In my performance I am using food itself to demonstrate our relationship with food; as it is not only those with diagnosed eating disorders who have issues with food. Many of us complain that we eat too much junk food, or that we have to finish what is on our plate even if we’re full, that we snack when we’re bored, that we give ourselves too big a portion and so on. It is interesting how rehearsing my performance has caused me to feel differently about what I eat and drink. During the piece I eat a couple of crackers, one and a half mini muffins, a few quavers and less than half a glass of coke. There are a fair few people who I think if they were to eat a cracker or two, a packet of crisps, a muffin and a whole glass of coke spread out over the day they wouldn’t think anything of it. But by eating all of this greedily out of a bin made me feel repulsive, even though I was eating and drinking less of it than some people would. There are people who drink coke as if it is water and eat fattening snack foods as if they are fruit and there I am feeling awful and also really full as if I have eaten a huge meal.
To help me perform with food I researched food in performance and came across an article from The Guardian’s website titled Have You Got the Guts for an Edible Performance. The article opens with the discussion of dining at the theatre then progresses in to cooking on stage and even audience participation with food. Todd explains, “But theatre audiences aren’t just being encouraged to see and smell food. We’re being invited to taste it, too. On 26-27 February, as part of Ideas Tap’s Coming Up festival, Kindle Theatre will be staging a “theatrical banquet” with a macabre twist: the audience are cast as the last remaining subjects in an apocalyptic kingdom, invited by the waning queen to dine on the “leftovers of disaster” (2011, p.1)
The use of food in performance can involve the audience, allowing them to join with the actors, it can add an interesting and interactive element to the piece, and help set the scene for performance and ultimately make the performance more real for the audience. Additionally, Todd explains that food can also be used in performance to create an intimate connection with the audience. “Some edible performances are using eating to encourage intimacy or provoke interaction. Amy Godfrey’s The Biscuit Chronicles and Caroline Smith’s Eating Secret, for instance, have supplied audiences with biscuits and cake while sensitively exploring the issues of disordered eating” (2011, p.1).
Through The Guardian’s website I was able to find Amy Godfrey’s blog which has further information about herself and her work. Amy Godfrey is not only a performer but also a writer and life model. Godfrey has also previously worked with the NHS which may explain some of the influences in her performance of The Biscuit Chronicles which “is a bright new show that tackles the sticky-fingered question of the obesity epidemic and dieting with a spoonful of scepticism and a healthy helping of laughter. Amy Godfrey and her host of comic characters guide us through the highs and lows of life in the fat lane, drawing on personal experience and posing some provocative questions” (2010, p.1). Godfrey herself struggles with her weight, “Amy Godfrey has always been a little bit fat. Not fat enough to get her stomach stapled on the NHS but fat enough to get directed to the maternity section in M&S. She’s been distraught, frustrated and addicted to chocolate Hob Nobs so now she’s getting hysterical…and creative” (2010, p.1).
As for Caroline Smith’s performance Eating Secret, Groskop sets the scene as follows,” Dressed in a pink negligee, Mertle beckons me into her candle-lit boudoir. She is wearing her trademark rollers and as she bats her gigantic false eyelashes at me, the alter ego of lecturer Caroline Smith invites me to tell her a secret” (2009, p.18).
Smith dresses as a 1950’s housewife called Mertle, takes secretes from the audience one to one then puts them in to a monologue using the same words as the confessor. “It sounds obvious, but we can’t escape food. And our relationship with it is so complicated. Because it’s not really about food at all, it’s about how to live. Everyone has a secret about it.” (Smith cited in Groskop, 2009, p.18). Which is exactly what I am trying to demonstrate within my performance our complex relationship with food particularly how it can be bad for our health both mentally and physically. And how that relationship can develop in to an eating disorder as we lose control or try to gain too much control over how much, what and when we eat. However, “Smith says the project is not about eating disorders” and “the food secrets aren’t all sad, Smith says “Some of them are quite funny” (2009, p.18).
One of the LPAC Technicians did discuss the possibility of me including the opportunity for the audience to eat food as well. He reflected back to a performance he saw about starvation. The audience walked in to a room and were offered a free buffet, once they had time to get some food and begin eating they were then shown pictures of horrific starvation, including starved children. He said everyone felt so guilty they couldn’t eat. He discussed the possibility of me using a similar tactic in my performance, which originally I was interested in but then I realised I didn’t want people to feel guilty, that was not the purpose of my performance. Although I want the audience to think about their relationship with food, I did not want them to feel ashamed of it. I also wanted them to hear all of these stories from sufferers to understand what they have actually been through, so they had a real understanding of eating disorders rather than a generalisation from media sources. I also used a lot of mirrors as self-image is another key problem when it comes to eating disorders, so many people are not confident in their bodies with little help from the media with size zero models and airbrushed celebrities. Furthermore, I tried to create a sense of chaos and willingness to gain control that falls apart within my performance as many of the stories I read began with the individual trying to control something in a life they found top chaotic.
However, I think it would have been nice to have involved the audience more directly perhaps in a similar way to Smith by being able to share some of their own experiences with food and self- image.
Works Cited
Godfrey, Amy (2010) The Biscuit Chronicles, Online: http://amygodfrey.com/the-biscuit-chronicles/ (accessed: 08 May 2013).
Groskop, Viv (2009) ‘Deliciously Dark,’ The Guardian, 19 June: 18.
Todd, Bella (2011) Have You Got the Guts for a Edible Performance?, Online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2011/jan/31/edible-performance-theatre (accessed: 02 May 2013).