BWW Features: James Veitch & Site Specific Theatre

"Site specific theatre," I told my friend, describing to him the premise of this piece.

"What's that?" (Not an uncommon response, actually.)

Enter James Veitch, a fiercely intelligent theatrical jack-of-all-trades trained in the U.K. and at Sarah Lawrence here in the States, whom I met by way of an undergrad classmate, the day after watching Synecdoche, New York, at the suggestion of the aforementioned friend. (Turns out he knew what it was - just not that there was a name for it.) Synecdoche, New York focuses on an aging, ill theatre director who stages a grand-scale piece in a warehouse that expand and increasingly mimics real life. "Synechoche" is a term for a part of something that is used to refer to its whole - i.e., the stage.

Veitch talked about the movie, perhaps a good way to ease into the subject - the idea that theatre, much like Kaufman's mind-bending film, is about the lack of a definitive truth. Its basis is in the blending, bending and fusion of different facets of reality.

An actor, writer, director and producer whose primary focus is on site-specific theatre, Veitch brings to the table very strong, distinct ideas about his craft. Site-specific theatre flies a bit under the radar in the New York theatrical community. Local folks may remember Ladies and Gents, staged in a Central Park bathroom in 2008, or have seen one of the site-specific, often mobile Shakespeare productions that pop up, or been to a haunted house-style "happening," but it doesn't really get the play its creativity warrants; you have to know to look for it, and it's easily overshadowed by more conventional fare. But this ambitious, thoughtful director and all-around artist is working to bring it into the light.

One of the most notable things about Veitch, aside from his intense intellect, is his reverence for the novelist Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita), master of agency through language, and employing the power of imagination. His name is, by far, the one Veitch cites the most during our conversation, and his company, Pale Fire, is named for one of Nabokov's books. Such a degree of influence by a literary great as opposed to some theatrical giant might seem strange, but it's remarkably refreshing, and it makes perfect sense. Theatre doesn't live in a bubble; it shouldn't, and outside informants can sometimes be the most powerful forces that drive it. That, generally speaking, is the idea that propels the site-specific aesthetic, and the hope to take the theatre out of its (ultimately artificial, however realistic) confines, and put it back in the world that inspired it.

Site-specific theatre has its difficulties, of course, but its advantages are attractive to the creatively minded. It's free from some of the politics of commercial producing, and doesn't get "bogged down" by issues that can often stop a show from being produced. But it's also a fine balance, Veitch acknowledges, between being experiential and connective without being pushy; it can be tricky not to get too interactive while embracing the afforded possibilities.

At bottom, the aims of Veitch's work are about the experience for the audience. It's "low on theatrical tricks," and seeks to make theatre that's like a "living canvas," ideally creating a markedly organic experience. It opens the world up into art, and intermingles the two, instead of allowing them to exist as images of one another. He strives for a feeling of "displacement," a way of jarring the audience into and out of its current reality; "art is about duplicity and multiplicity," he explains.

For example, in his Keats in Hampstead, based on the poetry of John Keats, staged at Keats' home in the U.K. last year and playing again this summer, the actors playing Keats and Fanny Brawne appear in modern dress. Veitch could have re-created the period, but developing the piece was more about creating something that makes sense now, as opposed to what "would have" made sense then. It's this idea of a temporal "purgatory," as he puts it, the juxtaposition of time, a state of limbo, and how it toys with relevance, that plays into the importance of imagination in Veitch's mission. The discordant sensation that results will draw the audience in to having to think about what they see. The separation thins.

Veitch often refers to storytelling as being analogous to a set of Russian nesting dolls: the lack of definite truth in a piece, performed or written, if done so well, can create an infinite number of possibilities for interpretation. "You can get closer and closer, but you can never get close enough - that's reality," he says (and that's a Nabokovian idea, too.) Art fails, he argues, if there's only one way of understanding it - so the best audience is an active one. If the goal is to "send ideas churning," rather than to impose a particular notion, then an agenda can be the death of the art. He seems to regard "relevance," when it comes up, as something of a dirty word, a binding, restraining concept. Rather than striving for a deliberate, one-answer-only parallel (hence his passionate rejection of art as social commentary) he aims for something broader: "if you manage to speak to basic human longing, then it's going to be relevant." And he insists that it all comes through the words, on which the audience needs, he urges, to focus. Keats' poetry, then, is the perfect key to this idea: the location may play a large role, but it's not about the era, it's about love, humanity, and bridging the gaps of time.

A site-specific experience, arguably, encourages this cerebral exchange between performance and spectator in a way a traditional one might not. But why site-specific theatre to accomplish it? Staging at Keats' house, for example, makes it such that the audience could just walk into the show, perhaps initially unaware. It brings the show into their world without asking them to go through the rather odd, if you think about it, ritual of sitting in a playhouse watching a performance.

But there's a conflict involved in doing this; it's based on a series of ideas that seem to contradict, though they actually very finely intertwine. The openness of site-specific theatre can be more inviting, putting the production into everyday life, outside of its usual place. But there's an unexpected nature, too - there's an aspect of theatre appearing in the everyday world that can be jarring at the same time, because performance, for many, is not part of daily experience. And yet to loop around again, a play at a house, say, is less strange than the ritualistic practice of "Going To The Theatre." But that's the beauty of it - pushing the audience out of its comfort zone, and ultimately expanding the idea of what theatre can be.

We always talk about the ephemerality of theatre - once it happens, it's over, we can't hold onto it tangibly. A site-specific production Veitch asserts, melds the mortality of life and experience (a poet, for example) to the immortality of his work - both associated with a place, in this case, Keats' home. But Vetich points out that Keats' house felt grounded in the mortality of Keats' life. Doing the play there can ground it in the work, give it life again, contemporarily. It's all about layers - see, there's that nesting doll image again.

Or take the Hotel Chelsea, where he's put on Room 103, a "history meets memory" play about the events surrounding the infamous Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, who was found dead in a room at the historic venue. "There's something sad about a used hotel rom" he muses, recounting a potential scene - but the remnant and echoes ignite the imagination, as they take on character and suggest a story.

Self-described as someone who has to work on several projects at one time (he's writing two musicals, as well, one about Elizabeth Siddal, Dante Rossetti's muse, and one that takes place in a high school, based upon the enigmatic "invisible man" idea), it's a bit of a synthesis effort in finding the right material. It's a mixture of both, Veitch tells me, when I ask what comes first: the story or the location (the chicken or the egg, you ask?), something like collecting bits and pieces that congeal over time.

Ultimately, it's that blend of "fictions that bleed into one another" that creates an experience of "artistic bliss" (another favorite, beautifully evocative Nabokovian term); truth isn't prescriptive in the theatre, it's the "truth of the imagination" that prevails.

For more information on James Veitch, Pale Fire, and his work, please visit: www.james-veitch.com
www.keatsinhampstead.com, or www.103chelsea.com.

Photos: Outside Keats House by Barbara Bartz; Chelsea Hotel by Rosemary J Morrow