In furtherance of his status as one of the nicest humans you’ll meet, the amazing Tim Crouch has made the video archive of his performance of I, Malvolio at Brighton Festival in 2015 available without a password. You can watch it here.
Unlike most of my blogs which focus on documenting what happened, what I thought about it, etc, this will be a little different. I’ve just closed a second run of my own production of Tim’s brilliant play a few weeks ago, and have been immersed intellectually in this script for over a year. Despite that, I’ve never actually seen Tim perform the show. I’ve read about it, talked to him about it, heard him lecture on it, read reviews of it, you name it. I’ve read it countless times, torn it apart, interpreted, discussed, scenario-ized, and ultimately put it on its feet in two different venues and cities.
Watching Tim’s performance of the play was a bit surreal. First and foremost (and i knew this from seeing him perform other of his work), his performance is simultaneously highly theatrical, and completely anti-performative. He speaks and moves with complete simplicity, allowing the nature of the audience-performer relationship, the absurdity of watching people do things, lead the comedy. More importantly, though, it was fascinating to me to hear the moments of inflection, the break up of thoughts and moments in his performance versus ours. The simultaneous similarity and difference of the two was uncanny. I’ve never before experienced something like that - where two groups had clearly done the work in isolation and then come up with such similar and yet wholly different understandings of the text. This is truly a testament to Tim’s writing, the clarity with which he puts the thoughts on the page for us to pick up. Even moments of improvisation (which there are MANY) resulted in similar interactions, at times almost verbatim to things Justin said in the moment in response to an audience member’s reaction.
It is as if the character of Malvolio is so clearly described through the words, rhythm, and actions of the play, that if you do your work, there is no other choice for how to understand the intentions of the moment.
I strongly recommend watching this while it is available, especially for those who saw my production in either Toronto or Winnipeg. This production was performed for teens on a school trip.
And I emerge, once again (and perhaps even more than ever before) grateful to Tim for letting Justin and I play with his words.