WHAT MAKES LIVE PERFORMANCES SO EXCITING

Very simply it’s that they can go wrong or by going wrong actually go right.

It was at Swan Theatre at Stratford in 1992 when we saw Tamburlaine. Antony Sher played the title role. The battle between Tamburlaine and the Turks which ends Act 3 had the Turks and Scythians on stilts conducting highly stylised combat and, eventually, a heavily perspiring Sher leaping, holding a rope from the balcony where we were sitting felled the heavily armoured Bajazet signifying Turkish defeat.

What is supposed to happen next is Bajazet put into a cage is led around by Tamburlaine until eventually – good, gory stuff, he dashes his brains out against the bars.

The cage arose on to the stage. We realised something was amiss as a crowd  surrounded it, one of whom was in jeans.

Sher went front of the stage proclaiming:

“Yet am I all-powerful lord and king
But cannot open still this bloody cage?”

Bajazet said:
“Well I’m off to the pub then”

And as the guy in jeans with a hammer opened the cage Sher , back into part (almost) said:
“OK – no more Mr Nice Guy”.

This all happened 20 years ago. It was a moment of live delight and history and totally memorable.
Live performance is not about perfection – it’s about connection, chemistry and drama.

Richard Burton drunk (and looking remarkably like George Best) played the part of Faustus, another Marlowe play,  in 1965 as though it were a long lost acquaintance he barely recognised but felt he ought to know, yet got closer to the real meaning of the play than anyone has ever done. He knew what the feeling was, what the rhythm of the idea was and he managed to express the lust for the benefits and the regret for the consequences of selling his soul that torture Faustus.

He was word imperfect and exquisitely perfect in meaning and feeling.

Performing live is like juggling whilst a tiny bit tipsy – they are holding their breath and the applause will be wonderful but the consequences of losing that umbilical cord with the audience is the constant risk.
What makes it doubly frightening is you don’t know how it will play until you do it and the bits the audience find funniest may be those you’d considered editing.

It’s about danger and timing.

Do you feel lucky punk?

Well do you?