Friday, 15 January 2016
To fathom the falling: A third take on Ponyboy Curtis
Note added 9 July 2021: following the discovery that, through all the years I was working with him, Chris Goode was consuming images of child abuse, I've returned to a self-evaluation process rethinking the work I did with him. That process began in 2018 and some of what it raised is detailed in this post from December that year, in which I acknowledge that I was complicit in some of the harms he caused, for instance by erasing the work of other women who worked with him, fuelling a cult of genius around him, and consistently asking people who criticised his work (particularly the sexually explicit work) to see it in softer ways. A second post is now in process in which I look in more detail at the ways in which Chris coerced and abused particularly young men who worked with him, using radical queer politics to conceal these harms and police reactions. I hope that any other writing about his work on this blog, including the post below, will be read with that information in mind.
Further note added 27 July 2021: that new post is now written and undergoing an extensive rewriting process as it's read and commented on by people who appear in it (that is, other people who worked with Chris in the seven years when I did). It could be up to a month before it's ready to share publicly, but I'm happy to share it privately in the meantime.
*
This
is the latest in a series of writings on Ponyboy Curtis: the first,
titled The first coming of Ponyboy Curtis, was published on this blog
in May 2015. The second, titled Other Hospitalities: Reflections onChris Goode’s Ensemble Ponyboy Curtis and their First Performance,At the Yard, 12-16 May 2015, was published by Contemporary Theatre
Review in October 2015.
This
was written in January 2016, after attending an invite-only sharing
of a Ponyboy Curtis 'field' exercise, at Camden People's Theatre, 14
December 2015.
This
is supposed to have a quotation from Neil Bartlett's Ready To Catch
Him Should He Fall at the end of section ii, but I lost the copy of
the book in which I'd marked the relevant passage, and despite buying
another and raking through it twice, I haven't been able to remember
which it was. I've used a different quote as the opening sentence.
This
is dedicated to CG and CR, with love.
---
Small
gestures can be great pleasures, they can mean a great deal, when you
get to know somebody else's body and its reactions as well as your
own.
i.
[you]
Even
now, I can't pretend to understand what you're doing.
You
ask what I see and honestly? For twenty or so minutes it's
nothing.
Nothing! Just bodies
in
space,
naked,
pallid
in the half-light,
crouching,
or standing, or walking with inscrutable purpose.
An
abstract of porn, stripped of the fucking.
It's
nothing
until
it becomes everything.
And
it doesn't seem to matter how much I watch, or think, or give my
attention,
how
much I absorb, am absorbed, it's still mysterious, unfathomable.
Maybe
it would help to read more, but the words to explain are as
hieroglyphs,
runes.
I'm a believer in alchemy, transmutational process,
and
that's what I see:
transformation.
Bodies
become pellucid,
irradiated
by gesture
a
touch so soft
so
tender
as
to be almost unbearable.
The
light, the lightness,
are
almost unbearable.
And
I don't understand it.
But
as I look around this room (not without sentiment),
the
tightness of its walls,
it
strikes me again that while I see the crescent,
you
see the whole of the moon.
ii.
[them]
Of
course I wonder how it feels, suddenly to have this intrusion of
people in what is usually your private space. Some of you
I
know; we hug before it starts, while you're still wearing your
clothes; we talk about books,
or
how we are, not really asking the question this time, although there
is a shrewdness behind the eyes,
a
reading beneath and between.
The
lights dim and immediately you strip. I watch you, and I watch the
room,
for
awkwardness. There is a wariness, perceptible as a tension flickering
in the skin, or perhaps just a question:
what
will happen and how?
Familiar
motions at first: crossing, striding; it's like a game of basketball,
minus the ball,
the
focus instead on infinitesimal gesture.
And
then
And
then
I
can't remember how it happens.
Maybe
it's Paul and Gareth – does it matter? – close enough almost to
touch:
body
hairs, electrified, reaching towards the other,
that
close, nothing more.
Maybe
it's two hands clasped, just briefly; or the first of the falls:
a
murmur – falling! – and then there he is, holding you, supporting
you, not keeping you up, but helping you down to the floor.
Maybe
it's one of you wearing another's shoes: the intimacy of that
sharing,
the
hushed, calm statement that however different, we are the same.
The
same in heart and blood and bone, the same in hurt and longing.
For
a moment I wonder about jealousy, and notice how irrelevant that is.
Another
– falling! – or maybe bodies leaning together, the curve of the
spine, the tautness of chest.
Of
course it's funny sometimes, how you'll be watching two people
intently, and then a third will cross that path of vision, and
suddenly all you see is cock and balls.
But
this isn't nakedness so much as openness: a generous reaching, not
just to each other, but to all of us watching,
just
as long as we're ready.
iii.
[him]
His
loneliness slashes through me like a whip through the skin of a
useless old nag.
The
honest answer to how are you is somewhat more withdrawn.
I
watch these bodies and wonder what he misses:
the
touch of teeth (in any sweet kiss)
or
stomachs that squash like pillows.
The
burn from spine to thighs.
I
see fingertips brush skin, limbs begin to meld,
smell
their heat, hear its crackle.
Loneliness
chokes.
iv.
[us]
I
know from the way you pull up from the floor
as
though hauling your body through tar.
I
know from the way you lean on the wall
how
strong the storm in your heart.
I
know
I
feel it too
here
in the pit of my stomach
here
in the weight of my lungs.
I
know when I leave
I
won't want to speak
to
anyone, only to you.
We've
seen nothing but warmth, solicitude, love, but its impact has
unbalanced us.
All
we can do is cling to each other,
buffeted
still, but protected.
Mine
says I know, I felt it, and thank you
for
not asking anything more.
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