Interview with SIGNA in connection with ‘Det Åbne Hjerte’ (Aarhus, 2019)
Conducted by Erik Exe Christoffersen, Ida Krøgholt, Josefine Brink Siem and students from the department of Dramaturgy at Aarhus University, September 19, 2019. Translated and edited by Josefine Brink Siem.
Participants from SIGNA:
Signa Köstler – Director, ’Lonnie’
Anton Cornelius Thorsø Schulze – ’Niklas’
Karoline Amalie Severinsen – Intern, ’Nadia’
Erik Ebert – ’Jimmy’
Therese Mastek – ’Carina’
Exe: I perceive ‘Det Åbne Hjerte’ as a project that breaks with a number of general conventions of the theatre. There is a fictional frame, which creates chains of actions, but reality also weaves its way into the fiction and intermittently dissolves it. As a spectator, you slide in and out of the fiction, and everyone experiences something different, depending on which rooms they are in and in which order. This changes the very medium of theatre and renders the world of the performance immense and unpredictable. No one knows everything, no one sees everything, no one experiences everything. So the questions that I would like to start with are: how set is the fictional frame, the plot, the characters? Where is the locus of the fiction? Is it localized in time? Does it have a past?
Signa: Before we get to that, which is of course a big question, I would like to return to the beginning of your question. It is important for me to say, as the director and concept developer, that my background is not in theatre. I do not observe the theatre as it is and attempt to pick it apart. I do not ask the question: what is theatre? Det Åbne Hjerte is its own form, and it is the 39th performance with that form, which I, and the people I have worked with, have developed over a period of many years. It is its own genre and its own form, more than it refers to what theatre usually is. I have never created a conventional piece of theatre, and probably would not be able to.
How much of the performance is fixed? It is a large amount. If you were to play Hamlet, you would have less text to memorize than what we have. The narrative frame is very dense, made up partly of things that I have written beforehand, and partly of things that each person in the group has written for their own character. Everyone receives a description of their character, which is a sketch. In this case, all the ‘sufferers’ are based on real case-stories: on a ‘flesh and blood’ human being who has been in this kind of situation. Every actor expands the sketch and fills in biographical details, connections and so on. As an example, we have the twins Nadja and Niklas where a lot has to be developed in collaboration between the actors portraying them. There are details which are only relevant for them, and details that are relevant for the whole group. Similarly, the characters of Karina and Jimmy have been in the association for a long time, and therefore have a number of common experiences, which have to be created and developed. The narrative keeps growing, and everyone has to keep themselves up to date with it.
Exe: Do you conduct the research for the individual characters yourself?
Signa: I have found all of the case-stories and written between half a page and one page of text for each. After that, everyone carries on the research themselves. This can take the form of visiting a homeless shelter or seeking out places where people who are struggling in one way or another are gathering. The research can also be based on people that the actor has known personally in their own life. We constitute a varied group of actors, who have a wide palette of life experiences. You gather inspiration and details from various places, and fill them into the existing framework of the character and make them your own. After all, you need a lot of substance to the character to be able to play for 12 hours and react to what happens.
Exe: How much of this is shared? Is there a common manuscript that lets everyone know the details of each character?
Signa: We share everything, except for some things that are supposed to be secret. Some details are only shared between the characters involved.Since we do not replay the events of one single day each night, the days and events are in continuation of each other.But of course we have a certain amount of details settled beforehand. We have five weeks of rehearsals with a one-week break every one or two weeks. In the weeks between rehearsals, everyone continues the character development in different ways, so a lot is already developed by the time the performance premieres. But of course you are continually faced with new questions and situations, and then you have to create something in the moment. But if you have done your preliminary work, there should be nothing that you either do not already have in your head, or intuitively will know about your character.
Exe: The meetings and encounters you have each night, are they improvised or planned? For instance, does a character know that at 9.30 pm there will be a conflict in this room or an encounter in that room?
Erik: There is a fixed narrative frame, but the majority of the encounters are improvised. They are chance meetings that happen because you are on your way to somewhere, and what happens is improvised.
