ART AS THEATER

Angel’s Flight starts up again July 9--not the trolley car, but the performance-art series sponsored by Pipeline and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions has just completed its spring round of performance events. So we are between seasons, a good time for a theater person to collect his thoughts about performance art.

Is it theater? It didn’t start out to be, and we still associate it with the world of museums and art galleries. Obviously it isn’t drama, the acting out of stories. It’s about presentation, not representation.

But if theater means events on a stage, yes: Performance art is theater. And it’s interesting how drama keeps sneaking into it. Chris Sullivan’s “The Old Mill”--the last event on the LACE series--was a play, of sorts, about a young man courting a girl. It’s hard to present events on a stage without their falling into some kind of line.

But performance is the key word. What are the two elements needed for a performance? (1) A performer. (2) An action to be performed. One difference between traditional theater and performance art is that the first emphasizes the thing done while the second emphasizes the doer.

The doer might not even have to do anything. It’s easy to imagine a “performance” where the artist simply stands in silence for 10 minutes, allowing himself or herself to be looked over, like a sculpture. “I am my work” is the statement here.

Obviously, such an act would take ego. Less obviously, it would take courage. No one likes to be stared at for long, certainly not in silence. Our artist would be putting himself/herself through through an ordeal, and that would be one of the “values” of the piece, as they say in museum catalogues.

Another value would be its metaphorical aspect: the image of the artist looking the public in the eye. Another might be the reaction of the audience. Uneasy? Amused? Angry?

Such a piece would certainly be “about” something. Oddly, it would not particularly be about performance, at least not about the quality of the performance. Whether the artist stood awkwardly or gracefully would be beside the point. The point would be the resonance of the concept and the fortitude of the performer. If the piece were executed with a certain roughness, this might even add to its authenticity.

Compare our traditional notion of a performance: something that has to be worked up to, rehearsed until it’s as smooth as glass. One kind of performance artist might say that that’s exactly what’s wrong with traditional theater, the way every beat has been pre-planned. It’s more honest to work in real time.

It sounds good, and I wouldn’t mind watching the hypothetical piece mentioned, if it only did take 10 minutes. Most performance pieces take about an hour, however. And sometimes an hour of real time can take days. Bluntly, much performance art is a drag to watch, because it’s sosloppily performed. Once you get the concept you might as well go home-- if you get the concept.

“The Old Mill,” for example, seemed to be saying some funny, subversive things about the American family, seen here as sub-cretins. There was a wonderful scene where the characters manipulated puppets who represented themselves reduced to puppets.

But the actors spoke so their lines so drably--even for sub-cretins--that it drained all the wit out of Sullivan’s script. And the set and lighting were dingy beyond the needs of the story. It was like a return to the basement shows of one’s childhood.

That had also been the impression at another LACE presentation the week before, “Art Riot Theater.” Again, the idea was clever: a deadpan lecture on some of the century’s most scandalous opening nights, with a goofy peepshow tableau of each. But it took so long to set up each tableau that the fun got more and more labored.

Perhaps the idea was to get us into a mood to start a riot. But the show’s creator, David Wheeler, didn’t look like a provocateur. Rather, he seemed an amiable fellow who hadn’t been told that in theater the clock is going all the time.

It’s not that restrictive a principle. It doesn’t mean that that something needs to happening in a theater piece at every second. It simply means that the artist needs to have the time-frame of the piece in hand. Similarly, the artist needs to control the space the piece will move around in.

Amateurs let things happen. Professionals set up conditions--and let things happen. Too many performance artists don’t seem to understand what the conditions are. The results are muddy and more narcissistic-looking than they need to be.

Other performance artists understand the need to come forward with whatever it is they have to give to the world. Paul Zaloom, seen last year at LACE, is a good example--absolutely off the wall, with his “theater of trash,” but absolutely on the mark as a performer. Hirokazu Kosaka’s arrow-pieces are so organized that it hurts. Spalding Gray may ramble, but he doesn’t grope for words. Karen Finley comes across all too plainly for some people. Laurie Anderson never misses a sound cue.

Too many performance artists assume that the circle into which they step is magic per se. Wrong. It’s the events that happen within the circle that give it magic, and they have to be interesting as deeds, not merely as scenes in one’s autobiography. Goethe once suggested that, although the stage may look wide, it is really as narrow and as dangerous as a high wire. More performance artists need to learn the ropes.

The schedule for the Angel’s Flight series: Jan Munroe, Kedric Robin Wolfe, July 9-12, 16-19; Peter Bergman, Paul Krassner, Harry Shearer, July 23-26, July 30-Aug. 2; John Fleck, Tina Preston and friends, Aug. 6-9, 13-16; the Actors Gang, Aug. 20-22, 27-30.

Individual tickets are $11.50-$14.50 and include admission to MOCA. Information: (213) 626-6828.