Shot to the foot

Sincerity is the enemy of theatre.

Nowhere is this proved more true than in The Loner, where we see writer and performer Scot Cooper desperately wandering in a post apocalyptic desert.

To act is an act of insincerity, you are faking it. Living someone else’s life on stage is a lie, so showing your own sincerity gives you no freedom to show the things you should, like theatricality.

Lift your eyes up, you’re addressing an audience. Acknowledge us, we’re here. You keep looking away.

Find some range in your voice, in your body, take us on a journey. You’re stiff as a stick and dry enough to start smouldering if you turned around on the spot long enough. No, c’mon, I’m joking at your expense but seriously, stop trying to realistically fake the action – like eating a rat or making a fire with sticks – work on what’s fake about acting: range, movement, transformation, magic, storytelling, surprises, interest.

And the set. You’ve got a real rock, a real tin can (although rather clean and unrusted), a real stick, yet you sit on a black box. In theatre, a black box is there to provide levels and spaces. That is it’s function, it is a blank space. Yet, amidst these real objects, you sit on that.

You are essentially sitting on nothing, contemplating something.

The end was the only moment of insincerity, and it was great.

Really nice gun.

— Steve Kretzmann