We enter a room that's plain and simple. We automatically sit opposite the mirrors, looking at the performer in the eyes. She's just sitting there, with her stare fixed on a distant spot. The way she sits, at first, makes one think she is lost. Not lost in a physical, directionless, sense; she's lost in her thoughts. What is she thinking?- that's up to us to guess. Her pose also makes her look vulnerable, her passiveness makes her somewhat sacred and unapproachable.
The usher cuts the tension by snipping the actress' dress. Only a small triangle of cloth is cut off, the second usher does the same and leaves the scissors to us. Instead of a monologue or a dance the room falls silent again, as the echo of the snip (a reminder of our game) fades away. We all stare at the small triangles of cloth, at the scissors and at the missing sections of dress. We also stare at each other, through the mirror. We can see one another and try to stare someone into moving, psychically making them take the first step. We also see the actress, her dress and the scissors again. What are we meant to do? we ask ourselves. It is a dumb question, we are all secretly curious... At last someone gets up to pick the scissors. We can see his expression, his intention on his face, through the mirror. This way we are distant from him, yet somehow intrusive. He hesitantly nips the sleeve.
Slowly we all undress her and her skin becomes more exposed, like the landscape of a painting that bit-by-bit is filled. At first the borders, hen towards the center. The artist is still sitting there and her gaze hasn't shifted. It doesn't shift at all despite our encroachment: though she seems oblivious of us we are trodding below her gaze and stealing augmenting glimpses of her skin.
Is there not something wrong, here? Are we not violating her being. We are shedding off her veil of protection without asking ourselves why. We just are, because we are curious, yet isn't this macabre? Not yet.
Soon the ushers lose their patience. While we watch, they stop the"un"-curious snipping and begin to tear and rip and throw the cloth away. They start to bully her. Why isn't she doing anything? This is no play! They push her and prod her, the dress' straps fall leaving her breasts exposed. We can see it all and hear it: from in-front and behind, through mirrors and echoes. They mock her, wet her, spit on her; they hit her and make her watch her hair fall before her eyes. All the time we watch, and all the time she recomposes herself. She brings herself to the same position, sometimes after a loud fall, without opening her mouth. We are still unnoticed by her gaze, she hasn't started to plea yet- though her eyes, for a second, looked flooded in anguish. Why must she ask for help?
One spectator covers the girl up, another cleans her face and dries her back, a third tries to stop the usher-turned-violent. Meanwhile the rest of the audience just stares. Some aren't even looking, others just sit there in silence.
The performance highlights what is commonly known as bystander syndrome: when someone refuses to help someone in need of aid in belief that somebody else more qualified will do it. The audience here too remains passive, possibly staring at others in hope, or accusation, or watches down in shame. I found my breath piercing the air with each blow. This is no puzzle of a Constable landscape, it has become a scream by Munch. Like the painting though, the victim is muted. She screams only in our head, are they loud enough to pierce our tranced and passive reality? She is tortured, dragged naked, in front of us and our cowardice is exposed much more than the body we see.
The audience only shouts once: when the usher is chipping off the paint of a ladder with a buckle. However the room is silent when her gaze snaps out of its lock for the only time. We nonchalantly forget to notice her sole plea for help as the usher cracks the belt beyond her eyes- where she can no longer see, nor can we.
We forgot to ask ourselves at what point this was just a performance, or how true it is to reality.
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