“Plant-based Dramaturgy: Listen to the rhythm of…” – Bernice Ong

Manuela Infante, theatre director of Estado Vegetal, very matter-of-factly recounts the sequential nature of the production’s rehearsal process in the seminar session on ‘Plant-based Dramaturgy’ (18 Nov 2020). For her, the preparatory process undertaken always begins as “procedural,” or what I would interpret to be a task-based methodology. Crucially, Infante shares that her dramaturgical approach takes after Michael Marder’s philosophy of plant-thinking as “non-cognitive, non-ideational, and non-imagistic” (Marder 2013). Elaborating on the structure of the play, she introduces the concept of “branching” in opposition to the narrative or fragmentary. I find this to be particularly telling as an egalitarian approach that guides several aspects in the preparation and presentation of this production.

While the foundational adherence to a plant-based ideology is useful in conveying the non-anthropocentric possibilities of creative direction, this should not distract from the sharp sensibilities that frame all stage direction and design in Estado Vegetal. With its intentional accommodation of a non-human emphasis, I find that Infante’s dramaturgical approach similarly acknowledges a less hierarchical perspective in all facets of the production. As audience, we are led to become infinitely sensitive to the many elements that hold the work together.

For instance, the use of an audio looper pedal that captures and reiterates the actor’s voice with polyphonic resonance. The device is important as a generative tool in Infante’s dramaturgical process, and remains in plain sight during the performance. Consequently, all words enunciated by the actor become but simply aural elements in the hanging soundscape. At a point, the passing of time is also technically enacted onstage. With little visual fanfare, the overhead lighting profiles sequentially illuminate different conditions of daylight. This is also very much part of the choreography of stage objects – which include the actor – and they all possess a characteristic rootedness (forgive the pun). Together with the transparent movement of potted plants in their appearance and disappearance, all transitions are laid out in the open.

Emotionally, I am not sure where I find myself at the close of the play. The singularity of the onstage actor is clear, but loneliness is not an emotion that sticks. Some parts are particularly poignant with life and death being traced out before us. But just as much, all sentimentality presents as simply elements within a cyclical modularity. The experience of Estado Vegetal (via screen playback) has in some ways felt meditative, and in other ways, been a challenge in so far as our senses have in our everydayness become so accustomed to fast-changing images, movement, and sound. Viewing the production, I begin to notice my own breath and heartbeat, and time would seem to have slowed down. Perhaps, I may have even identified as a composite of the stage at some points, although I am in reality but an audience behind the screen in a disjointed frame of time.

Could this be what Infante had hoped to achieve with a plant-based ideological direction? While still hinged around an identifiable synopsis, the experience relies less on its narrative trajectory but rather allows an audience to be conditioned to different sensibilities and connectedness to the things around them. As Infante shared, her direction is often guided by rhythm, and I find this to be true in my own sense of how space and time are jointly conceived and experienced in this fascinating project.

References

• Marder, Michael. Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life. New York: Columbia, 2013.

Image credits: Bernice Ong.