Richard Foreman: Comedy Inside Out

Richard Foreman: Comedy Inside Out MARIE-CLAIRE PASQUIER "Remember. This text is - as it were - inside out. That is, its presentation - to in asense - make it clear - inside out. Because when you see the inside outside - the inside is c1ear, right?" Richard Foreman, Rhoda in Potatolandl Why bring Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theatre into an issue of Modern Drama which centers on modem comedy? My immediate response and bold answer will be: because he is a great comic writer. Does that mean that his plays are "comedies," really, that they can be made to fit into the established canon? One could argue that, when they were first produced, neither La Cantatrice chauve nor En Attendant Gadot, to take two "classic" examples. qualified as "comedies." Yet both plays came to be recognized unmistakably as transgressive, innovative forms of modern comedy. This is one problem faced by the innovative artist: either the audience rejects him, failing to see what sense he makes, or it is only too willing to tailor him into an acceptable shape so that he can figure in the honors list of the great artists ofall times. And the critic faces the well-known dilemma of wanting to discover or herald originality and, in doing so, contributing to its becoming accepted,labeled, consumable. Susan Sontag analyzed "Camp" effectively, but by exposing its strategies, she also hastened the end of "Camp" as a collective mode of resistance. One thing is certain: Foreman himself would resist being fitted into any established genre. He has repeatedly admitted that he has used some of the conventions of traditional theatre, including boulevard comedy, but that he distorted them for his own purposes. Which purposes? He has presented these over the years in his own rambling fashion (to include digressions is one of his favorite methods) in the series of "Ontological-Hysteric Manifestos" which have accompanied his theatrical productions.' Basically, they center on the Foreman: Comedy Inside Out 535 altering and intensification of perception - an ambitious, a very earnest focus. The Manifestos draw on Wittgenstein, on phenomenology, on theories about antimatter. These "obsessive theoretical outpours," as Foreman calls them (quoted in Theiitre Ipublic [Fall 1981]), can be very stimulating, illuminating; they also have a tendency to be dogmatic. Fortunately, Foreman admits that he does not mind contradicting these notes in his performed productions: contradiction has become his modus vivendi. Over the years, he has had to establish himself both as an avant-garde artist (rejecting accepted codes, inventing new modes of communication, disrupting habits and conventions), and as a serious, consistent professional. Being consistently disruptive is in itself a contradiction. Foreman has had to fight those spectators and critics who walk out on what they consider leg-pUlling (and there is actually a lot ofliteral, physical "leg-pulling" in Foreman's theatre). He has countered them by emitting the cuttlefish ink of theory which acts as a screen, blinding us to the fact that his creative talent, imagination, invention, are just (or also) FUNNY: yes, plain funny. Before we analyze whether this theatre is mostly parody, or burlesque, or farce, or punk, slapstick or "Iewdicrous" humor, a sequence of gags, puns, grotesque fantasies, or pure clownery, horseplay, we ought to dispense with the screen: leg-pulling. ...3 At first sight, then, Foreman seems to steer clear ofthe realm ofcomedy. It is a generally accepted notion that comedy assumes some kind ofcomplicity with the audience. The famous Charles Addams cartoon in which Mona Lisa alone chuckles while every one else in the audience looks frightened or aghast does not offer a feasible pattern for audience response to comedy.4 If comedy is successful, the whole audience must share the sarne appreciation ofit - whether appreciation takes the form of laughter, cheering, or any other collective reaction. Foreman, however, has the instinct - and the theoretical intent - to attack his audience rather than please it (in this, even though he may deny it, he owes a debt to the Happenings of the sixties). He wants to be "uncongenial," as he has declared: "The artistic experience must be an ordeal to be undergone. The rhythms must be in a certain way difficult and uncongenial."5 Yet this attitude and...