you want
to stick with your choice, or change and pick the remaining closed door.
What do you do? Jess - I stick. Me - WRONG! Jess - No it's not. Me
- YES! YES! Okay, say there were a HUNDRED doors instead, and you
picked one, and then I opened up NINETY-EIGHT doors and they all had
goats and there was just now the two doors left again. Yours and mine.
Think of the probability. Would you still stick with your first choice? Jess - Yes. Me - But that's wrong. Jess - No it's not. Me - Wh... why not? Jess - Because you never asked me how I feel about goats.
Excelsior, Jess! I'll write about Shunt next time. Catch up then.
