Stickman, Manstick, Men
by Lukas Arndt
A man takes a stick for a walk. A stick takes a man for a walk. At least, that is what the television behind them claims, providing live commentary on the events on stage, in white text against a black background. Sometimes on his foot, sometimes in the crook of his arm: Darragh McLoughlin, an Irish conceptual artist and performer, balances a stick across the stage.
What begins as a playful and loose sequence of short scenes quickly develops a powerful pull. The composition of man and stick, stick and man is minimalist, yet manages effortlessly to guide the audience through a wide variety of visual worlds in just a brief period. Under the guidance of the television, one sees aliens rummaging through the abdomen, beggars and priests, a ship on high seas. Only once the television poses the question does one ask: would the same images have emerged even without the TV prompting us what to see? It is at this point at the latest that one begins to wonder as to whether the television can be trusted. And as if that were not enough, as soon as the man leaves the stage for a moment, leaving it all to the stick for just a brief moment, the television asks the audience: “Do you trust man?”
Do you trust man?
Contemporary circus is undergoing a development that could be called an “object crisis”. This involves a renegotiation of the balance of power between control and freedom, domination and self-determination. Stickman addresses this debate directly and, conversely, repeatedly serves as a reference point for this new approach to objects in the circus.
In object manipulation (juggling), there has long been a clear division between subject and object, between the dominant and the dominated; many pieces now seek to break through this binary division of roles. Rather than demonstrating how objects and other bodies can be mastered with virtuosity and skill, the pieces tend to ask what effect things, objects and other bodies can have on us. Darragh McLoughlin’s working practice is based on object manipulation. And manipulation is a crucial concept in the context of the piece.
A perfect play?
In many ways, Stickman is a perfect play. Technically, dramaturgically, humorously and visually of the highest standard, nothing is left to chance. And that in itself is no problem.
With balancing, McLoughlin makes use of a subcategory of object manipulation that places particular emphasis on the equal, mutually influential relationship between object and body. Franziska Trapp explains: “In contemporary circus we are confronted in this context with the paradox that mastery of the apparatus is the prerequisite for problematising that very mastery.”
In “Stickman”, however, the exploration of this theme takes place primarily on a thematic and superficial level. Instead of openness, chaos and a slower pace that allows for independent thoughts to emerge, the piece relies on a high degree of control, planning and repeated, deliberate manipulation. Equality, including in relation to the audience, is here merely superficial. And so, the entertaining 45 minutes are memorable as a technically perfect circus piece, but not because of its subversive potential. For manipulation is a key feature in Stickman, which robs the piece, at a crucial moment, of the revolutionary power it could certainly possess.
The circus piece as a carrier bag
Furthermore, on closer inspection, the piece not only uses a human language rather than a post-humanist one; it is also an unambiguously masculine language. A language that refuses to refrain from drastic, violent moments.
And so, the question arises: where is the tenderness? In her essay ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’, Ursula K. Le Guin argues that stories should no longer be viewed as linear, often combative, heroic tales. Instead she suggests viewing them as open carrier bags that connect the most diverse things with one another.
She argues: it was not the killing spear, but the bag that was the first human invention. Although Le Guin takes the novel as her starting point in her text, why not compare circus acts with literature? Stickman works at such a high level narratively and dramaturgically that it can withstand this comparison.
It is telling that the most surprising, exciting and moving moment is also the only coincidence of the evening and not part of the meticulously planned production: a heart-shaped balloon left from the Cologne Carnival begins floating across the stage at the most (in)appropriate moment imaginable. Slowly and with astonishing autonomy, the balloon moves towards the man and his stick, and even the television is left speechless.
There is the chaos, there is the tenderness.
“Do we trust man?”, the television asks us, and it is not only for this reason that it stays with you, alongside the heart-shaped balloon, as the most interesting character in the play. Perhaps we should trust not only the man, but also spontaneity, openness and receptiveness.
At this point, the laptop takes the lead to pose one final question and answer it itself: must the circus spend more time thinking about talking machines in future?
We probably can’t avoid it.