This is Mine. What’s Yours? Performance by Lauren Hart in Puuvilla, Pori Theatre Festival, Finland 9th September 2016
Review by Mikko I. Elo
An intimate chat in the middle of the festival. Roles start to lose their significance. It’s feels natural to throw into a deep conversation with an actress who is wearing a gorilla costume.
Sharing one’s greatest fears with a stranger sounds like a daunting task but in this one-to-one performance it feels almost the most natural thing to do. From the very beginning I’m so absorbed in the performance that I almost forget my role as a journalist. In this performance the participant meets the performer in a small room. The gorilla communicates by writing on a small portable whiteboard, while the participant can express himself verbally. The gorilla starts by writing some thought-provoking questions to me. The communication between us is very direct and within minutes it is less important which one of us is the performer and which one the participant. One happens to be wearing a gorilla suit and communicates by writing, while the other one is wearing normal clothes and communicates by speaking. I learn that the prospect of losing her father is the gorilla’s biggest fear. The gorilla invites me to sing and dance with her to get rid of my fears. Out of three available songs I choose Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. Dancing and singing together breaks the ice between us - if there was anything left at this stage anyway - and afterwards the conversation takes even a deeper turn. I open up to the gorilla by sharing my views on consciousness disappearing at the moment of death, as well as my uncertainty in front of these types of serious questions. I carry on by confessing that rather than trying to save the whole world, I’m focusing on my family’s and friends’ wellbeing. The gorilla responds to me by writing on her board: ‘I want to help myself first to be able to help the people I care about. Not the other way round.’ I have to agree with the gorilla, and in fact we seem to have many things in common. Therefore, when we’re hugging each other at the end of the show, I’m not hugging the actress dressed as a gorilla but an individual with whom I’ve shared a moment. After the show, I got to know the performer behind the gorilla costume. Lauren Hart doesn’t mind me being a journalist whose intention is to write a review on the one-to-one theatre show to the local paper. ‘Our encounter was really nice. While the discussion got quite serious with you, our dance was funny’, Hart says.
Hart has a lot of experience in performing to big audiences. The difference to one-to-one shows is that each performance is built on the participant’s responses and therefore they can vary a lot. ‘Everything depends on the individual, with some people the conversation goes naturally quite deep, whereas other people prefer keeping it light.’, Hart explains. Finland is the fourth country where Hart has brought her ‘This is Mine. What’s Yours?’ performance. The responses from the participants have been very similar regardless of the age, gender and nationality. However, she’s noticed one characteristic in the Finnish audience in comparison with British, Norwegian and German people. ‘Without skirting around, Finnish people move more directly to the point.’ The shows have been slightly shorter in Finland than elsewhere. After 12 shows on Thursday and Friday, Lauren Hart’s ‘This is Mine. What’s Yours?' performance is still available for six people today.
Translation by Minna Holi
Review by Mikko I. Elo
An intimate chat in the middle of the festival. Roles start to lose their significance. It’s feels natural to throw into a deep conversation with an actress who is wearing a gorilla costume.
Sharing one’s greatest fears with a stranger sounds like a daunting task but in this one-to-one performance it feels almost the most natural thing to do. From the very beginning I’m so absorbed in the performance that I almost forget my role as a journalist. In this performance the participant meets the performer in a small room. The gorilla communicates by writing on a small portable whiteboard, while the participant can express himself verbally. The gorilla starts by writing some thought-provoking questions to me. The communication between us is very direct and within minutes it is less important which one of us is the performer and which one the participant. One happens to be wearing a gorilla suit and communicates by writing, while the other one is wearing normal clothes and communicates by speaking. I learn that the prospect of losing her father is the gorilla’s biggest fear. The gorilla invites me to sing and dance with her to get rid of my fears. Out of three available songs I choose Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. Dancing and singing together breaks the ice between us - if there was anything left at this stage anyway - and afterwards the conversation takes even a deeper turn. I open up to the gorilla by sharing my views on consciousness disappearing at the moment of death, as well as my uncertainty in front of these types of serious questions. I carry on by confessing that rather than trying to save the whole world, I’m focusing on my family’s and friends’ wellbeing. The gorilla responds to me by writing on her board: ‘I want to help myself first to be able to help the people I care about. Not the other way round.’ I have to agree with the gorilla, and in fact we seem to have many things in common. Therefore, when we’re hugging each other at the end of the show, I’m not hugging the actress dressed as a gorilla but an individual with whom I’ve shared a moment. After the show, I got to know the performer behind the gorilla costume. Lauren Hart doesn’t mind me being a journalist whose intention is to write a review on the one-to-one theatre show to the local paper. ‘Our encounter was really nice. While the discussion got quite serious with you, our dance was funny’, Hart says.
Hart has a lot of experience in performing to big audiences. The difference to one-to-one shows is that each performance is built on the participant’s responses and therefore they can vary a lot. ‘Everything depends on the individual, with some people the conversation goes naturally quite deep, whereas other people prefer keeping it light.’, Hart explains. Finland is the fourth country where Hart has brought her ‘This is Mine. What’s Yours?’ performance. The responses from the participants have been very similar regardless of the age, gender and nationality. However, she’s noticed one characteristic in the Finnish audience in comparison with British, Norwegian and German people. ‘Without skirting around, Finnish people move more directly to the point.’ The shows have been slightly shorter in Finland than elsewhere. After 12 shows on Thursday and Friday, Lauren Hart’s ‘This is Mine. What’s Yours?' performance is still available for six people today.
Translation by Minna Holi
