The focus is on the audience experience,” Wilson continues. “We (Wilson and co-performer Matt Prest) create a really immersive audience experience, an atmosphere; the show is happening in the moment, now, rather than in another place or time.” ‘To whelp’ is an old fashioned verb meaning for a bitch to bear a litter. “The space is a big wooden box with one row of seating, all facing in,” explains the performer. “When we go round the space, every sound is amplified – you’ll be inside the performance. Yes, you will be smelling us. We’re Interested in creating things that really happen so there’s a visceral response. At one point I’m blindfolded and Matt has a shovel and is whacking it around my feet. You get a physical reaction from the audience – they jump out of their seats. At the same time we create a sort of safety, we don’t engage with the audience directly, we don’t make eye contact because we don’t want to confront anyone. People are completely free to be voyeurs, to watch us and to watch each other as well. It creates a heightened sense for the viewer.”
The two performers instruct each other to test their limits of physical and mental endurance. “It’s an incredible physical challenge,” notes Wilson. “A lot of endurance is mental; it’s a constant battle, pushing body and mind to keep going, how to negotiate danger and risk in the performance. No matter how controlled it is, things can go wrong.” Wilson insists Whelping Box concerns itself with more than a display of testosterone. “The show was made with four theatre makers; two are women. We’ve been working equally. Whelping Box involves two men doing this to each other, so it will be read as being about masculinity, but we don’t focus on the masculine as such. A lot of women have seen the show and gotten a lot out of the piece, identified with it in many ways. We’re not speaking specifically to a male audience. We’re more interested in what the audience experiences rather than pushing any line.”
Is there anything in the performers’ own psychologies they need to explore or is Whelping Box simply to do with making a different kind of theatre? “A bit of both,” Wilson answers. “And our different theatrical practices. Creating an environment in terms of exploring theatrical form and playing with that, expanding it, exploring certain images and how we could ‘deshackle’ ourselves. We don’t act as characters – we are ourselves. We don’t ask audiences to suspend disbelief.”
Are there resonances with elements of sadomasochism or bondage and domination practices? “We didn’t consciously look at these things, it’s a bit obvious,” Wilson answers. “We do more than that. Something we pass through transforms into other things, transforms into other areas. There’s the suggestion that we actually come to the point where we control and affect the world. It’s godlike almost. There’s a scene called ‘The Storm’ about how much chaos we can create with just two people in a space. We were interested in Norse mythology but there’s nothing more to be said about that. This is about self -myth, asking the question ‘how do we become powerful?’”
Does Wilson have a high tolerance of pain? “It’s more of a waking up and everything hurts kind of thing. In half an hour I’ll ease into it by stretching. We’re in our mid-forties so the big challenge for me is just the body: you think something’s going to give but you don’t know what it will be. I’ll have a strain in my back or knee, it moves over to the other knee…this is kind of boring! What sparked off Whelping Box? “This came together through an organic process,” answers Wilson. “Four of us originally collaborated with no director, no leader, though we always knew that only two performers would be involved. The starting point was a newspaper article, a piece of journalistic crime writing with evidence, that we didn’t want to share with the audience. The article had such striking images and narrative elements; they were beyond belief. Real life stories – you couldn’t possibly dream them up.” Much of the work was developed while the team was staying at at a farmhouse in Albury. “We were using a shed for rehearsal. In the show there are found objects: shovels sticks feathers, bits of rope – all stuff that was lying around at the time so the piece has that aesthetic.”
Where are Wilson’s moments of bliss in the performance? “Bliss shifts from moment to moment. The big relief is at the end when it finishes and I come out of it unscathed. What I love is how each moment unravels, unfolds, so the audience don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
