Hauser – I Made You a Submarine
Hauser is an experimental theatre troupe directed by Swen Steinhauser (formally Deer Park). Hauser’s first piece I Made You a Submarine is a playful exploration of multiplicity within performance. Steinhauser has used an array of apposing stimuli to create this fifty-five minute wonderland. I Made You A Submarine categorises itself as a “multi-layered, surreal performance that begins with Billy the Kid and ends by the seaside with a lobster.”
This performance troupe challenges the conventional theatre space with exquisite beauty. They manipulate the expectant gaze of the spectator by providing an erupting volcano of recognisable yet apposing characters, places and objects, which over-rides any attempt to create coherence. However by doing so they liberate the cynics from their analysis and take the audience on a surreal journey devoid of expectations, opinions or theories, a journey that challenges all the notions of reality.
I Made You a Submarine is a desert island contextualised by Lewis Carol and painted by Salvador Dali. This piece of performance combines Billy the Kid with Napoleon, a mermaid with a PE class, a flamingo with Mohammed Ali. Yet from this sweetshop of aesthetics come a truly revolutionary performance space. The stage, which by its own nature embodies the live, is splattered with such strikingly magnificent images that morph so completely through and around one another to create a piece which has its own entity: A piece that can only usually be created with a computer. Steinhauser’s imagination combined with the maker’s distinctively stylised imagery brought CGI to the stage. The audience were gasping with awe throughout this performance which in itself added an extra dynamic to this already overflowing piece of theatre. The incredible selection of props were all hand-made by James Edward Green: the maker. His exquisite selection of enticing shapes combined with the beautifully selected stimuli ensure that Green’s unique skill of creating animated characters from cardboard (and other such materials) is truly given its deserved chance to shine. Hauser created a supermarket of narrative and semiotics, so filled with irresistible offers that the spectators were left feeling as though they really had got the most for their money.
Hauser are not only making pioneering theatre they’re doing it with style. The opening image is that of a cowboy in white long johns and a matching vest, throughout the piece music is created live on stage using popular instruments from the sixties, a melodica and a mini Yamaha keyboard to name a couple.
I Made You a Submarine challenges the constraints of theatre as a form of entertainment and offers a new and original process to theatre making. Hauser have succeeded in outgrowing the traditional walls of theatre and are beginning a new pioneering genre of intertextual performance that prioritizes a journey of breathtakingly beautiful escapism for the audience. Hauser have successfully burnt their bras on the bonfire of traditional theatre whilst maintaining one key original and necessary component: Entertainment! Hauser Hurry up and make some more!
Lola McEvoy
Quotes from and about I made you a submarine.
“Even last week I murdered a rock, Injured a stone, Hospitalised a brick. I’m so mean I make medicine sick” Charlie: I Made You a Submarine. (Mohammed Ali.)
“I’m so Happy” An audience member in the middle of the debut performance of I made you a submarine.
www.myspace.com/hauserperformance
