Before

Research

Researching waiting was not so much something I ever sat down to do. Through the waiting I did, the waiting we all do everyday, I had been researching what it was for a long time. Once we were assigned with the topic of waiting, I started thinking actively about it.

As I wait for a train, wait to land in a new city or wait for a friend, I often write notes in my phone. Looking back at those, I found one poem which stood out concerning the topic:

Strangers

Small talk or no talk

Then they all walk away

Brown hair brown eyes

He goes the other way

Red coat pierced nose

Smiles while passing by

Top hat Christmas tie

Little kid by his side

Strangers are easy

Nothing they want or need

This poem really showed what I usually do as I wait: I study the people around me. I sit, listen to music, watch and write. When I think about it, I spend a lot of time waiting on my phone. Playing a game, scrolling through instagram or chatting with someone on WhatsApp. I’ve spent time waiting having conversations and watching movies, not even noticing the time pass.

I started asking questions about what I really thought waiting was. Is it really waiting if I find myself doing something? If you occupy your time, aren’t you doing something rather than waiting? Then did I ever really wait?

I wanted to explore this difference of waiting while occupying myself and waiting while actually doing (almost) nothing. Noticing the waiting and the passing of time versus being oblivious to both.

Process

The first time I sat down with my group members, we had all brought our own idea for the performance. I was thinking of a restaurant, someone waiting for a date who was late. One of my other group members was thinking of a girl getting ready for a date, with her mom not letting her leave.

As we discussed which idea we should use, it was like we were trying to put bumper cars together. The harder we would push them towards each other, the harder they would bounce back away from each other. But then I saw the different ideas become more fluid, as they merged together. A split stage, with the contrast I had wanted to explore.

On one side, the waiting in a restaurant for a date that had not arrived. No chatting, no phone – just waiting and doing as little as possible. The actors and the audience being very aware of the passing time and of the actor doing nothing but waiting.

Even though not playing games on his phone or trying to call his date may not be the most realistic situation, we chose to do this since we wanted to show the “minimal waiting”. To show to strangers (the waiting man and the waitress) mostly silently wait together. For each other, for the date to arrive and for it to end.

On the other side, a girl getting ready for the date. Waiting while occupying herself with everything, make up, clothes, music, drinks. Chatting with a friend about the upcoming date. The actors and the audience both not aware of the waiting, and of the time passing. Is she even really waiting?

Once we had this split stage idea, the rest came from trying things out. We watched each other on stage to see what would work and what would not. We did not write a script, just remembered the cues for the restaurant side and some general conversation topics for the getting ready side.

We included a waitress on the restaurant side and a friend on the getting ready side. We first wanted the waitress to add humor to the scenes, but realized that it would take away from solely waiting. Instead, there were minimal, awkward interactions between the waitress and the man sitting in the restaurant, only out of formality and boredom.

The friend functioned as a conversation partner for the girl getting ready. Through their conversation they were also able to clarify what was going on and who the characters were. The large amount of chatting on this side of the stage was to make time seemingly pass by faster.