Instructions for Audience Transformation

I came across the following in a book I've just started and thought it worth sharing. It's an extract from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's manifesto for performance The Variety Theatre, written in 1913 and its far too long for Twitter.

"Introduce surprise and the need to move among the spectators of the orchestra, boxes and balcony. Some random suggestions: spread a powerful glue on some of the seats, so that the male or female spectator will stay glued down and make everyone laugh (the damaged frock coat or toilette will naturally be paid for at the door) - sell the same ticket to ten people: traffic jam, bickering, and wrangling. - offer free tickets to gentlemen or ladies who are notosiously unbalanced, irritable, or eccentric and likely to provoke uproars with obscene gestures, pinching women, or other freakishness. Sprinkle the seats with dust to make people itch and sneeze, etc."

The whole thing is worth a read, but I'm also quite fond of the following advice:

"Systematically prostitute all of classic art on the stage, performing for example all the Greek, French and Italian tragedies condensed and comically mixed up, in a single evening - put life into the works of Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, Bellini, Chopin by inserting Neopolitan songs - put Duse, Sarah Bernhardt, Zacconi, Mayol, and Fregoni side by side on the stage - play a Beethoven symphony backward, beginning with the last note - boil all of Shakespeare down to a single act - do the same with all the most venerated actors - have actors recite Hernani tied in sacks up to their necks - soap the floorboards to cause amusing tumbles at the most tragic of moments."

Though there's a tone somewhere between angry zest and jest, its interesting to note quite how much of this second extract has come to pass. I'm reminded of the Reduced Shakespeare Company and of Beckett, of Rupert Goold and Katie Mitchell, of Ostermeier and Purcarete (of whom I've only read), of the Wooster Group's annihilation of La Didone and of Forced Entertainment's Bloody Mess. In fact, doesn't Marinetti sound just like Tim Etchells?