Fractur (reviews)
From Urban Press
Contents |
Hamilton, New Place Theatre, 2010
In this day of reality tv shows where people subject themselves to deprivations, humiliation and even brutality, why not try reality theatre? Fractur is billed as documentary theatre, where an element of improvisation and uncertainty prevail over the expected shape and character interactions of a well made play.
Eight people consent to participate in an experiment conducted by extreme experimental director Vanja Draganic. Based on a Stanford Prison Experiment, the actors are assigned roles as either guards or prisoners and agree to continue in these roles for six days, with the prisoners agreeing not to leave their confinement. Although not in a prison, but rather in a community hall in Glen Murray, and despite the fact that most of the cast already seem to know each other, what unfolds is surprisingly disturbing.
Vanja Draganic is herself a survivor of conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and a product of the "break their will" school of European theatre training. Each of the participants expresses a need to learn to grow or be challenged and perhaps most chillingly, each reflects to their capacity on the value or not of this experience.
The cast is committed and convincing and the lighting, set and costumes add to the local and contemporary feel. Adam Maha's haunting incidental music provides a strong subtext of sadness. This is an inventive and risky show which I found completely engaging. See it before it hits the Wellington Fringe at BATS Theatre.Gail Pittaway, Waikato Times
Wellington, Bats Theatre, 2010
Captital Times
Fractur from Hamilton based company Urban Vineyard is fascinating on several levels. It is based on a notorious psychological experiment where the human guinea pigs were divided into prisoners and guards and it offers rare insight into devised theatre. It was a bruising experience to watch and was clearly more so for the actors, yet there they are reliving the experience and exposing themselves utterly to the audience. They question why they put themselves through this and reflect on how this has changed them as performers.
Draganic herself a former Bosnian-Croat refugee chose her cast carefully for the six day devising process in a local hall. To make all the alpha personalities guards and the quieter souls prisoners would have been pointless, and it is this mix of egos, responses and their underlying relationships (most knew each other), that gives this production such an edge. It is uneven at the scene setting start and some of the actors need to learn how to project. But the explosions of action are riveting and a potent reminder of how absolute power can corrupt absolutely.Lynn Freeman, Capital Times
theatrereview.org.nz
The premise is that theatre director Vanja Draganic, a refugee from Bosnia, studied psychology in Hamburg and became interested in the ‘fracturs’ withing groups as exemplified in the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, which explores the effect of power of ordinary people. On emigrating to NZ she replicated the experiment with a group of keen young Hamilton actors, who spent six days in a community hall in the rural Waikato town of Glen Murray …
“Half the actors were designated as guards and worked in shifts, while the other half were assigned the status of prisoner and agreed not to leave the Glen Murray Memorial Hall for any reason until the six days were up. Their improvisation over this period was recorded and edited and Fractur is the result.”
Compacting those six days into an hour lets us off lightly and asks the actors to make sudden shifts into states that would have gestated more naturally. Mostly they achieve this to excellent dramatic effect.
More extraordinary is the proposition that they are replicating and revealing aspects of themselves they would never have known, let alone exposed, before this fateful weekend. That they are publicly ‘confessing’ in the greater interests of our understanding of ourselves and each other helps to allay any fears that long term damage has been done to their psyches – although the original experiment was very controversial in that regard.
The compacted action is punctuated with direct-address chats from the actors, contextualising how they got involved in the project and what their basic world view is, or was. Thus we come to relate to them as ‘ordinary people’ as we observe their reactions to the extraordinary circumstances. And we empathise enough to ask, “What would I do?”
The designated guards are Keith, the non-thespian, who sees telling people what to do as simply a job and does whatever it takes to make them obey; Ed (Edith), the lesbian, who is not averse to offering privileges for sexual favours; Barry, the warm-hearted nice guy who discovers his propensity for violence; Polly, who doesn’t like conflict and generates it in the very process of resisting it.
The ‘prisoners’ comprise the quiet observer – and highly judgemental – Michelle; John the would-be liberator, whose actions increase the suffering of others; independent Sal, who ‘dobs’ for personal advantage; Gray, the upbeat jokester who has an ulterior motive for getting and staying involved in the project.
Over-laying all this is their trust of Vanya and her process – speaking of which, the programme has a clear plastic overlay which blacks out some text. I recommend you don’t lift it until after you’ve seen the show, then meld your response by taking particular note of the quote from Pablo Picasso.
My only complaint is that we don’t get a strong sense of how time, tiredness and hunger impact their various states of mind; it all stays a bit crisp and clean cut. But for an absorbing hour that challenges us personally while raising all sorts of questions about the role of theatre and what means might justify which ends, Fractur is a compelling contribution to the Fringe.
Dom Post
During 1971 a rather controversially experiment was undertaken by a Psychology Professor in America to explore human behaviour in a prison situation. It became known as the Stamford Experiment with similarities in later years to the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal.
Vanja Dragnic, newly arrived refugee and theatre director from Yugoslavia – who had experienced the dismantling of her country and the “fracturs” this caused in local communities – was fascinated by this experiment and decided to use it as the basis for an improvisational exercise with a group of actors.
Taking 8 of them into a hall in the Waikato she divided them into 4 prisoners and 4 guards and let them experience the rigours of a prison environment. Fractur is a very truncated version – one hour – of those six days and how the collective ethos of each group soon reverts to the individual and how power and authority takes over along with using guile and cunning to survive.
In-between we get statements from the actors as themselves, their ideas and aspirations as actors. As a play it works surprisingly well, the action very physical and the tension and power plays real and believable from the energised cast. However at times the creation of “reality” is at the expense of theatrical dynamics and lines become inaudible as they talk amongst themselves or all at once.
The printed programme also uses an intriguing device to reveal the actors and the quote from Pablo Picasso is rather telling, although it shouldn’t be read till after seeing the production.
Salient
In 1971 at Stanford University, 24 college students took part in what has become one of the most infamous experiments of modern day psychology. The volunteers were divided arbitrarily into ‘prisoners’ and ‘guards’ and began what was supposed to be a two-week experiment in the effect of power upon the human psyche. It was called off after just six days. The effect of power upon the human psyche turned out to be some pretty scary stuff.
Fractur is a theatre piece based on this experiment. It explores these dark territories of the mind and, while not exactly what I would describe as scary, it is certainly fascinating as both subject matter and theatrical exploration. The premise is this: eight theatre friends, under the direction of Bosnian refugee Vanja Draganic, volunteer to take part in a long-form improvisation based on the Stanford Experiment. They are divided into prisoners and guards and agree not to leave the premises for a six-day period. Almost immediately shit gets crazy.
What we see is ‘documentary theatre’ and the play is structured around ‘flashbacks’ to the prison guard experiment, intercut with a series of monologues from the performers in which they justify their participation in the experiment and the show.
Adrian Holroid’s set of taped-out floor space and white door frames is minimal but practical—especially for a shared space in the heavily programmed BATS Fringe season—and Rebecca Rolfe’s costumes are likewise simple but effective, providing all the necessary elements and no more. I was particularly impressed by the original music, composed and performed by Adam Maha, which has the necessary tense and threatening undertones as well as being really beautiful. The programme (design uncredited) is also very cool.
The staging is dynamic, with some of the best use of split focus and group scenes that I have ever seen in BATS; a credit to the individual actors and to the ensemble as a whole... I think this piece definitely has something. It is gutsy, intelligent and intriguing. I would be interested to see this reworked, and props to the Fringe and Urban Vineyard for bringing this ambitious and inventive piece of theatre.