Therese: The way that the characters react to each other also depends on which mood, for instance, Karina is in when she meets Niklas, who is in another mood. Like with real people, you know?
Josefine: Which thoughts and ideas are behind your curation of the hospital’s aesthetic and sensory design?
Signa: As you have probably noticed, a lot of thought has been put into every little detail like smells and the apparent lack of colour. It is an art space and a simulated reality distinct from everyday reality. It looks different from what a homeless shelter would look like, which of course points to its artificiality. You might know the term ‘uncanny valley’. That is something we work with a lot. It is used in relation to robots that look like humans, and the closer the likeness, the more uncanny they become.
The hospital is a simulated reality with markers of authenticity, i.e. it has the smell, the dirt, the detail – everything is there in abundance. But at the same time it is displaced in relation to reality. It is another time, but which time? It is not consistently the 90’s or the 80’s. It is nothing. Nothing has ever looked like this. And this displacement has to do with the fact that as an audience member, you are also in a displaced position – you are displaced into another reality. This means that some things still hold true and some things dissolve. It has a ritual character or quality that points to the symbolic nature of the events taking place.
Some people experience a sense of distance because of this, and that is typically people who are already very analytical. Other people experience the opposite: ‘wow, I am in a different world and I am being surrounded by it, because everything is different, and I look at myself, and I am also different, which means I am sinking deeper into it, but without getting completely lost in it, because some things are still recognizable’. It is an obsession for me. It is what I am always occupied with. If you only knew what has been done in those rooms, it is insane. One cannot begin to fathom how much we have painted, built and changed to give the rooms their specific qualities.
Josefine: You seem to be devising a lot of the fictional universe and story, so how do you work on becoming a group or a community during rehearsals?
Karoline: We work on this a lot, especially at the beginning. We are allowed to act ‘on the floor’ pretty early in the process, for instance a two-hour time slot where all the female characters improvise in the sleeping quarters. I know that I am already friends with some of the characters, and others I have no relation to yet. You meet each other in the fiction and find out if you have anything in common or not. It is during those weeks that you develop the relations that can be expanded upon during the performance’s run. It is in the improvisation that you get to know each other and develop your character.
Therese: And then we of course spend a lot of time together just sitting, well, in a circle and talking.
Josefine: Do you conduct an evaluation every morning after the participants have left?
Signa: Yes, we do.
Therese: We have a very strong social bond in this performance and that is really important, in order for us to do the things we do and to give a genuine impression of the relation we have to both the characters and the people behind them. So that we feel safe with each other.
Signa: We all live in the hospital. And we have done so for many months, so it is obvious that it is a collective thing. We know each other. Really well, all of us.
Ida: Yes, and many of you have acted together before, right?
Signa: In the group present here today, we have two veterans, me and two newcomers. We always construct the team to consist of 50/50 veterans and newbies. That is important for the dynamic.
Karoline: All interns are always also actors. Even if they thought that they would just come in a build a little scenography, they still get a part.
Signa: Yes, we do not operate with a division where some people do scenography without taking part in the performance. Internally, we call it our circus, because you are metaphorically selling popcorn in the breaks, and later you are in the trapeze. People have different backgrounds, and we do not discriminate in any way – neither in the casting nor during the performance run. People do not get treated differently depending on whether they have an education in acting or not. Our point of departure is that everyone has something different to offer, and sometimes it is an advantage and sometimes a disadvantage that people have a background in acting or theatre.
Anton: It is important to be able to approach the veterans with questions. It can be helpful to talk to someone who has been through it before, especially when you are new. I mean asking about how it all works, what to look out for and those kinds of things. But everyone is equal, which is a lovely feeling.
Karoline: But we are not equal in the fiction, which has a lot of hierarchies. But these hierarchies are not present among the actors. We can only do the, sometimes, harsh or crazy things we do to each other, because we know where we stand with each other.
Exe: You do not encounter situations, where the boundaries become diffuse?
Erik: You can always overstep a boundary. If I am tired one day, I might not be able to take the physical beatings that I normally would and vice versa.
Exe: Do you have any internal time-out signals?
