call it a day

I made this performance gradually over the course of about 5 years between Los Angeles and London and worked with many different artists and performers during the process (named below). It seems appropriate for a piece that is somehow about trying to connect across differing perspectives and experiences.

In Call It a Day me and 3 other performers sit around a huge table that variously becomes a place of connection, a barrier and a stage on which to perform ourselves. We draw cards and riff over and over within a basic structure using a loose bank of material we developed together.

If you’re lost you can look and you will find me, time after time.

In January 2009, Greg Wohead and his then-partner found themselves in rural Illinois sitting at the kitchen table of an Amish couple, Samuel and Martha Herschberger. Across that table, they attempted to share a conversation across divergent perspectives.

Call it a Day takes that exchange as its source and loops it in a retelling best summed up as a live art Amish ‘Groundhog Day’. Using a mixture of prepared and improvised material as well as meditations on the lyrics of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time and out-of-context scenes from the Amish-themed crime thriller Witness, starring Harrison Ford, four performers visit that vaguely remembered conversation again. And again and again and again.

Through an almost musical progression of repetitions, one afternoon turns into a strange, kaleidoscopic examination of empathy, assumptions, and the possibility or impossibility of ever really understanding one another.

Kate Wyver, Exeunt:

Greg Wohead viscerally describes slicing a person from the top to the bottom. He peels back their flesh and steps inside, explaining the process of untangling bone and sinew as he pushes his body into theirs, popping his head through their neck and seeing through their eyes.

^ on acting.

……….

Circling a maybe-memory of a cold afternoon in January 2009 when Greg and his then partner Hetty went to visit Martha and Samuel, an Amish couple in Arcola County, Call It A Day examines how hard it is to get into someone else’s head, on or off stage.

There are no bonnets; all four actors (Tim Bromage, Mireya Lucio, Amelia Stubberfield and Wohead) are dressed in earthy-coloured cords. They sit round a wooden table and chat. The two couples have entirely different lifestyles, politics and beliefs, so they try small talk. They chat about their lack-of-or-abundance-of-children and ask questions about each other’s lives. It’s mundane stuff, almost numbingly polite. Then they switch seats and do it all again.

Wohead’s memory of their conversation that afternoon repeats. The same story is told multiple times, evolving and growing stranger with each retelling, adding burnt raisins and blackouts. One person bathes in apple butter and another dances on a table. Throughout, their movements are neutral, Sims-like, following the instructions of whoever is in control of the microphone.

It would be easy to stereotype the Amish couple as old-fashioned and out of touch. Instead, Wohead reaches for a kind of understanding. Wohead catches a glint in his neighbour’s eye, the lights dim and he crawls over to listen, trying to catch what they really mean as they chat domesticities. Each time, he slinks back to his chair, unsuccessful.

Trading characters by no more than switching seats – no affectations are taken for any of the four individuals – they deal cards anew from a pile on the table. The cards have handwritten instructions with instructions or prompts, determining what will happen next in the same-or-similar version of events. There are elements of improvisation here, with a ribbing of Wohead (“I’m Gregory Michael Wohead and I’ve been trying and failing to grow a moustache for two weeks”) a repeated thread, and subtle challenges thrown at each other like rounds of Just A Minute.

…

Call It A Day veers between an abundance of and a lack of hope. As an introduction, Wohead speaks in Pennsylvania Dutch, the language Samuel and Martha speak and one that isn’t available on Google Translate. English subtitles are projected behind. It’s an effort to reach across the divide, but fed into Wohead’s ear, he’s just repeating sounds he can’t translate, his words devoid of meaning. Two of Samuel and Martha’s children come downstairs and the rituals of language and belief are passed on again.

In Wohead’s work, making theatre is an attempt to bring people and ideas to life, and acting is an effort to understand them. In a generous, calm performance, Call It A Day demonstrates how hard true understanding – of both oneself and of another – is to achieve.