Even back in the early stages of my performance process, I made the decision that I would have a projection of a ticking clock behind me. This idea stemmed from my original script and being woken up at early hours of the morning, however I feel it more important to my performance now than it ever did before. The notion of time is one that could be spoken about for hours. Though time is a man-made product, we have as much control over it as much as we do not. Though we can choose how much time to spend wondering and worrying, no matter what happens time can not stand still with us, although at times it can feel like this. As well as portraying a sense of imagery to my performance, the clock also represents a bond with the bed and how much time we spend taking advantage of how we use our time.

Works Cited
Ticking Clock Sound. Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHIVeWhCMU8 Accessed: Wednesday 8 May 2013.

                                                         This is my bed.

My performance will largely take place around and in a bed which strongly represents the essence of time which is at the centre of my performance. In the average lifetime, we spend a third of our time in bed. Sleeping, making love, thinking, dreaming, eating, lounging, laughing, crying, in love or alone. Our bed’s are personal to us and we spend a lot of our time with them. We take our bed’s forgranted and we expect them to be there, holding us up, day in, day out.

In a sense I will reference the British artist, Tracey Emin’s and her controversial art work – My Bed. Tracey produced My Bed in 1998 and reconstructed the state of her bed during a dark and suicidal time she went through following the breakdown of a personal relationship. The piece of art work included many ordinary bedroom items such as a pair of slippers, but also was home to bodily secretions on the bed sheets, condoms and underwear stained with blood from her period. In an interview below, Tracey explains her reasons behind the piece.

Though I am approaching the setting of a bed in a different way to Tracey, I feel this reference necessary as my connection to time holds an emotional link to the notion of life and how we spend our time living it.

                                                     My Bed (1998).

Works Cited
Intimate with Tracy Emin – My Bed 2012. Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg5ad44knPA Accessed: Wednesday 8 May 2013.

Image One: My own photograph.

Image Two: Image from Google Images. Google Image Search: Tracey Emin, My Bed. Online: https://www.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi Accessed on: Wednesday 8 May 2013.

At present, my performance has been very family focused and the autobiographical note that is close to my heart sees my family at the forefront of my performance so far. Although I touch upon issues like money, accepting new relationships and friendships, this script is too autobiographical and personal to work as my performance. From doing this however I have found that I can work with the notion of time and explore this through life experiences. I am a firm believer that time is a healer to events such as someones passing and it often feels that time will stand still with you and bring you back up to date again, whenever you are ready. Time will always move on but we have a greater deal of control over this than we may think. Though we only live one life, we lead so many mini lives within this and time is something that we must proportion between these. No matter what happens, it will all get better with time.

To allow me to get the most from my performance and to ensure that I do not forget anything, I have written a first draft of what I hope my script will stem from. It is very detailed but I felt like I needed to do this in order to shape my performance and decide which elements I want to stick with, so here it is!

This is me. I worry too much. About the smallest things a lot of the time. I let them niggle at me. It’s now 4:20am and I’ve been awake since half past two. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t have been woken up by my housemates for the second time this week, but maybe it would have. See, I’m having a difficult time at the moment. My Grandad is very sick and I find myself constantly wondering ‘what if’. ‘What if’ he gets worse? ‘What if’ the worst happens and we lose him while I’m here? I know that you shouldn’t think like that but that’s much easier said than done. Alongside this, I am commencing my last four weeks at University. My biggest achievement to date and I could not be prouder of myself. Some people think that students have it easy, and maybe some of them do, but I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hard done by and I wouldn’t change it for the world but my ‘student’ life isn’t easy. I’ve always worked. I got my first job when I was 16 and from then I’ve known that if I wanted a life, I’d have to work for it. I didn’t, I don’t, have the luxury of Mummy and Daddy’s money. And I don’t want it. Of course there have been moments when I’ve wished they had more money than they do, so that we could have had regular family holidays. Or, been able to eat out on occasions other than birthday’s. But most of all I wish that they could afford to not worry about money, or to save for everything that I’ve ever wanted or more importantly needed. When I came to Uni, I transferred to the store here. I didn’t have time off to settle into the new city, spending weekends with my new found friends. I went straight to work. My new friend’s didn’t really get it, but I felt like it was something that I had to do. I felt lucky to have a job, I know how hard they are to come by, but I also think that’s only too people who’s standards are too high for their own good. I didn’t go out much, and I still don’t now. There are a few reasons for this, work being one of them. But money is always one too. This, is something that my friends never understand: ‘How can you not have any money? You save your loan and you have a job!’ I don’t think they understand. No, I know that they don’t understand. I work on average, four hours a week. This brings me roughly £100 per month. This is what I live on. Some people would find this a struggle, but I don’t. See, you have to learn to compromise. It’s something that I think should be taught at school, because it amazes me how many people do not understand compromise. Much of this money goes on my living needs; food shopping, necessities like deodorant, face care etc. and treating myself to a meal out with my friends around once a week. So, next to my ‘student life’ and ‘work life’, I have my favourite life; ‘family life’. I know everyone says it, but my family are the best.

