Speculation 2021 Program Notes
I’ll begin at the end.
I would say the entirety of Speculation is me setting up John Cage’s silent piece, 4’33”.
Since the first iteration of Speculation in 2014, I have waffled between truly believing there is something worth sharing in the story of my relationship with my mother, and feeling embarrassed about sharing the fact that it was a difficult relationship.
When 4’33” first premiered in 1952, it annoyed some people, and Cage even lost friends. Even now, I think sometimes it’s treated as a joke or there’s a bit of an eye roll around it. But I have found this piece even more extraordinary as I’ve gotten to the core of it with my team for this at-home experience of Speculation (I prefer thinking of it as an “at-home experience” versus a digital or online one).
It’s tempting to want to control 4’33”. To try to make sure people are quiet and prevent all sounds. But I believe it’s more about asking you to listen, which is not quite the same thing.
In Speculation, you’ll hear me talk about Cage’s early frustrations with being misunderstood when he tried to communicate emotion through his compositions. Beethoven didn’t seem too worried about how his compositions were received, but he did write about how it felt to be misunderstood by the people around him as he lost his hearing.
There are two sides to communication. The way you express yourself is one thing - but how you listen and receive is also important.
Cage’s audience was expecting “Music”, and there were expectations around how music was supposed to be and sound. Even with 4’33” now - if it’s supposed to be “silent” , the inclination is to make it so.
Last year was the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. Even if you aren’t a classical music lover, you likely know who Beethoven is, and probably know he lost his hearing. He’s become this mythological figure.
In Speculation, I’ve tried not to feed into the “Beethoven Syndrome” - the over-romanticizing of his life, making his music all about the struggle of losing his hearing and “overcoming”. (Blind author Ryan Knighton recently said having a disability also suddenly made you “inspirational.”) But, I will say that reading Beethoven’s own words about the social, emotional, and mental impact of losing his hearing did resonate with what I saw and felt from my mother as she lost her sight. I don’t think Beethoven’s music is all about his deafness, but I also don’t think it was unaffected by it.
This performance is called Speculation because after all my research and interviews, I was left with possibilities about my mother, not answers, and that is what has liberated me.
Speculation will be presented online March 17-20, 2021 as a co-production with Theatre Passe Muraille in partnership with NUMUS Concerts. It was re-created for the extraordinary circumstances of a global pandemic.