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Famehungry by Louise Orwin
Last Thursday I went to see Famehungry by Louise Orwin at the Nottingham playhouse. Fame hungry is described on the Nottingham playhouse website as a "helter-skelter nose-dive into the TikTok universe, the attention economy and what it means to be an artist now". Before seeing the performance that description seemed reticent after seeing the show I think perhaps that is the best way and maybe only way to give a brief description to a performance and experience so layered. Orwin performed not only to us but also to an audience of thousands on TikTok live. As an audience we knew information the other live audience did not, this was all a game, a screen showed us her scripted monologues and inner feelings about this that the others could not see. The aim of the game to reach 20,00 viewers on the live through various actions and ideas inspired by other TikTok live creators. These actions were self deprecating, funny, provocative and embarrassing, unlike her TikTok audience, the physical audience sharded in this embarrassment and watched in awe as we had the inside information of these true feelings of self deprecation projected on the back screen. We watched her throw water on herself, spit strawberry laces across the stage, run on a treadmill and other odd things that clearly captivated tiktok. Orwin gave many monologues were she revealed she was mentored by a young TikTok creator, one we then realised was their with us through stream, they spoke about many different things. Some monologues were scripted towards TikTok, strange insufferable internet words and sayings and others more directed to us, monologues of existential dread, what it meant to be an artist and darker themes, then boom switch back to happy TikTok, the whole show was strange, sad, mindboggling and hilarious at the same time, it was something you had to sit and process to understand.
This performance did make me think about my own work. I do think we share similar themes of exploring the human conditions but far different parts, but it made me think about my work in the way I could physically approach performance and reciting monologues. It made me think about how I could use different objects, approach perception and use text.
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