Naima Khan gets to grips with the life of Davide Gale, no not that one, the writer.
This week, in addition to the massive Scratch festival programme, Battersea Arts Centre hosts David Gale’s ambitious but brief show Dash Dash Dash. The former writer for Lumiere & Son talked to us about his idea of good theatre, his aversion to Shakespeare and how loud techno gets his juices flowing.
Gale wrote and directed his collection of short plays at a rate of one a month over six months with help from young theatre designers at Wimbledon College of Art and in his words “Battersea Arts Centre was the only venue I can think of that is sufficiently progressive to consider mounting such an eccentric programme”
With 38 years writing experience behind him and spurred on by the time frame, Gale has found that he can create something powerful and provoking in a matter of days. He has proved that high standards can be achieved in conventionally impossible settings and explained “I felt able to take on the absurd time constraints (proposed by me, I should add) of Dash Dash Dash because I suspected that the right combination of terror and long experience should be more fruitful than I had previously assumed. The six short plays that make up Dash Dash Dash: The Omnibus were written in about two and a half days each”.
The plays explore the aspects of life we often fail to notice and so rarely capture. His process for trapping these fleeting moments involves decibels in large numbers, “I have discovered quite recently that listening to loud techno music has a beneficial effect on my powers of visualisation. As the merciless banging proceeds I can sometimes see streams of images and events in my mind and write them down before they fade”
And how does Gale lock down these intriguing images time and time again? Mental exercises apparently: “To trap these elusive sprites you have to look out of the corner of your eye. This is like doing press-ups: the more you try the better you get at it.” The result of these exertions couldn’t be further from episodic or classic theatre - Gale’s take on Shakespeare? “Silly plots, impenetrable language, brings out the worst in actors, why bother?” – instead he has created characters of the maddest order.
Determined to avoid a series of straightforward narratives he explained his ethos “I
think narrative is over-rated in theatre, as is the so-called 'fully rounded psychological character'. My characters are states of mind. They would have difficulty compiling a shopping list or cooking a
meal. I am interested in trying to portray collapsing identities, hysterical volatility, unreflective credulity, amoral antisocial predation, seductive psychopathy and loud bangs.”
No doubt like David’s last piece Peachy Couchy Nights, it’s this that will make Dash Dash Dash all the more unforgettable. “Dash Dash Dash is populated with people whose names change every few minutes without it being particularly important” he elaborated, “there are no conclusions, closures, prescriptions or recommendations. There is a lot of gratuitous bloodshed, demented dancing to banging beats, satisfyingly foul language and startling humour. The shows are documentaries, really.”
Despite their ability to engage those with challenged attention spans, David’s choice to be brief has a weightier reasoning, “Everyday life doesn't have pages and is, furthermore, replete with short sharp shocks the effects of which can last a lifetime. There is no correlation between length and depth. That's just another reliable formula that has perished in the last few years. The monthly Dash shows delivered an intense, enjoyable experience and after 25 minutes you could be in the bar”. Amen to that.
Dash Dash Dash runs at BAC until 15th May.
Photo Credit: Ed Telling
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