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levers to advocate different choices of action for their chosen character, draw-
ing upon both their understanding of how the play had developed thus far
and also upon “metainformation” on their character's thinking at this point,
developed in rehearsal and provided in real time by “interpreters” (alpha and
beta in fig. 7.14) via headphones or earpieces. The interpreters in turn would
then use hand signals, or perhaps radio, to let the actors know their support-
ers' inclinations, and the play would proceed accordingly. Depending on how
the play developed from these branch points, the audience was free to change
identifications with actors, to make further plot decisions, and so on.
I thought this plan was totally mad when I first came across it, but when I
read Littlewood's obituaries I realized that, unlike her, I still wasn't cybernetic
enough (
Guardian
2002, 12, Richard Eyre): “She didn't disrespect writers, but
she had a contempt for 'text' and the notion that what was said and done
on stage could become fixed and inert. She believed in 'the chemistry of the
actual event,' which included encouraging the audience to interrupt the play
and the actors to reply—an active form of alienation that Brecht argued for
but never practised.”
35
Pask's proposal indicated that in 1964 (Pask 1964b, 2)
an initial experimental system (a physical communication system) is being con-
structed and will be used to determine a number of unknown values required
for the efficient realisation of the mechanism. The experimental system will be
used informally in Theatre Workshop and will accommodate an invited audi-
ence of between 50 and 100 people. Next it is proposed to build and install a
large system accommodating an audience of between 550 and 750 people and
to use it for a public presentation. . . . There are many intriguing dramatic prob-
lems that can only be solved when a suitable performance has been developed
and a large system is available to embody it.
I do not know whether the experimental system was ever constructed, but it
is safe to say that Pask's proposal to scale it up found no backers. A shame, but
it is still instructive to reflect on these ideas.
We can see the cybernetic theater as yet another manifestation of Pask's
ontology of open-ended performative engagement and the aesthetic theory
that went with it. The cybernetic theater would be an “aesthetically potent
environment” for both actors and audience in much the same way as Musi-
colour and the later training and teaching machines were. The same vision
will reappear below with respect to art and architecture: it was, in fact, an en-
during theme that ran through all of Pask's projects. Of course, the structural
elements of the play meant that plot-development would not be fully open
