Is the best still yet to come? Gob Squad’s Kitchen, a production presented by the PuSh Performing Arts Festival, seeks to find authenticity in a time less optimistic than that of yesteryear.
While the show’s title refers to Andy Warhol’s film Kitchen, artist Sharon Smith explained that the original concept of the show had nothing to do with Warhol. The Gob Squad, a collective of artists from the UK and Germany, wanted to create a show using film that “ate audiences” by involving them so that there was no longer any audience left by the end. During their research they came across Warhol’s work, and that’s when the show really took shape.
“We started to re-enact films,” said Smith, “but the really obvious ones, like Titanic and Jaws, and then we started looking at art films and one-shot films, and of course we thought of Warhol.” These reenactments did in fact take place in a kitchen, with some of the crew watching on a screen in the living room. “We enjoyed the idea of having a screen in one room and a camera in the other — the uncanniness of that,” she said.
“I think it’s very different now. We’re trapped in something so completely capitalist. [Warhol] was beginning to critique it.”
Sharon Smith
After playing around with various ideas and delving deeper into Warhol’s work, they realized how much of their work is really influenced by him. “We were always very aware of Warhol; we’ve always been fans,” said Smith. “As a collective we don’t agree on anything, but I think I can speak for all of us when I say that. He was saying the right things in the right place at the right time,” she explained, “I’m not sure whether he knew it or not, the way it changed our relationship to art.”
“There was the myth of Kitchen,” said Smith, “we were all aware of it, but not sure if we’d seen it. We decided to never watch it, to just go with memory and imagination.” In the end, that plan didn’t follow through; it turned out that a friend of a friend owned one of the four original copies of Kitchen, and the rare opportunity of a private screening was something they couldn’t pass up.
The show begins, as the audience walks through the kitchen itself, behind a giant screen, and then in front of it and to their seats. Seeing what’s behind the curtain doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the work at all, and actually adds a deeper understanding of it. This walk through also serves a practical purpose for the actors: they are sizing up the audience to see who they might pick to become part of the action.
Sharon Smith and Sean Patten are the first to be displayed on the big screen in black and white, describing objects in the kitchen and whether or not they are suitable for the time period.
There are three projectors: the second one shows the film Screen Test, a version of Warhol’s video portraits of people sitting in front of a camera. The third projector plays Sleep, which is exactly that — a film of someone sleeping. Each of these narratives has compelling twists, and Sleep also has some very intimate audience participation. By the end of the show there were four audience members on stage instead of the four actors, and they became the show.
Since first performing this show in 2007, the Gob Squad has toured extensively, performing it over 160 times. “We did a three week run in New York and met some people who were involved in the Factory,” said Smith, “they were in the epicenter of something.” It was a time when people felt like they could start a revolution or write a manifesto, and they had a great deal of optimism for the future.
“I think it’s very different now,” said Smith. “We’re trapped in something so completely capitalist. [Warhol] was beginning to critique it. Now we’re part of the problem, and it’s hard to imagine a solution or real change.”
Gob Squad’s Kitchen demonstrates that even though life is complicated, sometimes living in the moment is the best thing you can do.
Gob Squad’s Kitchen was presented at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts Jan. 16–18 as part of the PuSh Performing Arts Festival. For more information, visit gobsquad.com.
