Two actors, two venues, one show

UNDER CONSTRUCTION:A theatre company is exploring the impact that technology is having on the art world by staging a show in which the actors perform in different countries, writes Michelle Read.

BROKENTALKERS THEATRE Company make theatre, but they're not interested in drama, at least not the conventional kind. The rehearsal room for their new show, In Real Time, is full of desks and laptops plus a digital camera, and on the wall there's a big clock. This isn't just part of the rehearsal room furniture, explains founder member Gary Keegan, it's a key signifier in the piece. "Having a clock on stage is important to us," he tells me, because, like the title, everything happens in real time.

This particular show is about distance and the illusion of proximity afforded by technology. It's a relatively straightforward premise, but what interests Keegan and Feidlim Cannon, the other half of the company, is the "interaction with technology to have a relationship". In order to explore this idea further, they decided to separate their two performers, placing Flemish actress Dolores Bouckaert in a building in Ghent and Cannon in the Project Arts Centre in Dublin.

Keegan and Cannon are influenced by companies such as UK's Forced Entertainment and German/UK group Gobsquad (Gobsquad are also performing in Dublin this week), companies which regularly challenge ideas about what theatre can be through the use of other art forms and new technologies. Both men readily describe their own work as being on the border of theatre and performance art. "Yes, absolutely," says Cannon, about their current show, "to me it is more like an art piece".

They first set up a company in 2001 after studying performance at De Montford university in Leicester. Already friends in Dublin and interested in making theatre but not in anything they saw around them, the De Montford course appealed to them because of its progressive reputation and the presence of performance artists, such as the UK's Jordan McKenzie, on the faculty. McKenzie, whose own practice currently involves "investigations into the performativity of drawing", was a proponent of queer art while at Leicester. Keegan and Cannon, point out that this kind of exposure to radically different performance possibilities was a total "eye-opener" for two Dublin lads. They recall how the course encouraged them to tap into their own creativity and they readily admit that they returned to Dublin as "conceptualists" rather than play-makers.

The first piece of theatre they made after college, with two other company members, was a radically deconstructed version of Brian Friel's Philadelphia Here I Come. Keegan describes how they took the main ideas of the play and "made a new performance piece". He explains: "We looked at how many ways we could explore a breakdown". The end product saw Gar Private played by a slide projector and Keegan himself  "tearing out pages of the script and eating them, until I vomited". "He has reflux," Cannon adds quickly, "so this wasn't acting, it was real . . . it was about frustration." It is clear that they're not simply being provocative, but that the notion of the real and actual in performance is a fundamental issue for them. Cannon adds: "We still think it's one of the best things we've done".

Unfortunately Friel didn't agree and the ensuing legal correspondence cost them all the money they had made from their next show, God Bless America. The larger group then disbanded and Keegan went to London to do an MA, while Cannon continued as an actor in Dublin. In 2004, the two decided to come back together and they subsequently set up Brokentalkers.

The name is from a Native American story about two tribes who live next to each other, Keegan tells me. They speak the same language, he explains, but one tribe speaks it differently, so the others calls them brokentalkers. Keegan and Cannon liked the idea of speaking the same language differently and felt it was a good metaphor for their approach to theatre.

IT SEEMS THEIR ideas are catching on. Recently they have been prolific, theatrically speaking, and this may be reflective of the interest in the surprisingly gentle and philosophical performance pieces that they are currently making. The two may challenge traditional theatre, but they also insist that they want their work to be accessible.

Most recently they collaborated on composer and musician Sean Miller's show Silver Stars, helping to put a theatrical shape to the stories of older gay men, told through narration, song and video. In January, their own show Track, a miniature audio tour of Dublin, based around the experience of immigration, was brought back for Chinese New Year. This piece used mp3 players to take its audience on a short odyssey through a familiar landscape. It created visually arresting and (for me) highly moving moments en route, connected to the idea of being far from home.

Back in rehearsals I notice two large pieces of paper on the wall with the words, "here" and "there" written on them. I suggest that distance seems to be a major theme with the company and both Keegan and Cannon agree that it continues to fascinate them. "So," I confirm, "Bouckaert is 'there' and Cannon 'here' and all that connects them is a high quality broadband link?" They nod. "It does go back to Track," they agree, "we found a lot of people keep in touch by skype."