Signa: Internally, things are more prearranged and structured than most people think. Ten years ago, when we made Salo, there was no limit to what people imagined was going on and what they imagined we exposed the actors to. We have a large security system in place between the characters who are perpetrators and the characters who are victims. Often, the initiative to do a violent scene will need to come from the victim. This is not visible on the surface, just as the close community in the group is not visible. If things somehow slide and real conflicts ensue, we take that very seriously because it is not only uncomfortable, but it also damages the whole performance. The better we get along outside of the fiction, the better we can act out conflicts and problems inside the fiction.
Lukas: I would like to know a bit more about which tools you have for handling participants or audience members who either over-identify with the fiction or do not involve themselves at all?
Signa: We work a lot with how we relate to people and why audiences may have different kinds of reactions. I have spent some time studying communication and manipulation, and I give the actors some tools to understand and read body language, which is an important skill for what we do. To be able to spot where people shut down or become passive-aggressive is actually the be-all and end-all of this. Because then you can move them from that state and into one where they are more receptive. It is complicated stuff, but also fascinating how people work. Very small tricks can make all the difference in a situation: how you move, how you reflect the other person, what you do with your eyes, the quality of your touch etc.
Martin: Signa, you are using the word ’visitors’ about the audience. How come?
Signa: It is a universe that we as inhabitants know intimately. It is where our characters live, and when you enter, it means that you are visiting us for a while. ‘Audience’ would be misplaced as a term, because that is people who just show up and watch. ‘Participant’ kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth, because it signals that ‘now we all have to do this and that…’. When you are a visitor, you might help out or perform a variety of actions. A visit can mean many things, and it is the term that comes closest to the matter for me. Sometimes we have an ‘open house’ set-up, sometimes you are an employee on your first day of work, sometimes you are a patient admitted with amnesia. It is always different from performance to performance and it depends on the fiction. I personally dislike when you come into some kind of immersive theatre, where your arms are tied, and you have to do what you are asked.
Exe: How do you take care of yourselves in cases where visitors tell you quite heavy or personal stories? Are you able to leave it behind when you step out of the fiction?
Therese: Naturally, it can affect you to hear personal stories, but I do not think there is a big difference to what you hear from other people all the time in real life. I do not pass on the things that people tell me. It is a secret that they have told my character and it stays there.
Erik: For me it is similar to my experience with working as a bartender. A person sits down and gets some kind of space where they are free to vent. Sometimes I feel the need to talk to someone about what I have heard, so it has happened that I have gone over someone’s story with another person, without revealing any details or names. What gets said in the fiction is very confidential.
Karoline: Our characters are people too. When someone tells us a story, it touches us. Some of the stories are shared for the first time. People find a space where – unlike in the rest of society – I won’t look at them in a funny way and say ‘what a strange dad you have’, but instead say ‘yeah, that fucking sucks, I know how you feel’. That is why what we do makes so much sense to me.
Signa: We have an evaluation when we are done, and there is a certain word that we say, and until it is said, everyone stays in character even though the audience has already left. It is like a magic word, and once it is said, everyone steps out of their character. There can be some lingering emotions and mannerisms, but then we get to the practical stuff: Is anyone hurt? Are any items broken? With that, it is back to reality.
Exe: Do you have any opportunities to retreat from the fiction and take a timeout during the night?
Signa: Yes, but we have no ’backstage’.
Exe: So all conflicts and encounters get negotiated within the fictional frame?
Signa and Erik: Yes.
Karoline: There is also the option of talking in code. I can signal to another actor that I need to talk, and then we can go into a secluded room and talk out of character about a scene or a situation.
Signa: The code words are kind of a last resort. Usually, we just communicate within the fiction, but if you need it – and that is typically if something goes off track or you are unwell – you can just say the code word and things progress very quickly from there. It is rarely more than one sentence, but it is uncomfortable to go in and out of the fiction. For that reason, we try to negotiate everything in character. But it is extremely important that we have those different types of code words, because they allow us to trust that we will not get ‘eaten’ by the fiction or that we become involved in something that we cannot manage or make sense of.
