Recognition [playtext].

Templeton, Fiona (2001) Recognition [playtext]. PAJ : A Journal of Performance and Art, 23 (3). pp. 103-121. ISSN 1537-9477

Abstract

Recognition was a solo performance with a text by me and developed in collaboration with the late Michael Ratomski, who also appears on videotape. It was a dialogue between life and death, on the themes of fiction, acting, mortality, and absence. Michael originally also performed in the work; he died before we finished. But we had decided that he should remain part of the work at whatever stage he might be. Once he was unable to participate physically, he continued to advise, and the piece became a solo by me, interacting with him on videotape shot on stage, at home, and in the hospital. Of course his death altered the work further. Recognition began as a play about the fictions we invent to deal with "reality." Its characters are named after its performers. Crucial to the dialogue is the fact that Michael had AIDS; the word is not used, but the work confronts mortality, and whether anyone can represent the experience of another. The play is set in a court, as characters give witness to different personae, places, and interpretations. The court also represents this culture's binary division of issues. There is no judge here, though some of the audience sit as jury. The video monitor with the footage of Michael functions as a character in the space, "sitting" and being...