A slightly demented cheerleader takes the stage. Heavy-metal
wannabes, in a fit of inspiration, prop up lights, speakers and fog
machines. And a woman, dressed in a gorilla suit, pantomimes as if
she’s part of a children’s performance.
The scene is from the British art collective Forced
Entertainment’s production “Bloody Mess.” The
company will launch the U.S. premiere of the show for UCLA
Live’s Fourth International Theater Festival at the Freud
Playhouse from Dec. 1-4.
“On the one hand, it’s a mess. But on the other
hand, there’s a lot of fun and energy and you get taken into
different kinds of places,” said Tim Etchells, the director
of Forced Entertainment.
“Bloody Mess” is loaded with absurdity, self-mockery
and farce. According to Etchells, in the first scene characters
proclaim how they want to be viewed by the audience.
“One character says she wants to affect the spectators
with so much poignancy that they will return home in tears,”
Etchells said. “Meanwhile, a slapstick clown tells the story
of the world’s beginning.”
But this is clearly no airy comedy. The mood is as strikingly
dark as it is absurd. Throughout “Bloody Mess,”
tensions rise between the characters, who each hold a different
vision for the play’s direction.
But in addition to the characters’ on-stage discomfort
with having to reconcile their differences, the show’s brash
content will most likely place the audience in uncomfortable
positions.
“This is, at heart, a play about the negotiations we make
as humans. Many of these negotiations are uncomfortable, awkward or
difficult,” Etchells said. “The audience might think,
“˜What was I laughing at? That’s horrible!’ Then
you’re laughing two seconds later.”
Established in Sheffield, England, in 1984, Forced Entertainment
is undoubtedly tied to the British history of experimental theater.
The Guardian, a widely read British newspaper, even proclaimed the
company to be Britain’s “most brilliant”
experimental theater group.
But “Bloody Mess” in particular is not distinctly
British. Many of the play’s themes, such as city life,
identity and sexual politics, media, and language are universal
enough in scope to strike a chord with Los Angeles audiences.
“The play is a mental map for how people get along in
cities,” Etchells said.
Works like “Bloody Mess” reflect Forced
Entertainment’s ingenuity in coiall typical theaterning its
own brand of theater, a “group creation.”
For months, Forced Entertainment’s six core members, as
well as some new additions to the company, crafted “Bloody
Mess.” All material is based upon their improvisations.
Many of these artists have, throughout the years, offered a wide
range of artistic works, such as gallery installations, documentary
films, digital media, dance and theater. But they consciously stray
away from the classical British theater scene.
“That (kind of theater) is not our culture and not talking
about the world we’re living in,” Etchells said.
The artists instead look to modern influences such as cinema,
music culture and comic books. The collective places old greats
such as Shakespeare or Webster on the shelf. The end result,
“Bloody Mess,” may be Forced Entertainment’s most
powerful work to date.
Despite their talent, Forced Entertainment has always stood as
outsiders in the mainstream British theater scene. Some critics
claim their plays, including “Bloody Mess,” are just
that ““ too messy.
They have never performed at the National Theater in London,
which often presents classical plays as well as contemporary works.
Nor have they been invited to Bite, an experimental theater program
based in the Barbican Arts Centre. But Forced Entertainment takes
this in stride.
While “Bloody Mess” is not classical, its impact
comes from what it has chosen not to be.
“The best decision we ever made was that we weren’t
interested in being a successful theater company,” Etchells
said. “It took us 10 years to realize that fully ““ that
the ladder one was meant or expected to climb in the UK was of no
interest to us.”