Analyzing "In Sundry Languages" dir. Art Babayants

In Sundry Languages creates a multi media space by using a television feed connected to a camera which separates the actor into two spaces on stage. My analysis of In Sundry Languages theory is based on Nic Kaye’s analysis of performing media space; by putting both the actor and the filmed video image of the actor in the audience’s view, director Art Babayants is splitting them into two spaces: the space on stage and the mediated “virtual” space (Kaye, p. 130). Babayants calls attention to what he wants the audience to see, amplifying the real image. Sometimes the actors mediate, as is the case for one monologue where Ahmed Moneka films himself. In this case, the actor suggested what the audience should see. The camera amplified Moneka’s performance and the differences between the split images became very apparent. In the mediated image, the sweat on the actor’s forehead was enormous—from my spot at the back of the theatre there was no visible exertion, and the mediated image felt more extreme. At other times, in the mediated space it was the actor’s eye that was performing as itself, while the real image was of a man who blinked frequently.

I specify that the actor and the director can only offer suggestions about what the audience should focus on, because with the actor still standing on stage (unlike a single-media film piece) the audience still has the whole actor body and the rest of the stage to look at.

However, the camera on stage is difficult to ignore and invokes the idea of recording and archiving. Whether the camera was actually recording and archives of the show are being kept or not—a possibility still unclear—the camera and the nature of having an audience still hold the potential for an engagement with this telling of history which applies an oral, mediated visual, and unmediated visual component. I will continue to use Moneka’s monologue as an example: by recording himself telling his own story, there is the sense that he is legitimizing his story through the camera. In Sundry Languages engages with the “narrative” truth that Della Pollock credits Trinh Minh-ha with applying to a postcolonial history (Pollock, p.145). And indeed, the mediated, close-up, segmented face of the actor does invite the audience to apply at least two of Pollock’s questions toward a postcolonial oral history: “[w]ho speaks?” and “[t]o whom does her story belong?” Works Cited Kaye, Nick. Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research-Scholarly Acts and Creative Cartographies. 128-130. Palgrave-Macmillan. 2009. PDF. Pollock, Della. Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research- Scholarly Acts and Creative Cartographies. 145-148. Palgrave-Macmillan. 2009. PDF. In Sundry Languages. By the cast: Arfina, Art Babayants, Gloria Gao, Ahmed Moneka, Maria Lourenco, Yury Ruzhyev, Lavinia Salinas, Angela Sun, directed by Art Babayants, 9th July 2017, Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto, ON. Performance.