Mette: In the performance, you are mixing fictional elements with real physical actions, such as someone getting whipped with a belt. I found this quite transgressive, because I knew that I was in a fictional frame but at the same time, I could observe real violence right in front of me. What are your thoughts behind this mixing of fiction and concrete physical violence?
Signa: It is a way of showing that the fiction is never just fictional. In the beginning of my career, there was a lot of talk about this way of playing with the limits between reality and fiction. At some point that discussion became quite uninteresting to me, because the fiction is created from a material that is reality. In that sense there is no distinction, so the real actions are a way of signaling that it is serious – it is twelve hours of lived life connected to our physical and spiritual reality. In these twelve hours we really mean what we are doing, and we make our bodies and our whole person available to the fiction. For that reason, we can sometimes be a little hurt, when someone says ‘well, but it is just something that you are acting’, because we are here as real people, which can make it realer than real. A kind of condensed reality or presence.
Karoline: It is important to note that Signa never tells us; ’Hey, it would be really great if some of you could get whipped’. With every instance of physical violence, it is something that an actor has initiated and wanted to try, so there is always a sense of control. When I am getting whipped by the character Jimmy, he knows where to hit me, and I might get a bruise, but it is just a bruise.
Signa: Thank you for saying that. There are a lot of myths about physical violence being a requirement. That is actually not true. If someone is exposed to violence in the performance, it is always their own decision, and not something I have suggested. As soon as I, as leader, suggest or hint at something like that, it already expresses a form of power that I should not exercise.
Anton: The same i true for verbal violence. If there is someone who does not feel like being verbally abused or called nasty things, we respect that. That is a necessity.
Signa: As an actor, you can have any kind of limit. Whether you want to take off your clothes, get whipped etc. is not something that we take into consideration during casting.
Ida: Signa, can you say something about what it takes to be cast in your performances?
Signa: The most important thing is that you are psychologically stabile and have a reasonably good state of health. And then you have to be group-oriented. You can spot this quality quite quickly, because we always do the casting in groups, and if people zoom out while others are talking, then they are simply not right. You have to be interested in other people. And you have to be able to listen and concentrate, because you will receive lots of information. In addition to this, you will have to be reasonably smart – not in the sense of being university educated, but you have to be able to use your imagination.
Karoline: And you cannot be too theatrical.
Signa: All things considered, a casting situation is horribly awkward, and people are just being thrown into it. It is better to do very little, but do it authentically, than to try to ‘act it up’. A lot of professional actors probably do not make the cut on that account.
Josefine: How much are you directing during the performances? Do you direct in character or do you let go completely?
Signa: I try to let go as much as I can. So if I direct, it is mostly in terms of logistics. And if there is some sort of emergency situation, the actors can contact me. But if I notice something that is out of control, I can tell them to tighten things up in the gathering afterwards. I try to let go completely once we get to the premiere, and that is really difficult. But the little birds have to leave the nest and get used to the fact that there is no mother, so I can just focus on playing my character.
Exe: Is it a principle for you that you are always acting yourself?
Signa: Yes. It is partly because I need to see how things are developing, so that I can intervene if necessary and evaluate properly afterwards. And partly it is because I would find it incredibly strange to do this and not participate in it myself. It is the fruit of all my labour. The rehearsals are taxing, and if I then did not have the joy of taking part… I have done that for 39 performances. I have never had a sick day.
Per: I am wondering about the final gathering in the morning, when you asked us to donate 1500 DKK to the organisation Det Åbne Hjerte. It felt like it somehow negated the fiction that I had believed in throughout the entire night. Can you elaborate on the decision to consciously break the fiction?
Karoline: I see it more as a way to support the idea that it is a real organisation, and that we need the money.
Signa: Some people do donate the money, but not the majority. Anything could happen with this sort of evaluation of the performance within the performance. But it has actually never happened that the audience breaks with the fiction. You can see the tiredness on their faces, and it is almost hard to tell people apart at that point. We are all in the same boat. I love those mornings, because we have the poor human kind, sitting there and never figuring things out together. No one does anything to help the suffering, and when the moment to cash up comes, it also will not get us anywhere. It is the tragic anticlimax. For me, the morning gathering is about how sad it is that we humans try to figure things out, establish hierarchies, winners and losers, but sometimes it is all just really empty. I think it is a very tragic scene.
