The viewing of 'How To Art'

Immediately following the opening night of the How To Art fundraiser season I interviewed Matt Butler who accompanied me to the performance. The logic here was to give you a fresh angle on this theatre show, a production I had learnt much about from my interview with Georgie and Katie.

To save you some time, here's a recap:

Matt definitely didn't have any prior knowledge about the show. He was just happy to go out to the Basement theatre and see some local art in action with one of his mates. I made sure to keep it this way until after the interview.

Question 1/10 :
Please tell me a bit about who are you relative to the local theatre scene.

MB: My name is Matt Butler. I'm a writer and performer, mostly involved in the independent film creative space. Though I did theatre in highschool and worked as an usher at the basement theatre at age 18, it is one of my regrets that I was not more involved in the performing art scene. Every now and again when i do see a show I get an itch to do improv again, do a show, some acting, ya know. Writing is often solitary, sitting around a bunch.

2/10 What was your first impression of the show?

MB: Instantly I felt set up for what was ahead, in that the tone is very very silly right off the bat. The scene where the third character first comes in I had an immediate recognition [of what they represented]. But as the show continued to unfold, pulling itself apart and back together... well, let's just say that from the get-go, what you get in the first 5 minutes you're pretty well set up for the rest of what the show is going to be.

3/10 Did the characters remind you of any pop art references?

MB: My understanding of art (except for cinema) is pretty limited, but I think the sort of stereotypical gallery attendant or pretentious art gallery experience came to mind. Though the imagery of bananas wrapped with tape didn't connect one-to-one in my mind, I understood what the thing was because it kinda connected to that absurdity of "this is what art is".

4/10 Tell me about something in the show you had to grapple with or found confronting in some way?

MB: Going into the show knowing nothing I was very surprised by how overtly sexual it was. It seemed to me in the meta of the story that the point of the 'artwork' was partly to be suggestive. But at the same time they're positioned as naive characters, born right at the beginning and sort of like children figuring everything out about what the world is and who they are. It made me think about how I was attributing sexuality to these ambiguous characters even though they seemed to be designed as asexual. Then when you give them genders and watch them writhe around on each other making absurd noises... well it added to the comedy.

5/10 Tell me about something that made you laugh

MB: Hard to say, since every time they opened their mouths everything seemed to get funnier. There was a lot to laugh about for sure. I would say this show is a comedy first and a meditation on thoughtful concepts second.

6/10 Who was your favourite character?

MB: I was really enamored by the gallery attendant. All three of them had a great sense for physical comedy but she had a real sort of presence that was well suited to that particular characters. Every time she came on screen and she was a little bit more pissed off, I was really happy.

7/10 what was your favourite segment or gag?

MB: I can't spoil too much but I will say that the arc of becoming self-aware of being art and figuring out what art is and what it means to be art... and then also what it means to be an artist... well it's really funny that the story ended up where it did. Smoking cigarettes no less.

8/10 Was there a part which you felt did not work so well or that lost some of the flow?

MB: It felt a little long in some sections but apart from that... well it's an nontraditional narrative and it took it's time. Despite long stretches there were sudden scene changes and then everything would come to life again. I felt the hour a bit toward the end but was impressed when the bananas travels to [redacted].

9/10 How do you act as a banana?

MB: I wouldn't be able to come up with that. I the order that you see the shape banana and then attribute every action afterward to bananas? Or are you seeing the action and then like determine that is has a banana sort of vibe? It's as if the creators of this show kind of went along with deciding and creating what banana is and how banana performs. And from there I guess you would use the framework of banana to tell a story... not sure if I made sense there, but at the end of the day, I recon they did a fantastic job of being those characters, whether or not they were inherently banana.

10/10 What are the key messages you took away from tonight's show?

MB: None of us can define art, as much as we might like to. Art defines itself . That was that big one. I don't know what the key message is per say, but it was reminiscent of an adam and eve story, two pieces of a larger narrative. A lot of the ideas came to me during the performance but this might be because of my screen-writers brain where I'm sniffing out the clues to figure out the plot. I felt like an outside observer during the show and this might have had something to do with the absurdity, the set design, and that I was sitting near the back.