The Heidi Chronicles

Two weekends ago I was fortunate enough to stumble onto the opportunity to see one of my favorite plays, The Heidi Chronicles, by one of my favorite playwrights, Wendy Wasserstein, performed at Arena stage in D.C. Due to an unexpected flow of money (it was a bonus from my work in the phonathon!), I was able to splurge on a ticket to see some great D.C. theater, which is something I try to always take advantage of when I can.

This performance delighted me, but also in some ways disappointed me. It was delightful to see a play I know and love come to life, but it seems some things are better left to the imagination. Heidi, for example, was supposed to be charming, witty, sincere, and likeable; however, I found her to be cartoony, fake, simplistic, and annoying. The actress did not succeed in winning me over like she should have. What did win me over were the directorial choices in the "protest" scene, which is a scene I directed last semester in Directing class. The director's choice to have Heidi be so flabbergasted and emotionally stung by Peter's sexuality that she cannot respond properly is perfect! That scene gave me so much trouble before, but now I finally understand Heidi's reactions. (This is so personal it probably does not make much sense! I should focus on ... the set.)

The set was a little garishly square, but it actually seemed to work for the play. At one point during one of Heidi's monologues she describes a piece of art as a square with a cube floating above it, which is ironic because that's exactly how I would describe the set configuration. The cube was a giant four-sided screen onto which various images were projected throughout the play. This quickly and easily located a scene in a place. It was very useful... but perhaps too simple? I did the same thing for my amateur rendition of The Vagina Monologues last year. Projections seem to be the new fad in theater-- not that this is a bad thing. On the contrary, as I have said, I find them quite useful, both as a director and as an audience member. I'm afraid it just might be becoming a bit mundane. Technology is to blame!

Anyway, I really did enjoy the show. Except for the way the director chose to play up the clichéd ending. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the final scene of the play as it is, since it suggests (if you translate it into politics without a rendering) that women who struggle with "having it all" should give up trying to maintain their careers and just have babies. The director chose to paint this scene in total whiteness, including putting Heidi in all white, giving her the appearance of an angel. The lights fade as she gently rocks her little girl. Again, too easy! After all the explosive self-exploring, the emotional rollercoasters, the gains, the setbacks, the director is going to settle for an image of mother and baby in heaven? For a feminist play (did I mention it is a feminist play?) that is a criticism just waiting to happen.

But I'm so glad I got to see it! The performance of Peter was heart wrenching and beautiful, and some of the minor characters really stood out. It was definitely worth it.

Proposal for Installation Project

I propose to create a video installation in the White Room for my final project. It will be called An Installed Experiment Involving Memory, Space, Art, Spectatorship, and the Spillage of Secrets. The video will be a recording of myself sitting on a wooden stool in the White Room and reading aloud from my diaries (called Bath Books). By “performing” in front of an audience on video, I intend to play with the concepts of memory, time and space (the video is a memory of my being there before the audience arrived, the space has the memory of me being there, layers of time seem to blur, then become distinct again…). The video will run long (an hour of film or more) and possibly “looped.” The video will be projected onto a screen before multiple rows of chairs. My installation will be open from April 30th until May 3rd. Advertisements around campus will attract spectators during this run, but I also intend to invite the audience of “Theater Night” on May 2nd to visit the White Room and experience the installation for approximately ten minutes.

The purpose of this project is to experiment with autobiography, performance, memory, time, space, spectatorship, voyeurism, and the (blurred) boundary between public and private. By virtue of addressing the lived experience of being female (self-identified as well as socially-identified), this project aims to explore themes of gender and sexuality in the sections of my journals that I will choose to read aloud. What I choose to share with the audience will therefore render a portrait of my gender and sexual orientation identity.

This work will self-consciously refuse to deny being personal, intimate, and (possibly) apolitical; I intend to admit to my own self-indulgence by making the absence of critical voices and political connotations in the installation conspicuous. By calling attention to the fact that my installation is expositional and explicit, I hope to instigate questionable reactions from my audience. I would love for my spectators to re-consider the epistemology of autobiography, performance, and voyeurism.

The reason I have chosen to install this project in the White Room is because the White Room is an accessible theatrical space that is ideal for exploring the relationship between spectator and installation art. The room can be set up like a movie-theater configuration, with a projected image and rows of seats for spectators, dark walls, surround-sound… It is precisely the fact that the White Room is a theatrical space that encourages me to use it for this installation, because it calls into question what is appropriate for performance, for the stage, for the “high art” of theater-- and also what is appropriate protocol on the part of the spectators: should they be listening to me reading from my diaries at all? Are they innocent spectators, or hungry voyeurs? And lastly, what am I—a radical exhibitionist, an artist, or a person caught unawares on tape reading her secrets? WHO is innocent and WHO is responsible?

Installation Project Research

I am interested in exploring the themes of autobiography, performance, memory, time, space, spectatorship, voyeurism, and the (blurred) boundary between public and private in my next project. These themes are often addressed in feminist performance and installation art, so that is what I will be researching.

