The Martlet

The Writing on the Wall is not your ordinary theatre experience. For starters, there’s no theatre. There’s no plot. The audience comes and goes. And the set is more captivating than the actors. This is an odd breed of art. This is Applied Theatre.

The Writing on the Wall is a response to the hate writings found in any washroom across campus. Through this performance, five students are trying to raise awareness of the general bigotry scrawled across stall walls. They have constructed a minimal set, which efficiently portrays bathroom stalls, complete with faux toilets.

The performers, dressed entirely in anonymous white, pass markers through the crowd, encouraging people to come forward to write graffiti on the walls of each stall.

Applied Theatre is usually defined as the use of theatrical means to produce non-theatrical ends. However, there is little here which will be recognized as theatre. The emphasis is on the interaction between the audience and the set, not between characters. There is no plot whatsoever. There are even non-performers planted in the audience to begin discussions. The intended outcome is awareness, not entertainment. Because of this, the piece will not and does not appeal to everyone.

However, while there was some grumbling, the crowd swelled to at least 65 people at the opening performance, even in the rain.

This performance piece succeeds as an interesting social experiment. Those who come forward tend to scrawl words such has “Hatred” or “Racism,” willing to acknowledge the offensive topics, but unwilling to scrawl anything resembling the xenophobic comments which sparked the performance. Not in the open. Not with everyone staring. This, of course, is the point.

Arguably, the piece falls down where it tries to be theatrical. For the most part, acting was rather thin on the ground but, when it did appear, it was vague, mostly silent improv.

Occasionally, random shouts broke the silence. “Why?” was followed by a sage “Because!”

This unnecessary motion and noise distracted from the focus of the piece. Only one character stood out. Carrying a pail and a dry towel, this nameless character fruitlessly tried to scrub off the writing. Was she a janitor or a cynical vision of the performers themselves? As enigmatic symbolism goes, this was remarkable. The rest of the improvisation was not.

The Writing on the Wall is a free performance, which has allowed its creators to take brave risks in presenting common issues of hatred in an uncommon way. The performance lasts for half an hour, but you will probably find that 10 minutes is more than enough time to get a sense of the interesting experiment these students are conducting.

I will be returning to watch the graffiti bloom on those walls and maybe put up my own thoughts for everyone to see.