I’ve always been a Daddy’s girl and he really is one of my best friends. I tell him everything, I always have done. I felt I had too because when I was twelve it was just me and my Dad. My Mum decided that she was leaving my Dad. She didn’t go far, but my brother and I stayed with my Dad. My brother was 16 at the time and had his first girlfriend so it felt like it was just me and Dad. To start with it was hard, but we did it. My Dad was heartbroken and I felt like it was my job to make him happy again. We did everything together, I hated leaving his side. I used to sit through football matches with him, mimicking him so that I was doing it right. I took over some of the things that my Mum used to do. I’d make his packed lunch for him every day, I washed up after dinner and did the little things that I thought would help. He was my Daddy and I hated seeing him hurt. At first, I didn’t understand. I didn’t resent my Mum because on the outside they looked like they were friends. More for the sake of me and my brother I think, but I could see that it was killing my Dad. I stayed with my Mum every Saturday, which I loved but I hated leaving my Dad. When I was 14, my Dad met Lorraine. That was hard. I hated her. I hadn’t even met her but I knew that I hated her. How dare she love my Dad? How dare my Dad love her? I was his number one girl, no one else. Looking back on it now, I can see how immature and horrible I was. I didn’t want my Dad to be alone and Lorraine made him happy. She loved him and he loved her. My Mum told my Dad to promise her that Lorraine would never come between him and me and my brother. My Dad couldn’t believe that she even asked. A few weeks later, my Dad tricked me into meeting Lorraine. He told me that we were going to have a day out together and at the last minute that Lorraine was going to come. They didn’t hold hands, or touch each other once the whole time that we were out. She was lovely and reminded me very much of my Auntie. She was so quiet and timid, nothing like my Mum. I realised that Lorraine wasn’t a threat to me or my Dad.

A little while after this my Mum met Scott. Now, I know I said I hated Lorraine, but I really hated Scott. At age 14, I knew that he was a prick. He was ten or so years younger than my Mum and was clearly only after one thing. She’d fallen head over heels for him and I could never see why. I would still spend every Saturday with her, and it would always be just the two of us but not because she wanted it to be that way, but because he didn’t want to meet me. He told her that he would only come round if me and my brother had gone home by the time he arrived. She took us home earlier each weekend. Ironic huh, seeing what she’d said to my Dad a month or so before. I don’t think she knows but it’s this that started the breakdown of our relationship. I’ve come to accept this but she hasn’t. That’s probably because she doesn’t know. Or maybe she just hasn’t admitted it to herself because Scott is in the past. I don’t know why they broke up but I can assume that it wasn’t my Mum’s doing. When I turned 16 she met Mark. I soon found out that they were old school friends and that Mark played a bigger role in her ‘childhood’ than I realised. I’d never heard of the man before but all of a sudden it was like they were childhood sweethearts. I didn’t have the same feelings towards Mark as I did with Lorraine because my Mum wasn’t as considerate as my Dad was. Where as my Dad was worried about getting too close to Lorraine too quickly, Mum didn’t seem bothered and the day she ‘introduced’ him, he spent the night. I don’t know how long it had been going on for but it was clear that Mum had fallen head over heels again. Mark was nice. I saw a lot of him because from then on, whenever I saw Mum, I saw Mark too. It was as if she couldn’t be apart from him and whenever it did just happen to be the two of us, she would be texting him constantly. Anyone would have thought that she was the 16 year old with her first boyfriend. Mum was oblivious to my feelings but it felt like Mark understood. When Mum would get a bit ‘too much’ in front of me and I would sit and roll my eyes Mark would look at me, embarrassed and apologetic. Though he didn’t encourage Mum to spend time alone with me, he was wary in front of me and always tried to make me feel welcome. He’s still the same today, but unfortunately so is my Mum.

