The audience take their seats at around 7pm. Happily talking and eating through most of the show, they barely notice anything is going on. If they do, it's with a mixture of amusement, confusion and embarrassment. Some two hours later they seem arbitrarily to leave, and the performance comes to an abrupt halt.
It might not sound like a recipe for success – but this is the most important piece of theatre happening anywhere in the country. Some 40 years ago, director Augusto Boal began experimenting with invisible theatre – rehearsing and performing semi-improvised pieces in public spaces to the unsuspecting public. Meanwhile in the bohemian lofts of New York City, a new generation of visionaries were embedding their art ever further into the everyday. Lurking in the corner of a diner, Vito Acconci sat quietly rubbing his arm to produce a sore, while Allan Kaprow created instructions for almost unseen activities to be carried out on the streets of the city. In this way, theatre broke free of the auditorium, art tore itself from the gallery and the museum. Even audiences were transformed, no longer limited to those who knew they were an audience.
While now these artists are internationally recognised and written about, a new generation has begun to (dis)appear in their place, spinning these ideas out in brilliant new ways.
Foremost amongst them is a dynamic young artist who goes only by the pseudonym Dermo. For over two years he (or she) has been creating what he calls "transparent large-scale urban dioramas" without anyone noticing. But that's absolutely the point. Dermo takes as large a group of actors as he can find, trains them in his own peculiar brand of ultra-naturalistic, highly disciplined choreography, places them in their setting – a party, or a supermarket, or a cinema, or a bar – and waits for a small group of unsuspecting audience members to arrive. The audience of never more than five people (sometimes as few as one) never realise they are guests at the most exclusive show in town, and leave at the end still none the wiser.
In Dermo's latest piece, RESTaurant, he has taken over an unnamed diner in Stoke Newington, north-east London. With the help of over 30 drama school students and volunteers, he puts on his show for two unsuspecting people every single night. There is quiet chatter, a complaint about corked wine, a strained conversation between two ex-lovers; a large birthday party trying to split the bill. So far it's been running for over six weeks, playing to a total audience of around 40, not one of whom has doubted for a second that they weren't just surrounded by other people eating.
It's an incredible project: part dance, part secret, part ritual. Heroic in its unsustainability, its unrelenting absence of logic tears like a cannonball through our understanding of the value and meaning of art – why we need it, how (and if) it functions, who it is for.
RESTaurant finishes today but Dermo already has plans for the next piece – a whole street somewhere in Dalston, east London, is already in his sights. So keep your eyes open and who knows what you might not see.
