Mark Thomas Extreme Rambling: Walking the Wall
Now you should all know the score by now, I go off and have an adventure, come back and tell you about it. (Thomas, 2011:4)
Last night I saw Mark Thomas’ Extreme Rambling: Walking the Wall, a two hour re-telling of a two month walk. I’m probably going to write something on it for the PhD (as I want a mixture of case studies) so I thought I’d jot down some initial ideas.
So tonight’s story is about my attempt to walk the entire length of the Israeli Barrier on the west Bank using the wall as a route map, thus the title: EXTREME RAMBLING. (Thomas, 2011:4)
Outside the stage space was a stall ran by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, behind it featuring a chronological series of maps illustrating a ‘Disappearing Palestine’: a rapidly melting area of land.
The stage itself also featured a large map of Palestine, but one drawn up to appear as if created by Thomas himself. It features the route of the wall, the route of his walk and a few symbols to highlight the significance of certain moments on the walk.
In front of the map on the stage floor were several reproductions of signs found on the border:
MORTAL DANGER – MILITARY ZONE
ANY PERSON WHO PASSES OR DAMAGES THE FENCE
ENDANGERS HIS LIFE
The premise is simple in explanation: in February and March 2010 Thomas attempted to walk the length of the Israeli barrier that separates Israel from Palestine (ibid:4), talking to people on both sides of the wall and gathering their opinions of it. This show acts as a forum for his retelling of the walk, featuring no props or fellow actors, no projections or recordings; just one man and a map. In my research so far, I have seen some quite novel means at trying to depict a walk on stage and the ways in which a landscape can be conjured up into an auditorium, and therefore was particularly intrigued by the way in which Thomas would attempt this.
By having the ‘route map’, Thomas was able to string his anecdotes and observations into a coherent order without having to take us through the journey day by day, flitting from present tense to past tense playing with the mobile nature of the word ‘walk’ as being something we are doing and have been on. In the show Thomas walked out on to the stage moments of tragedy, harrowing facts, observational humour, a host of extraordinary characters and an instance of surprising patriotism; all of this woven through a walk.
My interest in this show obviously stems from psychogeographical motives, how Thomas staged his walk but at the same time how he presents the feeling of walking between two deeply politicised landscapes.
Thomas explained that the reason he chose to refer to his walk as ‘EXTREME RAMBLING’ was due to the fact that he admires the ideology behind ramblers who are willing to contest their right of way and “pick fights with farmers” (2011:n.p.). In their book Theatre/Archaeology, Mike Pearson and Michael Shanks define rambling as:
…guided by disciplinary interest and expertise (as archaeologists we look at the vernacular, in detail), by the directions and instructions of informers (‘Where is the nearest shoe repairer?’ ‘Take the first left and it’s on the right …”) and by the need to avoid certain, potentially dangerous or confrontational encounters. (Pearson and Shanks, 2001:147)
Thomas was guided by his own interest, and the help of individuals who would help him complete his journey. With regards to directions, he merely had to follow a wall (which in part is due to the fact that “he can’t read maps” (Thomas,2011:4). However he did need to avoid ‘potentially dangerous or confrontational encounters’, but these were not with farmers but Israeli soldiers: hence the ‘EXTREME’. Rambling, although seemingly chosen for comic effect combines the sheer enjoyment of walking with an exercised right to walk the land.
The Ramblers is Britain’s walking charity, working to safeguard the footpaths, the countryside and other places we go walking, and to encourage more people to take up walking. With 125,000 members in England, Scotland and Wales, we’ve been working for walkers for 75 years.
Thomas’ walk wasn’t along an existing footpath, rather one that existed and his ‘safeguarding’ was under constant threat as he weaved back and forth across the border. I have always had a strange relationship with ramblers, observing them walking often in large groups partly marching, partly enjoying the land; both a procession and a military formation. However, Thomas’ on average numbered that of three, further highlighting the overwhelming nature of the task he had set himself.
Despite being a ‘stand up’ show, walking managed to creep its way into Thomas’ delivery. At instances, he would pause trying to remember his next part of the story, walk on the spot before committing himself to walk a few steps, remembering and then carrying on with the show. Walking became his mnemonic, a notion that has been frequently used for site-based performances but not here within the confines of the auditorium.
Other moments of his walk were illustrated by the slow and repeated clicking of fingers, which conveyed the sinister synchronicity of their walking as they sneaked illegally through a hole in the fence; and the speed in which it takes to cross the border from Israel into Palestine in opposite to the reverse journey.
Thomas’ observations concerning the land of Israel and Palestine were fascinating. He described the colour coding of each nation; how he tactically became Scottish in order to conceal his English heritage; the harrowing Israeli property developed who pointed out to him the proposed locations of each of his future properties dictated solely by race; the surprisingly beautiful meadows of flowers and fauna; his description of the hills as being “a voice to be walked” (Thomas, 2011:n.p.); and the horrifying journey made by children under an Israeli road. Familiar locations for the audience were brought to the middle-east with places such as Luton and Glastonbury comically used to aid descriptions.
However, it was the wall itself that obviously overshadowed all of this: a tactical ‘land grab’ advancing and retreating like a tide. You realise that this wall represents the dividing of two psychogeographies, each of which have become fractured into the groups and individuals that Thomas met on his walk. This divide was made all the more pronounced when Thomas used the width of the stage to walk through a cross-section of the ‘fence’ or indeed fences that separate Israel and Palestine.
A pedestrian performance of a walk through a divided landscape, brought to an empty space in Exeter Phoenix.