Per: As participant, I sometimes found myself in a dilemma: how much should I give myself over to the moment? Was it okay to step back and evaluate myself a little bit, and think about how I should act? Do you have any expectations in that regard?
Signa: No. The individual characters might have certain expectations, but the artwork as a whole needs to be able to incorporate a variety of different spectatorial positions. What the individual takes away from the experience somewhat depends on their suspension of disbelief. That is why it can be difficult with many reviewers and academics who think: ‘I know what theatre and immersion are, and I wonder what devices are being used here?’ They overlook some very crucial parts of the performance, because they participate from a place where they do not really get into the real matter of it. Some manage to have a kind of double-observation, where they can do both at once, and I think you can get quite far with that. But everyone experiences something different depending on where he or she is coming from, and that is alright as long as they are not constantly saying ‘I know that this is just acting!’.
Therese: Personally, I like when my participants need to take a time-out together. Then we can go somewhere quiet and talk about something I did to another character, about morals and what they would do if they were me. You can easily do that within the fiction. It can be interesting and create a closer bond.
Sara: How much do you take the audience’s boundaries into account? Do you change your behaviour, if you notice that they get affected?
Signa: I believe that boundaries should be transgressed, but of course no one should become unwell.
Erik: You can keep them right at the boundary, push a little, try to nudge them over it, but there is no reason to completely ruin people.
Signa: No, there is no reason to completely ruin people, but we have to test some boundaries, because it has to do with what this performance is all about. I need to express this clearly. It is about real people who feel a certain way, and with that I do not just mean homeless people, but also other people all over Denmark, for instance refugees in the Sjælsmark facilities, who are under extreme pressure and have to try to endure it. I believe that we have to co-suffer and experience it. And unless you really have problems separating fiction from reality, everyone knows that it is a performance. Sometimes things have to be uncomfortable, and there is a tendency in society to say ‘trigger warning here and safe space there’ and so on. But we should not always go easy on ourselves. Of course, we have to be able to set boundaries, but we also need to realize that we can take a lot and that there are situations where people have to be able to endure. We might as well prepare ourselves for that and this is one way to do it.
Or-Emilie: You talk about not overprotecting the audience. I experienced a feeling of abandonment when I left the performance. There was no one to share the experience with, and there is a limit to how much one person can cope with on their own, if they are not used to this sort of experience. Where is the balance between not taking the audience by the hand, but still somehow following them out? I am thinking that it must be a hard balance to find, especially with the themes of the performance. How do you give the audience some tools to reflect on the experience afterwards?
Signa: It is something that we discuss a lot internally. I believe we are generally stronger than we think, and that we need to be stronger than we think we are – especially given the way the world looks right now in terms of politics and climate. You might ask yourself: ‘what do we with these people who are struggling in these refugee camps or with ourselves, who might be the next to suffer?’. Of course I realise that there are participants who become unwell or have nightmares afterwards, but I think – and I know that this can sound cynical – so be it. We need that, because the world is cruel, and we are incredibly privileged. I actually want to grant the audience that.
Karoline: [to Or-Emilie]Since you are very affected by it, do you think that the experience was worth it, or was it too much? I actually think that it is okay to feel bad after experiencing something that was rough and that stays in your body.
Or-Emilie: Was it worth it? Yes, it was, but it has really provoked some questions for me about how to process it. I do not know what to do with it, but it has touched something in me as a human being…
Exe: Besides, I find it interesting that we are dealing with an art form where the audience is extremely individualised. There is for instance no common applause or common situations where we all laugh together and become a unity. I believe that to be a strength, but it can also hit you.
Signa: Das Heufolk in Mannheim had a big common ritual at the end, but here it is deliberate that the performance ends in an unsweetened kind of existential loneliness.
Det Åbne Hjerte played from August 30 to September 29 in Aarhus, Denmark as part of Aarhus Festuge.
Read more here.