They also mention friends involved in long-distance relationships. "The interface with the technology is not a substitute for immediacy," offers Keegan, "that's what got us going." What about the technology? Brokentalkers seem to love it; whether it's creating a film studio live on stage for Dublin Youth Theatre, using audio equipment on Trackor the video-conferencing techniques they're utilising for this show. They counter that it's not an "add on" or "gimmick" for them, but that they are open to seeing how technology can help make the piece they want to make. They note that from the early days of their association, they developed connections with people working in film and the visual arts, and they argue that it's these collaborations that have informed their ideas. However, Cannon points out, first and foremost the show is a theatre piece. "It's imaginative, it's telling a story, hopefully it's magical in places . . . the primary thing is the journey the performers and the audience make".

"Hopefully people will enjoy the show and not even consider the technology behind it," offers Cillian Water, the company's technical adviser. He has been full-time on the project for the last two months, working out the long distance elements of the piece and setting up the broadband link. But isn't that easy? I ask naively. Apparently not. It seems compared to Belgium we're still in the ha'penny place when it comes to high-speed, high quality broadband, (tell us something we didn't know), and Water says he is still having sleepless nights about whether the connection will hold up.

So how is the show put together? I ask. Keegan and Cannon explain that after casting Bouckaert in March, they brought her over from Belgium to work with them. "It was important we cast someone who we were able to collaborate with," Cannon tells me, while Bouckaert, a theatre practitioner herself based in Ghent's Campo Victoria Arts Centre adds, "it was really clear they wanted someone to come and make."

The three then spent four weeks together at Dublin City Council's Lab space, near O'Connell Street, where the script was created as a team through "long improvisations that we record and take text out of". Keegan reiterates that the piece is set "two seconds ago", and that there is no fictional construct, so Cannon and Bouckaert will be "speaking as themselves, in their own clothes".

KEEGAN DESCRIBES the finished piece as a series of "sections" put together in a specific order. While I'm there, the section they are working on has Bouckaert asking Cannon to let her see a member of his audience. Keegan directs: "You ask to see somebody, you like the choice, but then think about the short-comings, that you can't touch them, smell them." He points out that for all the cameras and the live, real-time link "we're sharing the ultimate shortfall . . . sensory things like touch or smell or the sense of someone's presence are missing".

Bouckaert notes that the authentic nature of the piece also means she will be on her own in Ghent at the end of the show. "There's a sadness about it," comments Keegan, "she doesn't have the applause, the connection." He says that after working with her for the last month, the reality of the proposition has hit him, (no doubt as he hopes it will hit the audience) and he wonders out loud if they should put a live-link in the bar after the show. Water laughs nervously. I suspect this request could mean a few more sleepless nights.

The difference between the construct of artifice in drama and the construct of verisimilitude attempted by Brokentalkers is a challenging development for Irish theatre, which pushes at the boundaries of art form. Purists may baulk at it, I say vive le difference, but the little bit of purist in me wonders about the limitations of work that is always in the here and now. Keegan and Cannon acknowledge that they are still drawn to dramatic elements, occasionally using scenes from plays or films to resonate within their shows (they admit there are film scenes in this show), but they assert that traditional texts frustrate them. Keegan comments that they want to explore theatre "without having to wait for someone to finish the script".

He feels that "theatre always seems to be stuck somewhere else" and Cannon adds sardonically, "other art forms have retrospectives, theatre just reproduces old shows". I wonder if they think that traditional theatre is bankrupt. Happily they don't, but Keegan wants to see more of a "willingness to make yourself, without a permission slip from some custodian" (I suspect he means Friel). They both argue that they would like more immediacey in theatre; a reflection, not just of the time, but the moment, being lived in.

Cannon, who occasionally displays the lip-curl of the underdog artist, comments that nobody in Dublin really understands what they are trying to do. I wonder. For such self-styled outsiders they seem to be producing steadily, as well as working regularly in collaboration (their next piece is with dance company Junk Ensemble for the Fringe Festival). Irish theatre may still be somewhat in the thrall of its literary past, but I suspect that Brokentalkers are gradually gathering support for the here and now.

In Real Time by Brokentalkers runs from Wednesday to Saturday at the Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar, as part ofWe Are Here 3.0 , the Dublin Docklands Festival, jointly produced with Project Arts Centre.

This article is part of an occasional series in which writer/performer Michelle Readlooks at how new theatre is being developed and created in Ireland.