Not many of my ‘friends’ understand this. I get the impression that they think I’m just a spoilt brat. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think that I’m spoilt. Spoilt with love maybe but nothing else. Again, I’m not saying that I am hard done by because I am far from it but being the ‘angel child’ is a hard role to keep up, but I had too. When I was 13, my brother got ill. He got a gambling addiction. Thing’s could have been much, much worse but with everything that was going on at home, I am so grateful that it wasn’t. It took my brother a little while to get over his addiction. Six years exactly. When I was 15, I got another brother. Another thing that I had to accept. This changed everything and so, so quickly. It meant that my place as the angel child was more important than it had ever been. I wasn’t prepared to give it up but I was thankful that at least I didn’t have a sister. Even though I’d grown to like Lorraine, I was still my Dad’s number one girl. My little brother is 5 now and I wouldn’t change him for the world. I learnt quickly that none of this was his fault and I promised myself that I’ve never let him grow up as quickly as I had too. He isn’t going to have a care in the world. Again, not that my childhood was bad, but he won’t ever need to worry because I’ll take care of that for the both of us.

I told you that my Grandad was sick. He was so sick that unfortunately he couldn’t go on any longer. I lost my Grandad. I lost my Grandad tonight. While I was here, wide awake, spouting my worries, I should have known that something was wrong. In retrospect, I think I did know. It’s amazing that it takes something like this to make you realise that all your other worries, everything I’ve talked about, are not worries at all. They’re just the ups and downs of life, that everyone goes through at one point or another but they’re worthless. What happens isn’t important, it’s how you deal with it that does. You never get over it, you just have to get on with it. Because, after all, you never know who is watching you, and your happiness means the world to them. It’s the small things that count.

Works Cited
Image One: Image from Google Images. Google Image Search: ‘Money’. Online: https://www.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi Accessed on: Sunday 5 May 2013.

Image Two: Image from Google Images. Google Image Search: ‘Compromise’. Online: https://www.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi Accessed on: Sunday 5 May 2013.

Image Three: My own photograph. My Dad and I. (2010).

Image Four: Image from Google Images. Google Image Search: ‘Gambling’. Online: https://www.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi Accessed on: Sunday 5 May 2013.

Image Five: My own photograph. My Grandad and I. (2010).

‘Nostalgia comes from the Greek word nostos, meaning “return home”, and algia, meaning pain or longing. Hence, nostalgia literally means “homesickness”‘ (Wilson, 2005, p.21).

I am a very family orientated person and my solo show strongly reflects that. Due to including a strong autobiographical note within my performance, I have found that the notion of nostalgia plays a larger part than I thought it did. Janelle Wilson states: ‘Nostalgia has gotten a bad rap. Those who seem to live in the past often face criticism from others’ (Wilson, 2005, p.7). While my performance will not tell detailed stories, I will describe memories of my past from my very frank and honest perspective. I am hopeful that spectators of my performance will find that they have experienced similar situations to those I discuss, but until my performance have never come across anyone talking about them. Issues such as money, new family relations and growing up quicker than a lot your friends around you. Though I do not want my audience to feel sorry for me, I want them to feel compassion towards me, and an understanding of myself.

A key element to my performance is that I will be playing myself. While I speak of the past, it is important both to my story and to the audience’s understanding that it is me performing. I will not adopt any other character than myself which I hope is as interesting for the audience as it is for myself. ‘Placing oneself – in the past, present, and projecting into the future – is vital to each of us’ (Wilson, 2005, p.7). Some people feel that looking to the past as a negative however by looking at the past we can learn how to tackle similar issues differently if we are to come against them in the future. Though we should not look too far ahead as we never know what may be around the corner, we should not feel frightened of planning. Though spontaneity can be a wonderful thing, you can not live your life by this because unfortunately thats not the way that life works.

Wilson states that: ‘The term “nostalgia” typically conjures up images of a previous time when life was “good”‘ (Wilson, 2005, p.21). This is true for my performance although I touch upon times that I had to keep quiet about. I was never made to keep secrets but privacy is important to my family, though this meant that I had to keep in a lot of the things that I talk about in my piece. As we become older and reflect on the past, we learn to look at it differently and with retrospect learn which pieces are worth focusing on. Wilson suggests and I stand by the notion that: ‘For nostalgia to restore identity, the individual engages in selective memory and actively reconstructs former selves, while reconceptualising and perhaps reevaluating both past and present selves. Thus, memory, the actual recall of the past, and nostalgia, the emotional component of remembering and longing, are instrumental in one’s quest to know who one is’ (Wilson, 2005, p.35). Though through this performance I am not in search of ‘who I am’, I have come to learn a lot about myself and how much my past is responsible for this. My family are largely to blame for this, but I could not be more thankful.

Works Cited
Wilson, Janelle L. (2005). Nostalgia: Sanctuary of Meaning. USA: Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp.