Report by Lydia van Veen on the preformance JET LAG (1998) by Diller + Scofidio.
The
JETLAG performance contains two episodes; both based on
true stories. The first one is about Roger Dearborn, a yachtsman
who enters a race around the world. He doesn't really ever
leave the Atlantic, but he fakes his voyage. On stage you
see a guy sitting on a moving seat with a projection screen
behind him where sometimes the sea and sometimes parts of
his boat are projected, depending on what he needs. He talks
to the camera in front of him, telling the people at home
how his journey is progressing.
This image is shown on
a big screen on stage, this shows us what the people who
watch it on TV get to see and it looks very real. You could
see it as a fake documentary but in this case people are
not supposed to ever find out. A bit like "Wag the Dog".
It is very confronting in the way it makes you think about
how easily you can be fooled. In a medium like TV you tend
to believe what you see and this can proof very dangerous.
The
second story is about Doris Akerman and her grandson Lincoln.
They allegedly took between 130 to 160 flights to escape
from the boy's father. Most of them just back and forth
between New York and Paris. Doris eventually died of a jetlag.
In this story the characters are not only lost in space
but also lost in time because of the time difference between
countries. It's like skipping some parts of your life and
living others twice, but being totally unaware of that because
your world looks the same everywhere you go since all the
airports look alike. Their presence on stage walking back
and forward all the time with on the background the cold
interior of an airport makes the idea of them living in
a no man's land even stronger. The limitations of the world
they live in now is expressed by the fact that Lincoln knows
the words of the Titanic by heart because he's seen it over
and over again. The relationship between grandmother and
grandson also gets very interesting because the way they
deal with each other gradually changes in this world.
The
way these stories are told on stage is ingenious. In front
of the stage there are windows you can't see through, except
when the actors sitting behind them are on. They just turn
a switch and then you can see them. This is very effective
because you know where to focus next and you don't have
the distraction of "useless" (for that time!) people on
stage. They could have just used voices in some of these
cases; for instance the girl on the other end of the radio
in the first episode and the pilot of the airplane in the
second, but it's a good thing they didn't. The presence
of the actors makes it much more alive and breathing.
It
never becomes a freak show of sound and images; no showing
off, and although you see that some things are very ingenious,
everything has a clear time, place and meaning.
The performances
of the actors are without exception powerful but Dominique
Dibell as both woman on the radio and grandson is really
marvelous.
It's better than a good movie.
It's more
than a play.
It is really something extraordinary.
The
possibilities of theater and new media are perfectly interwoven,
making it an experience rather than a performance.