19.

In this dream there is a building to which you have free, unticketed access, day and night. At the heart of this building is a room, where you can sit, or stand, or lie, for as long as you want, in the company of others, or sometimes, it might so happen, on your own. This room also contains one or more actors. That’s the word we use to describe them. They’re not there to perform. They’re there simply to act, to act on behalf of the others who are gathered there, to make actions, to commit themselves to various kinds of activity. You might pop in for ten minutes on your lunchbreak and watch two men in blindfolds slowdancing. You might pop in for an hour after work instead of going to the gym, and watch five people build a model of Mumbai out of donated car parts. On the evening after your cat dies you might stay up all night with a woman you’ve never met before listening as she tells you a seemingly endless story about an old man who steals a motorbike and rides across the desert. You might spend twenty-one minutes thirty seconds watching a stranger stand naked in the light, and stop worrying about your unpayable gas bill.

3.
In this dream, it’s 2010 and I’m not even a dog. I’m just a theatre maker. We are in a theatre. In fact we’re in this theatre, and it’s now, and we’re actually here, and it’s not even a dream. What does it smell like? Nothing in particular. // We’ve been in exile. For a while, theatre wasn’t very welcome here. Having found itself, perhaps somewhat unwittingly, in a coalition with new media arts, it had allowed itself to appear to some people to stand for nothing in particular. It was a sector described as lacking “depth and cultural urgency”, and we were duly outraged. Some of us said we never wanted to come here in the first place, and some of us felt that the relevant powers wouldn’t be able to pick out depth and cultural urgency in a line-up of six items or less. But didn’t it, come on, didn’t it slightly feel like a punishment? And didn’t we go off that night and see a performance somewhere and secretly think, hm, that was actually kind of lacking in depth and cultural urgency? Didn’t we worry a bit about our own work? Didn’t it feel just a little bit like a punishment? Wasn’t there a moment of feeling caught out?