Hoke's Bluff

Hoke’s Bluff is a performance by the company ‘Action Hero’(consisting of Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse) and centres around a sports team in high school and the internalised thoughts of the people in the town surrounding this team. Arriving at the performance the hall was transformed into a sports court with seats on both sides of the ‘stage’ organised like bleachers. The atmosphere was initially extremely high as there was blaring pop music and the audience were given flags to wave and popcorn as if at an actual sports game. This could be seen as ‘buying’ the audience from the start, but I thought it was almost making a clever spin on the cliché idea of an American sports game.

This primary energy formed by the flashing lights and loud music was a recurring feeling throughout Hoke’s Bluff, but what struck me about this piece was how suddenly the actors manipulated the audience’s emotions; one scene would require us to wave our flags and ‘make some noise,’ followed by an abrupt stop to the soundtrack and a serious monologue to be presented. On watching the show, I felt that some of the longer, more downbeat monologues were too long for this fast paced piece and sometimes dragged. However, upon reflection I have realised that although the general pace of the performance was interrupted, this could mirror the feelings of teenagers having extreme highs and lows and the seemingly endless list of place names the actors were speaking represented how these were commonplace emotions which could happen anywhere in the world to anyone. Also, in describing the sports game as various sports during the show – basketball, ice hockey - the setting was universalised in the same way.

I found the use of the audience impressive as they broke the fourth wall in a significant way.  The two actors interacted with the audience constantly which enabled the quantity of comedy this piece had. I think it was interesting how they changed the role of the audience throughout from a cheering crowd to members of the sports team; it engaged everyone to a degree which would not have been possible without that set up. By incorporating the audience it would give the feel of an entire sports team where in fact there are only three actors on stage at any time. I imagine it would also bring an exciting element to the actors as they could not guess how the spectators would respond to being shouted at or introduced and this brings an aspect of improvisation to their performance. I have noticed that there are quite a few pieces of theatre at present which use the vehicle of audience participation and it seems to be a popular format in theatre today. However, this is something I have never seen done before in such a way and also working well, so my perception of audience interaction has heightened.

 I found it intriguing that the whole piece centred around a sports game, yet none of the sports game was shown and only described by commentators on stage. This was probably due to only two principal actors being present, but it reminded me of ‘obskene’ used in Greek theatre where none of the violence was shown on the stage. The text used in “Hoke’s Bluff” was colloquial – probably to live up to the stereotypical image of an American high school sports team – and comedic, but minimal; enhanced by music and movement. A particularly poignant motif used was the arm gestures made by the third member of this team who played the referee. The sports terminology she used and these gestures created another dimension to this piece which was definitely needed. The physical motion seemed effortless and generated another point of vision in the horizontal plane that was the sports court. This definitely changed my view of theatre as I realised all the layers that have to be built to produce one performance. On their own they might not be effective, but put together they create something distinctive and memorable.

3.5*