We’ll All Still Be Here - Movements 8-14 – Not a Review

Good Friday 2023 saw the latest seven movements of Sam Armstrong’s theatre production ‘We’ll All Still Be Here’ being performed in the University College Dublin Dramsoc Theatre, over a five hour period between 12.30 and 5.30pm.

I was lucky enough to be there for the final four movements. I wish I’d seen more.

The following are some of the impressions I took away from being present for Movements 11 to 14. I am mindful that subsequent movements, being in a different place and with different participants, might evoke a completely different tone and a completely different experience. so this is not a review. More of a record.

A couple of extracts from the general parameters of the composition might help give an idea of what happens.

“This is a theatre show. It is not an installation. It is also not a concert, or a 'jam session'. Each performance of this show is a continuation of the overarching musical composition entitled "We'll All Still Be Here". Each performance is in seven movements. Movements cannot be repeated.”

“There is a microphone at the front of the stage. Anyone may approach the microphone at any time. They may use it however they like.”

“At the beginning of each movement, the MUSICIANS walk onto the stage and take up their instruments. Their instruments are already on the stage before they enter. Vocalists just take their place on the stage. The MUSICIANS enter one at a time.”

“At the end of each movement, when the DIRECTOR states into the microphone that the movement is at its end, the MUSICIANS exit the stage one at a time, staggered in the same fashion that they entered.”

There are many other parameters. It is an initially complex concept which ultimately presents as an strikingly intimate and involving theatrical experience.

Some impressions:

Initially, upon entering the theatre space, there is a rather anxious feeling of entering the unknown. After a nice Japanese Bento Box lunch in town and a Spring-like drive out to the Bellfield campus in the Easter sunshine, the interior of the theatre immediately feels compressed and slightly alien. There is a large contingent of musicians on stage, an attentive audience, a colourful diorama, darkness in the tiered seating. The tone of the afternoon has suddenly changed and the change is momentarily hard to process.

But that is a fleeting impression. The music coming from the stage may be improvised but the musicians are all talented and experienced and part of their brief is to, “… usually be in search of a 'blend', with no incessant discrepancies in volume or intensity between instruments.” As a result the music comes across as engaging and rhythmical and sonorous and pleasing. The musicians know each other (which is another part of the brief) and, because of this, there is a strong sense of friendship, fun, mutual respect, and general positive engagement between the players on stage.

The formation of music by this congenial collective quickly creates a strong impression that one is in a safe space. A place where musical challenges may be issued but those challenges will generally be open-faced and friendly, as opposed to being clenched and belligerent.

Because each movement starts with a single musician, builds and then ends with a single musician, the music retains a singularly organic feel. The musicians are, at different times, either enveloped in the music they are contributing or are reaching out with eyes and smiles to their compatriots, seeking avenues of harmony and rhythm to pursue together. Those moments of subtle interaction can seem more emphasised as a movement reaches a close and the stage slowly becomes stripped of people. The remaining few players seem to seek each other out more and subtly prompt each other through the final parts of the movement. Then they also leave.

In the short spaces between movements people congregate in groups outside of the space but communication is not too casual or off-topic. There is a feeling that a work is in progress and that there will be time for other niceties after it is complete.

Then there’s the microphone. It stands at the centre of the stage, with ample space around it for anyone to come from the audience and use it how they see fit.

Upon first arrival, and in that initial bemused stage, the microphone and its stand appear like some sort of an unspoken challenge. Come dance with me, if you dare. But that is just another one of those impressions that quickly dissipates. A young person springs onto the stage and radiates brilliance, then another, then another. There is no unspoken challenge here, just a proffered opportunity.

And the audience, liberally sprinkled with performance students, migrate towards the mic with fearlessness and ease. As the movements progress, the mic is rarely untroubled, which is regularly engaging and funny and thought-provoking and sad. But it is in the dying moments of each movement, as the mic becomes silent, and the music regains the centre ground, that one realises that one could occasionally bear a little more of the music and a little less of the mic.

But that is not the point of the theatrical event; or, at least, I don’t think it is. These elements – musicians, stage, microphone, audience, lighting, sound, imagery – they are all put in place to see what transpires, to create a space where ‘something’ can, and hopefully will, happen. That ‘something’ may have an emphasis on words and stories in one iteration while, in another, it might be a musical fiesta, overseen by a quiet mic and stand.

The performance is no greater or no less for an occasional emphasis on microphone and words. It was what it was. It will be something different every time.

I was not without complicity myself, stealing the mic for a delivery derived from one of my old blog posts ‘Positive Pussy Won’t Tell’. Patricia scored with an inspiring piece that she had considered for a while and which she drafted in the car on the way up.

One of things I really enjoyed about the performance was how the musicians, in the friendliest of ways, did not always cede to those wordsmiths at the mic. This was not, after all, a poetry slam or a writing/speaking event. By coming on stage, the mic-people entered themselves into the contract. Their words might come punctuated with soft backing airs or they might find themselves addressing the audience through a maelstrom of symphonic goodness. You step up and take your chances. Just like the musicians do. Today, you are a musician too.

For me, the most striking synchronicity of word and music came when a student came up and read a section from ‘A Monster Calls’ by Patrick Ness. The second most aligned moment was when two people played rock/paper/scissors at the mic while the composer/percussionist obliged with a rimshot punctuation over on the drumkit.

The performance provided moments and interactions and memories of a level that would satisfy most anyone at a theatrical event. These are memories, one feels, that may abide. 

The girl who told a great story of her Grandad, evoking him in a way one feels he would have greatly enjoyed, who later retreated to a quiet position on the stage before erupting into a powerful soprano voice while doodling listlessly on a splash cymbal. One of many, many roving moments and interactions that made the day so, so, special. The journey so worthwhile.

Ultimately, the overriding impression was of a celebration of community in music and word, of friendship and creativity through friendship.

A red-letter day out.