I researched a few different artists who have done work that touches on some of these subjects. In Imaging Desire by feminist artist Mary Kelly I came across a transcribed conversation between Laura Mulvey (the prominent feminist theorist who coined the term “the male gaze”) and Mary Kelly. In this conversation Mary Kelly discusses her installation work entitled Post-Partum Document (three images of this installation are posted above), which “was conceived as an ongoing process of analysis and visualization of the mother-child relationship” (Kelly). This work is relevant to my research because it is autobiographical in the sense that the installation addresses the artist’s experience as a mother. In Kelly’s words, “It is an effort to articulate the mother’s fantasies, her desire, her stake in the project called ‘motherhood’” (Kelly). However, Mary Kelly deliberately sheds this label and denies that the work is autobiographical. She states explicitly: “Although the mother’s story is my story, Post-Partum Document is not an autobiography… It suggests an interplay of voices—the mother’s experience, feminist analysis, academic discussion, political debate” (Kelly). This is where my idea for an installation project differs from this artist’s work. I want my work to be an intentional autobiographical document that does not address outside voices that are disconnected with my own. The voices that will be present in my work are located in my self, in past selves, and in powerful influences that speak through me. My work will self-consciously refuse to deny being personal, intimate, and (possibly) apolitical; I intend to admit to my own self-indulgence by acknowledging the absence of critical voices and political connotations in the installation.

The second artist I researched is Rachel Rosenthal, a feminist performance artist. My source is Out From Under, texts by women performance artists, edited by Lenora Champagne. I am very interested in the way she “combines autobiography and social criticism in visually stylish performances that often use slides, props and music” (Champagne 74). This cocktail of spectacle and intellectually stimulating material is exactly what I find most invigorating about most feminist performance art I have come into contact with. Unlike Mary Kelly, Rosenthal admits to using strong threads of autobiography in her work (for example, the subject matter for her piece My Brazil, 1979, came from her experience of fleeing Europe for Brazil during the Nazi’s rise to power when she was thirteen (Champagne 73). Unfortunately, I was unable to find any images of this performance piece. But, going off on a brief tangent here, I was delighted to learn that after having lived in New York for periods of time during her twenties, Rosenthal was friends with Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns! As I said before, it is my intention to treat my installation project as a self-conscious autobiographical piece. However, I do not plan to adopt Rosenthal’s stylistic combination of autobiography and social criticism. In this piece I simply intend to call attention to the fact that my installation is expositional and explicit, which will hopefully instigate questionable reactions from my audience. I would love for my spectators to re-consider the epistemology of autobiography, performance, memory, time, space, spectatorship, voyeurism, and the (blurred) boundary between public and private, but I do not intend to include any critical insights that might lead them directly to this contemplation. However, I do look forward to experimenting with social criticism in my performance art for a future project!

Therefore, I propose a few different possibilities for my installation project:

I want my installation project to be intimately personal, so I’m planning on using my own diary as source material (I do not call it a diary, though; my “diary” is a series of books called the “Bath Books”… this I may explain in the piece). One possibility is re-creating pages of my Bath Books out of sheets or canvas; this would be an exercise in re-writing myself, contextualizing/re-contextualizing/de-contextualizing myself, perhaps using images, creating separate spaces to enter, different kinds of safety…

I am also interested in creating a video installation. Preparation would include recording myself reading out of my Bath Books in the space which I intend to install my piece. The actual installation would be a projected image of the video in the space where the video was shot. By “performing” in front of an audience on video, I intend to play with the concepts of memory, time and space (the video is a memory of my being there before the audience arrived, the space has the memory of me being there, layers of time seem to blur, then become distinct again…).

There is also the possibility of being even more overt in demonstrating the relationships between installation, performance, and feminism… For example, I could “lead” my audience into the room, pretending to be “setting up” to read from my diary (in person!), but actually slip behind the scenes, call the audience inside, and have my projected image confront them as the “live performer”… Also, I could read only pre-selected sections of my Bath Books that especially pertain to gender or sexuality issues and experiences, thus invoking a distinctly feminist overtone in the work.

Regardless of which of these slightly different ideas I choose to develop, I have decided that my piece will be installed in the White Room. The White Room is a theatrical space that is available to me, accessible to all, and remarkably well-suited for this particular project. The White Room can serve as a gallery (should I choose to develop possibility number one), or a theater (should I choose to develop the second or third idea). Since the White Room is simply a black box room, it can be converted into either of these spaces. Also, a theatrical space is also ideal for exploring the relationship between spectator and installation art, which is a theme I am hoping to explore in this project.

Some other small details: I think this installation shall be called An Installed Experiment Involving Memory, Space, Art, Spectatorship, and the Spillage of Secrets. Also, I am thinking of advertising this installation by inviting people to a "live reading" of my diary. This is provocative, exhibitionist, sure to garner attention, and also raises important questions about performance, voyeurism, and what makes something "live" (is a re-run of a Saturday Night Live show still "live?").