By Mary Paterson
"The word, to me, is an active thing.”
“Language has a rhythm."
- Wendy Houstoun, Post-Show Discussion, after Fifty Acts at The Place, London, 15/11/11
Keeping time. Telling time. Making time. Falling out of time.
At some point, at some time, she will disappear.
She tells us so, in big, white, capital letters scrolling up the screen, like the epic intro to an adventure film.
She tells us so, sitting in the corner of the stage, sad and steroetyped like an old person, next to black and white dancing showgirls.
Old times, other people’s times, times made poignant with age.
At some point, at some time, she will disappear.
But all that comes later.
In the beginning, time stops.
Time is dead. It is the end of time.
But all that comes first.
For now there is spinning, there is movement, there are customer surveys.
How did you find your experience of dying? There are jokes.
There is George Osborne, cutting things.
There is a chorus of yesses. There is a chase. There is music. There is poetry.
There is rhythm. There is rhyme, metre, and dance.
There is Act One, followed by Act Two, all the way up to Fifty.
In the middle there is an interval. She re-does things.
She lets the movements of the first Twenty-Nine acts ripple over her body as if they haven’t found their meaning yet.
She pulls the tape out of a cassette to the accompaniment of two women, talking of anticipation.
She reads the cassette tape with her fingers to divine her future.
I see a pension. Oh no, I don’t.
There are jokes.
She smashes some old vinyl records in time to the beat.
Keeping time.
Losing time.
She re-plays the sound of a woman’s voice.
Ok. Cheers, then. Lots of Love.
The woman’s voice fades out of time.
Lots of Love.
The woman’s voice fades out of time and out of ear shot.
Keeping time. Telling time. Making time. Falling out of time.
At some point, at some time, she will disappear.
Everyone is telling her so.
Everything is telling her so.
Drumroll please.
The invisible person behind the cloak can be heard sobbing.
Would you describe the latter part of your life as: satisfactory; unsatisfactory; neither satisfactory or unsatisfactory?
At the beginning, time stops.
Time is dead. It is the end of time.
At the end there is no ending. She is going to disappear.
At some point, at some time.
At the end, she scratches for an ending.
Perhaps she is clutching on to time.
Inbetween, there is falling, there is equipment, there are risk assessments.
There is the language of the bureaucrat, of passive success and implicit blame.
Do you need training?
There is a chase. There is music. There is poetry.
There is rhythm. There is rhyme, metre, and dance.
Perhaps she will go with a bang.
Perhaps she will go with a rhyme.
Perhaps she will go out with the lights.
Perhaps she will go with a bow.
Perhaps she will fade away.
She bows.
When she bows, we clap.
(We clap loud enough to bring her back.)
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